Summer Session I
MTuWThF, 10:20 AM-11:35 AM, SY 037

Note: CMCL-C 334 can be taken twice for credit when the topic
varies.

Instructor: Yuliyana Gencheva		
E-Mail: ygenchev@indiana.edu
Office: 800 E. 3rd St. – room 279
Phone: 856-7385

Course Description:
Wikipedia defines play as “a rite and a quality of mind in engaging
with one's world view.” While we might agree that play involves a
rite - a process often bound by certain rules and taking place in a
specially demarcated space (Huizinga), how do we engage with play as
a quality of mind, a culturally conditioned attitude? Could we say
that someone's play turns to be another's serious business? What is
the importance of trickster figures in many cultures? Why is it
significant that both children and adults have the opportunity
to “play,” but the latter call their activity recreation or leisure?
Can play be make-believe and serious at the same time? How do we
choose our playthings? What is the symbolic meaning of toys parents
buy for their children? In what ways has an industry of games and
play reflected and conditioned public attitudes and behavior? In
other words, what does play do for us – socially, politically,
economically – through all of its incarnations today?

This course will provide a broad interdisciplinary introduction to
the study of play as a cultural phenomenon. Through registering play
as a process found in children’s culture, athletic games (e.g. the
Olympics), language, pastimes, and other human activities, we shall
delve into the cultural codes  such as class, gender, ideology,
underlying this process. Our readings will consist of analytical
work by social scientists, anthropologists, linguists, game
designers, pedagogues, and cultural studies scholars. Major texts we
shall address are Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens (1938), Roger
Callois's Man, Play and Games (2001), Henry Jenkins's From Barbie to
Mortal Kombat (1998), as well as works by Mikhail Bakhtin, Clifford
Geertz, Paul Brenner, Helen Schwartzman, Joel Sherzer, Klaus-Peter
Koepping, and others.

Course Objectives and Policies:
* Our goal will be to acquire an awareness of the cultural
significance of play as a lens through which a critical observer may
identify the conceptual patterns of social order. By the end of this
course, you will be familiar with fundamental concepts in the realm
of play studies, and be able utilize them in order to discern and
discuss the dimensions of play present in contemporary culture.

* Class sessions and grading will be based on short lectures,
discussions, group presentations (on daily readings), and a number
of written assignments (short weekly responses and four essays, avg.
4-5 pages). Attendance and participation form an essential part of
your grade. The essays will draw directly on class readings and
discussions; apart from description, they will ask you increasingly
to analyze a given intersection between play/games and an aspect of
cultural identity (class, gender, age, etc.).

* Required texts will be accessible through E-reserve

* Handouts, essays, and other assignments (as well as web data) will
be announced in class and posted on Oncourse.