Tag Archive for reading response

I dont think Caillois and I would be friends

I think that this book was an attempt by Caillois to draw a blueprint for the study of games and play. I understand his effort, and I see the value in putting theoretical ideas into boxes so they can be easily referred to by others. But to be honest I struggle a lot with this…

Caillois Response

Caillois breakdown of play into disinct categories was much more helpful in understanding this academic, in-depth analysis of ‘play’ than the long drawn out writings of Huizinga. I still wonder though why someone feels the need to break down ‘play’ this far, but maybe thats because it is still an emerging field and people are…

Cross-Cultural Misconceptions

Cross-cultural misconceptions were a key ingredient to imperialism.  To the conquered these misconceptions led to a gross underestimating of those doing the conquering, as for the conquerors misconceptions led to an undervaluing of foreign cultures and thus leading to the need to trivialize and eradicate them.  Caillois’s analysis of primitive society’s religious rituals as forms of “play”…

Caillois Response

I can’t seem to get a solid idea on what my own definition of play is, mainly because I think it is just a matter-of-fact concept. Reading Caillois’ book was borderline dense, in my opinion. I think he delved too deep into what play is through his associations between the different types of it (i.e.…

Professional Games and Spectating

Of particular interest to me in this week’s readings were Huizinga and Parlett’s claims that professionalized play, especially sports, tend to fall outside the definition of play. Certainly simple participation in “ball-games,” as Huizinga calls them, falls under the category of play, but does this change if the game becomes big business and one signs…

Week two reading response, Huizinga

Reading through Huizinga’s work I became very distraught at times due to what he was saying about play and he wouldn’t always clarify what he meant to ease my worries. Huizinga mentions the seriousness of play and said that it is naturally not serious and that humans made it seriousness with games such as chess,…

1/22 Reading Response

Most of the texts we read for the first week did not leave a lasting impression. It wasn’t until I started reading “Homo Ludens,” by J. Huizinga that I found sentences that left me thinking about games and history. The first one was when Huizinga stated, “Play only becomes possible, thinkable and understandable when an…

Reading Response

Homo Ludens by J. Huizinga was an interesting read that I gained a lot of information from as well as interested on how he referred to and defined ‘play.’ The fact that he did not limit play to a human characteristic and acknowledged that animals ‘play’ as well was intriguing. Huizinga also states that ‘play’…

Post 1

When I signed up for this class, I was confused as to how a class could be centered around games and play. And after the first day meeting I was worried we would be mostly talking about videogaming and board games. After starting on the first article I realized that there was an entire background…

Reality and Games

Are games really separate from reality, are they purely a fantasy? All four readings seem to suggest this, and even go so far as to make this distinction between reality and games essential to the definitions of “game” and “play”. “Real play comes to an end when its players report back to the real world” (The Art…