Ludic Dimension Research Articles

Immersive Unit Visualization with Augmented Reality

Immersive Unit Visualization is an emergent form of visualization that arose from Immersive Analytics where, unlike traditional visualizations, each data point is represented by an individual visual mark in an immersive virtual environment. This practice has focused almost exclusively on virtual reality, excluding augmented reality (AR). This article develops and tests a prototype of an Immersive Unit Visualization (Floating Companies II) with two AR devices: head-mounted display (HMD) and hand-held display (HHD). Results from the testing sessions with 20 users were analyzed through qualitative research analysis and thematic coding indicating that, while the HHD enabled a first contact with AR visualization on a familiar device, HMD improved the perception of hybrid space by supporting greater stability of virtual content, wider field of view, improved spatial perception, increased sense of immersion, and more realistic simulation, which had an impact on information reading and sense-making. The materialization of abstract quantitative values into concrete reality through its simulation in the real environment and the ludic dimension stand out as important opportunities for this type of visualization. This paper investigates the aspects distinguishing two experiences regarding data visualization in hybrid space, and characterizes ways of seeing information with AR, identifying opportunities to advance information design research.

Ludic and Narrative Immersion in Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy to Animal Phobias: A Systematic Literature Review

In the context of therapeutic exposure to phobias, virtual reality (VR) offers innovative ways to motivate patients to confront their fears, an opportunity not feasible in traditional non-digital settings. This systematic literature review explores the utilization of narratives and digital games in this context, focusing on identifying the most common ludic and narrative immersion features employed in studies dedicated to animal phobias. Via a search on the Scopus and Web of Science scientific databases, twenty-nine studies were selected for in-depth analysis. The primary objective was to evaluate the presence of ludic and narrative elements in each study to understand their immersive potential across both dimensions. Findings suggest that ludic elements are more commonly used than narrative elements, which are notably scarce, and the exploration of the emotional dimension of narrative immersion is limited. An essential takeaway is that features fostering narrative immersion are invariably linked to the ludic dimension, often functioning as secondary components. This study provides a guiding framework for developing therapeutic interventions in VR, emphasizing the incorporation of ludic and narrative aspects. Additionally, it identifies untapped research opportunities, particularly the integration of autonomous narratives that are less reliant on ludic elements.

Samouraï par Fabrice Caro

Reviewed by: Samouraï par Fabrice Caro Jane E. Evans Caro, Fabrice. Samouraï. Gallimard, 2022. ISBN 978-2-07-298811-0. Pp. 224. In the typical chagrin d'amour, the protagonist grieves a former lover to ultimately adopt a new perspective on their loss. In Samouraï, however, author Fabrice Caro depicts protagonist and writer Alan as expressing the comic in his life following the demise of his intimate relationship with Lisa. What makes Caro's novel so refreshing are his techniques for eliciting laughter and his creation of a main character whose thinking and behavior resonate with the reader. Protagonist Alan daydreams about alternative endings for his former relationship with Lisa, who recently inquired of him, "Tu peux pas écrire un roman sérieux?" (32). In his imagination he envisions her admiring his subsequent writings. He fantasizes publishing the bestseller, Sol y sangre, about his paternal grandparents' flight from Spain to France during Franco's rule; however, he never advances past the title. Instead, he composes the récit of his blind dates arranged by friends. The women, in his opinion, display major flaws, each more outrageous than the last: Mylène adores the theater, whereas Alan abhors it; Chloé loudly discusses intestinal dysfunction and caesarean births while dining out with him; and Louise's social awkwardness exceeds his own. In response to author Caro's accumulation and timing of comic details, the reader must laugh. Besides the amusement produced by Alan's encounters, Caro's choice of experiences for his protagonist enhances the ludic dimension of his work. Asked to house-sit for friends and keep the swimming pool clean during their absence, Alan considers his limited responsibilities and change of setting to be conducive to daily writing, in his words, "m'installer là tous les jours pour y écrire mon roman" (13). Despite his good intentions, mishaps occur: the pool water turns cloudy; a population of swimming "notonectes" (54) booms; and just before his friends' return, a human body further pollutes the murkiness. Consequently, Alan faces the pool store employee's disdain over his chlorine-related ignorance. The "notonectes" divert him from his writing as he studies the first one and calls it "Octave" because of the "sonorités jumelles en ct. Octave la notonecte" (78). His comments about phonetics add a linguistic element to Samouraï. When Alan runs into Lisa and her new boyfriend, a poetry professor, he silently dubs the latter "Ronsard" (206). And when he hears the professor calling Lisa "Lili," he immediately imagines the couple as "Lili et Ronron" (207), a childish expression at odds with the protagonist's adulthood as well as the professor's gentility, but witty all the same. Along with the progressively absurd situations in which the main character finds himself and his comic manipulation of language, Alan includes memories that make the reader chuckle while empathizing with him. One such incident involves his lengthy bathroom visit at the home of Lisa's parents and his ensuing embarrassment. This experience strikes a familiar chord in most people, who have wanted to impress someone, failed miserably, and then tried to make things better, nevertheless. [End Page 226] Jane E. Evans University of Texas, El Paso Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French

