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In "Aristotle's Lost Library" players enter a time machine as interns for the Institute of Temporal Reclamation. Their task, to locate and preserve the books Aristotle collected and which may have influenced his own work. As players follow clues to locate the lost library, they would explore various locals, such as the Agora of Athens and the Theater at Delphi, as well as interact with a number of Greek thinkers, from Gorgias to Plato, from Pericles to Demosthenes.

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With Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, an academic discipline was formed that has waxed and waned in scholarly and public interest from classical times to the present. Rhetoric as an academic discipline saw a resurgence in the Twentieth Century, and strong scholarly interest in the Twenty-first Century in departments of communications, English, and composition in the U.S., as well as extensive scholarship in argumentation theory in Europe. However, few outside these academic circles understand rhetoric beyond it use by politicians accusing each other of using “empty rhetoric.” This project seeks to widen public understanding of the discipline that was once referred to as the “Queen of the Sciences.” 

 

The game focuses on classical rhetoric, not simply because this is the moment when rhetoric became a discipline, but the moment when various questions about rhetoric were debated, questions that are still in contention today, and will become major themes in the game. Chief among these are questions about the ethics of persuasion, the uneasy relation between rhetoric and philosophy, and the differences between written and oral language. Since rhetoric is a participatory discipline, links in the game such as “Try This” will lead players to interactive projects. Instructors who might use this game in the classroom might have students complete these projects as class assignments.  

 

By providing a learning context for rhetoric, as well as these sites, a quest game such as “Aristotle’s Lost Library” functions as a framework within which players are introduced to the basic concepts and methodologies of rhetoric, develop a deeper understanding of those concepts in their classical and modern contexts, and explore them in an environment that provides challenges that push them to expand their knowledge and skills.