The Great Escape from the Prison House of Language: Games, Production Studies, and the Humanities

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the great escape from the prisonhouse

of language Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets)

Digital Creativity Labs, University of York DiGRA/FDG 2016, August 3, 2016

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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

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