Performing Rape for Laughs: Male Desire and Female Ties Gone Awry

Abstract: By focusing on the relatively unexamined Nouvelle 45, I want to continue my exploration of Heptaméron comic tales that focus on rape, and to foreground the role of female alliances in such tales. By female alliances, I am referring to the partnerships that women form, often transcending class divisions, as a means of thwarting aggression. As a corollary, I will explore what is at stake when this female uniting of forces is replaced by succumbing, often unwittingly, to competing allegiances that comprise the patriarchal strictures that characterize the world in which these protagonists circulate. The lack of female bonds characterizes Nouvelle 45, and the consequences, albeit recounted in a comic register, are telling. As for the comic, my goal is to focus primarily on the narrative devices that Marguerite mobilizes that transform a rape story from one that elicits terror and horror (for that, we need to turn to Nouvelle 2) to one that has all the markings of a text designed to spark the reader’s laughter and amusement. My aim is to show that there remain avenues to explore that privilege the ludic dimensions that infuse the Heptaméron’ s complex structure, even when it comes to such freighted topics as the premeditated sexual violation of innocent victims.

Co(s)mic Vision

The Bhagavata Purana (BhP) is a popular sacred Sanskrit text characterized by its devotion for Krsna and the many narratives concerning him and his incarnations. These narratives have an edifying quality. A great number of them bring their point across through the use of humour. Though the comic tradition of India has been covered by scholars, such studies primarily discuss the performing arts. I argue that there is a strong presence of humour in the BhP, and that this humour communicates a playful attitude which has a prominent place in the overall religiosity of the BhP, thus communicating a worldview I term the co(s)mic vision. This study contributes to the discussion on the ludic dimensions of religious traditions and indicates how religious discourse is established through the entertaining and edifying effects of humour. Narrative is used as an entertaining alternative to religious instruction as exhortation, theological assertion, or propositional excursuses.

Monsters and the pantomime

Monsters within British pantomime are ubiquitous creatures, from the ogre in the castle of Puss in Boots to the Giant at the top of the beanstalk, and as personified in the monstrous acts of Wicked Stepmothers, frightening Barons and diabolical henchmen. The popularity of pantomime means that it is often the first encounter that a child has with a monster in material form, sharing the same physical space: a theatre. Bruno Bettelheim (1991) argues that fairytales, from where many pantomimes are drawn, are our first negotiations with the monstrous. In pantomime, the audience are complicit in the act of finding, chasing and dealing with the monster, and the ethical positioning of this by writers and directors is paramount in guiding us to understand how we may deal with the ‘other’ in our own lives. This paper critically interrogates the threat posed by these monsters when invested with a materiality in performance. In the first instance, I explore the interplay between stage space and the representation of the monster and how this relates to my professional experience of directing over twenty-five professional pantomimes in the United Kingdom since 1999. Tracing this spatial dynamic between monster and audience to the medieval stage and the ludic dimension to the staging of the devils in the mystery play, the paper argues that there is a long-reaching historical antecedent to the staging of evil that informs and inspires spatial practices in modern-day pantomime. Key questions are: to what extent have pantomimes historically presented and rehearsed the threat posed by the monster in order to contain that threat?; What ethical considerations do producers, writers and directors now face in the contemporary pantomime? Finally, to what extent does the popular form of pantomime itself matter as a vehicle for enabling audiences both young and old to confront the monstrous Other?

