The Great Escape from the Prison House of Language: Games, Production Studies, and the Humanities
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This document summarizes the journey of a young humanities scholar taught that all knowledge exists within texts and the library, and to avoid interacting with people outside. It discusses how different theories view meaning as existing solely within the text itself or through other surrounding texts and contexts. It argues that solely reading and writing isolated in the library may not be enough to fully understand cultural meaning-making, and that speaking with authors and understanding different contexts can provide new insights.
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The Great Escape from the Prison House of Language: Games, Production Studies, and the Humanities
- 1. the great escape from the prisonhouse of language Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets) Digital Creativity Labs, University of York DiGRA/FDG 2016, August 3, 2016 c b
- 2. know, dear reader, that i, too was once a young humanities scholar …
- 3. … taught by my mentors …
- 4. … that all possible knowledge is already contained within the walls of the library.
- 5. to venture into the world outside the library was to flirt with temptation and the eternal damnation of my very soul.
- 6. out there were the people that our texts referred to.
- 7. the people that read our texts.
- 8. the people that wrote our texts.
- 9. 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.
- 10. this my mentors and their texts taught me. Wimsat & Beardsley, 1949 Barthes, 1967 Foucault, 1969
- 11. meaning a simple model author text writes intends reader interprets is read by
- 12. meaning new criticism, formalism, structuralism: the meaning is in the text (form) text
- 13. meaning discourse analysis, new historicism: the meaning is in other texts textcontextcontext contextcontext contextcontext contextcontext
- 14. meanin deconstruction: you will never reach meaning outside texts texttext text …
- 15. all of which is true iff …
- 16. all of which is true you never dare to venture outside the library. iff …
- 17. the great taboo: is the practice of solitary reading and writing in the library necessary and sufficient to understand cultural meaning-making?
- 18. the beauties outside the library.
- 19. (just speaking of and with authors, for now.) author
- 20. understanding the effectiveness of persuasive communication author text reader
- 21. meaning understanding and improving creative practice author text
- 22. constraining spurious contextualising readings author text context context context
- 23. discovering new contextual readings author text context context context context
- 24. discovering new contextual readings author text context context context context
- 25. understanding how contexts affect texts author textcontext
- 26. meaning understanding the gaps and relations of meaning-making author text writes intends reader is read by interprets scholar