1. Huizinga consistently uses “earnest” as a counterpoint to “play.” However, there are many of us in this room that play things seriously or do serious work about play that force us to view playing as an earnest activity. How has our understanding of play shifted since the publication of Homo Ludens to allow for “earnest playing”?
2. Let’s situate this reading among the other readings for this course. Why include Homo Ludens among composition articles from the late 80’s through the late 90’s? How are we to mobilize a theory of play in the context of these composition texts? What, indeed, does play have to do with computers in the composition classroom?
3. In Chapter 2, Huzinga defines play as:
“a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is ‘different’ from ‘ordinary life.'” (28)
Does this definition of play hold up today? If we were to rewrite a definition of play, would it look much different than this?
We might look to Miguel Sicart’s recent book, Play Matters for a postmodern definition of play. Though he gives a fractured and lengthy definition in chapter 1, I have found a relatively concise breakdown of Sicart’s “definition” of play:
- “Play is contextual” (6), understanding context with Dourish and others as the “network of things, people, and places needed for play to take place.” (7) Contexts of play are characterized by a tension between offering rational Apollonian order and creation on the one hand and inviting emotional Dionysian disorder and destruction on the other — concepts Sicart borrows from Nietzsche’s analysis of Greek tragedy.
- Therefore, “play is carnevalesque” (11), this time appropriating a term from Bakhtin’s study of medieval carnival: play temporarily inverts the norms of society, which results in the body releasing fearful inhibitions in laughter, all the while revealing the workings of the social reality we live in. Goodplay integrates creation and destruction into this form of carnival.
- “Play is appropriative, in that it takes the context in which it exists and cannot be totally predetermined by such context.” (11) In this manner, contexts designed for play (playgrounds, games) afford but don’t determine play, and players can re-appropriate other spaces or objects for play.
- As a consequence, play is necessarily “disruptive” of the order of the context it appropriates (15).
- “Play is autotelic”, “with its own goals and purposes” (16).
- “Play is creative” (17), that is, it provides a form of expression, and as such,
- “Play is personal” (18), an expression of our individual and collective character.
(http://gamestudies.org/1501/articles/deterding_s)
How does Sicart’s view of play differ from Huizinga’s (besides its outrageous length)?
4. Tying this back to our classrooms, how do you incorporate play into your classes (if at all)? Since play is often seen as “frivolous” or “immature,” how do we balance maintaining some sense of authority in our classrooms while still being playful? Or maybe we don’t feel this tension at all?
5. Speaking of play in the classroom, how do we get around the fact that “all play is a voluntary activity?” (7) If we try to bring play into the classroom, do we run the risk of trying to bring in “mandatory fun?”
6. Huzinga is big on rules. Rules are his jelly, his jam, his peanut butter: “The rules of a game are absolutely binding and allow no doubt” (11). They are necessary for holding together the “play-world” (11). However, there is a lot of playfulness in modern games that challenge the supremacy of the rule. Speed-runners of video games manipulate game mechanics to beat the game in a way that was not intended by the designers—one could even argue that speed-runners are not following the spirit of the game by doing so. What function do rules serve in regards to play? Has our understanding of that function shifted since the writing of Homo Ludens? How?