the great escape from the prison house of language: games, production studies, and the humanities
TRANSCRIPT
the great escape from the prisonhouse
of language Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets)
Digital Creativity Labs, University of York DiGRA/FDG 2016, August 3, 2016
cb
know, dear reader, that i, too was once a young humanities scholar …
… taught by my mentors …
… that all possible knowledge is already contained within the walls of the library.
to venture into the world outside the library was to flirt with temptation and the eternal damnation of my very soul.
out there were the people that our texts referred to.
the people that read our texts.
the people that wrote our texts.
but we must be wary never to speak with these people. for the meaning and truth of our texts never be revealed by the people; they are revealed only by other texts.
this my mentors and their texts taught me.
Wimsat & Beardsley, 1949 Barthes, 1967 Foucault, 1969
meaning
a simple model
author text
writes
intends
reader
interp
rets
is read by
meaning
new criticism, formalism, structuralism: the meaning is in the text (form)
text
meaning
discourse analysis, new historicism: the meaning is in other texts
textcontextcontext contextcontext
contextcontext contextcontext
meaning
deconstruction: you will never reach meaning outside texts
texttext text…
all of which is true
iff …
all of which is true
you never dare to venture outside the library.
iff …
the great taboo: is the practice of solitary reading and writing in the library necessary and sufficient to understand cultural meaning-making?
the beauties outside the library.
(just speaking of and with authors, for now.)
author
understanding the effectiveness of persuasive communication
author text reader
meaning
understanding and improving creative practice
author text
constraining spurious contextualising readings
author text
context
context
context
discovering new contextual readings
author text
context
context
context
context
discovering new contextual readings
author text
context
context
context
context
understanding how contexts affect texts
author textcontext
meaning
understanding the gaps and relations of meaning-making
author text
writes
intends
reader
is read by
interp
rets
scholar
