Seeing an idea that began on the periphery of academic culture be taken seriously by the institutions that previously disregarded it has a subtle satisfying quality. AltaMira Press, a reputable publisher with ties to the academic publishing industry in the United States, has recently endorsed Theory Trading Cards, which are little physical cards with summaries and portraits of significant cultural and media theorists like Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Bell Hooks, and Jean Baudrillard. It’s the kind of confirmation that, depending on who you ask, was either completely unexpected or long overdue.
The cards themselves are not brand-new. They started on David Gauntlett’s theory.org.uk website, where a set of twelve digital cards quietly gained popularity among instructors and students who thought they were strangely helpful. A thirty-slide PowerPoint presentation doesn’t seem to stick in the mind as much as holding a physical card, seeing a theorist’s face, and reading a condensed summary of their ideas. The published version included more detail than the originals and increased the set to twenty-one double-sided cards. Minor but significant improvements.
The timing is intriguing. Over the past few years, there has been an increase in the volume and anxiety of the larger discussion about attention in education. Social media companies and streaming services have invested a lot of money in creating environments that divert students’ attention from tasks that call for consistent effort. A physical card featuring a theorist’s photo and three succinct sentences discussing Baudrillard’s theory of simulation feels almost radical in that setting. It’s as low-tech as it gets.
The similarities to other areas of education are difficult to ignore. For example, the effectiveness of sports cards in maintaining students’ interest in mathematics has been researched. Researchers at Flinders University recently noted that Pokémon cards appeal to people’s innate desire to gather and organize. The structure of Theory Trading Cards is essentially the same; they simply replace Charizard with Foucault. The effectiveness of that substitution is totally dependent on the classroom, and it most likely doesn’t work for everyone. However, the evidence appears to indicate that it works for enough people to be significant, despite the fact that much of it is still informal.
The real question that hangs over all of this is whether the university press endorsement is a one-time curiosity or a sign of a real change in the way academic publishers view learning tools. In the past, publishers have been reluctant to embrace anything that doesn’t resemble a textbook. The idea of gamification has been debated for years in educational circles, frequently with great enthusiasm before being quietly forgotten. There’s a feeling that Theory Trading Cards may have endured because they’re just cards and never attempted to be a technology. robust, lightweight, and free of software updates.
From the outside, it seems like the academic community is discovering what collectors and game designers have known for decades: physical objects foster emotional attachment, and emotional attachment facilitates memory. It’s still unclear if that insight becomes part of mainstream pedagogy or remains in the hands of a few passionate lecturers. But for the time being, a major press has endorsed the concept. That is not insignificant. It is rarely the case in scholarly publishing.
