While Huizinga provided a useful starting definition of play, I think that his work might have suffered a bit from his insistence on keeping everything in one amorphous category of “play.” Caillois, on the other hand, benefits from his attempt to establish a taxonomy that accounts for a variety of different forms of play and…
Professional Games and Spectating
by Alan Kloosterhof •
Of particular interest to me in this week’s readings were Huizinga and Parlett’s claims that professionalized play, especially sports, tend to fall outside the definition of play. Certainly simple participation in “ball-games,” as Huizinga calls them, falls under the category of play, but does this change if the game becomes big business and one signs…