Questioning Play

What play can tell us about social life

Henning Eichberg (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

284 Seiten

2018
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-8153-5726-1 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

What is play? Why do we play? What can play teach us about life? This critical investigation argues that through play we can ask important questions about the world, others and ourselves. It offers a practice-based philosophical approach to understanding play, with historical, sociological and anthropological investigations of play in the real world.

What is play? Why do we play? What can play teach us about our life as social beings? In this critical investigation into the significance of play, Henning Eichberg argues that through play we can ask questions about the world, others and ourselves. Playing a game and asking a question are two forms of human practice that are fundamentally connected. This book presents a practice-based philosophical approach to understanding play that begins with empirical study, drawing on historical, sociological and anthropological investigations of play in the real world, from contemporary Danish soccer to war games and folk dances. Its ten chapters explore topics such as:

play as a practice of search

playing, learning and progress

the light and dark sides of play

playing games, sport and display

folk sports, popular games, and social identity

play under the conditions of alienation.

From these explorations emerge a phenomenological approach to understanding play and its value in interrogating ourselves and our social worlds.

This book offers a challenging contribution to the interdisciplinary field of the philosophy of play. It will be fascinating reading for any student or researcher interested in social and cultural anthropology, phenomenology, and critical sociology as well as the ethics and philosophy of sport, leisure studies, and the sociology of sport.

.

Henning Eichberg is an historian, cultural sociologist, and philosopher. As Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern Denmark, he works in the Centre for Sports, Health and Civil Society at the Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics

Part I: Cases of movement play

1. Soccer, crisis, and grace: how round is the Danish ball?

2. Wandering, winding, wondering: what is happening in the labyrinth?

Part II: Critical questions to some play-philosophical commonplaces

3. Colonial and relativistic approaches to the cultural anthropology of play: do we need a definition of play?

4. Unproductive play? What is productivity?

5. Play, learning, and progress: but what about the elderly in play?

6. Innocent play, war games, playing with fire: what about dark play?

Part III: Play as diversity and question

7. Play, game, display, sport: how does language differentiate the understanding of concepts?

8. Play and curiousness: what is the question?

Part IV: Socio-political dimensions of play

9. Folk sports, popular games: who is the folk, who are the people?

10. Play and acceleration: play as an opposite to alienation?

Erscheinungsdatum	23.01.2018
Zusatzinfo	10 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	530 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	0-8153-5726-5 / 0815357265
ISBN-13	978-0-8153-5726-1 / 9780815357261
Zustand	Neuware