Play’s Republic

Whether you watch it passionately, or just talk about it later with friends, Sunday’s Superbowl should be interesting to consider in class.

Here’s an off-hand list of things to consider. Feel free to share additional questions before and after the game.

• What makes the Superbowl a “game”? [We’ve not yet distinguished between “play” and “game”; this is a project we’ll begin on Tuesday.]
• Does television mediate play?
• Does commercial television change Huizinga’s “magic circle”?
• If a game-player enjoys “flow,” what does the game-spectator enjoy? Is there a “lusory attitude,” (think Ajax and Achilles) for the spectator?
• Is there any relation between the agon and the agora?
• Near the end of Homo Ludens, Huizinga rejects the professionalization of sport. How does the Superbowl (and its attendant broadcast) justify, or problematize, that rejection?
• What sort of language is used to talk about the Superbowl? Do the players have free will, or are they “rag dolls” and victims?
• Do you see examples of “communitas,” “liminality,” “thresholds,” “performance,” “carnivalization”, etc.?
• Does this play yield any kind of katharsis? For whom?
• Does the spectacle suggest that Plato was right to worry about Play?
• Is violence an important part of the play of the Superbowl?
• Does “video game culture” appear to be having any effect on the way the Superbowl is presented?