Solutions from everyday life: good care(s) in the context of caring for severe mental illness in Portugal

Introduction: In Portugal and many European countries, caring for mental illness is frequently encapsulated in what some call the psy complex [1] , centered in the hospital. Even if there have been efforts for deinstitutionalization, successive delays in restructuring services and little interest from the political, public, and scientific fields [2] have contributed, for decades, for the lesser visibility of what it means to experience mental illness, and other ways of dealing with it beyond the hospital and psychiatry. Indeed, closing psychiatric institutions and changing to a community paradigm, includes creating other structures and components for rehabilitation and inclusion that would allow keeping people with psychosocial difficulties in the community. These also mean rehabilitating the patient, his/her relatives and the professional, as they shall operate in a new rehabilitative-communitarian model – putting them, even temporarily, somewhere in between this and the old bio-medical model, raising tensions and unexpected consequences. Materials and methods: This presentation is empirically based on an ethnographic study, which included 6-month daily participant observation, from April to October 2016, in two ambulatory units of a Psychiatry Department in a Portuguese general hospital, and interviews with users of these units. During this time, I participated in all the activities that these units provided in terms of care, social rehabilitation, or social events, as well as team/department meetings. All the people with whom I worked there were aware of my role as researcher and the project I was developing there. During these months, I have documented the daily routines of ambulatory psychiatric treatment, materialized by patients, relatives, professionals and in physical surroundings. Fieldnotes were analyzed from the starting point of finding points of tension/uncertainty in the provision of care and highlighting the solutions found by participants in order to solve them. Results: Data shows how different ideas of good care [3] are practiced, intersecting different cultural, professional or contextual values, and articulate new opportunities for caring. To illustrate this, I will focus on apparently evident practices like eating activities, which originate different hospital repertoires: asylum; rehabilitation unit; home; leisure setting. If the therapeutic importance given to eating activities may overcome initial expectations, they may also be reconducted into a ludic dimension, for many opposite to the idea of caring. Discussion and conclusions: Grand societal explanations on mental illness collide and co-habit, in everyday life, with how actors appropriate of practices, different circumstances for action are created, or diverse positions and motivations towards food, wellbeing and illness coexist. These sometimes hinder training skills for everyday activities, but facilitate sociability/solidarity among participants. Hence, these versions of good create not only different ways of caring, but different settings, within the hospital, that are seldom depicted in official discourses, and which are urgent to know and debate for the success and quality of mental illness policies.

Le Nouveau Roman: une césure dans l'histoire du récit by Francine Dugast-Portes

Reviewed by: Le Nouveau Roman: une césure dans l'histoire du récit by Francine Dugast-Portes Karlis Racevskis Dugast-Portes, Francine. Le Nouveau Roman: une césure dans l'histoire du récit. PU de Rennes, 2018. ISBN 978-2-7535-7399-4. Pp. 401. The first edition of this wide-ranging and insightful survey appeared already in 2001. The re-edition became necessary, as Dugast-Portes explains, when she took stock of the continuing debates, commentary, and colloquia on the topic of the New Novel and its legacy over the past few years. Thus, the author finds that the time had come to reassess the movement and to revisit what she terms "un moment glorieux de la littérature" (122). It is also a unique and somewhat puzzling moment, and to refer to it as "une césure dans l'histoire du récit" is to underline the ambiguous meaning implicit in the notion of a caesura, as Dugast-Portes specifies: "entendons-la comme coupure, pause, suspens, qui implique des disparitions, des reprises, des articulations" (22). In terms of its own cultural context, this episode is marked by a paradox that serves as a guiding principle for the author's approach to the history of the movement because she sees it as "un phénomène à la fois subversif et intégré par la sphère culturelle" (347). In the first section of the book, entitled "Éléments d'histoire: une césure très médiatisée," Dugast-Portes stresses the mediating role played by universities—in France and abroad—by publishing houses, colloquia, the media, literary prizes, that effectively advanced the process of cultural integration. The section "Subversions" covers the whole range of methods, approaches, tactics and devices employed by the authors of a movement that makes itself known "par sa radicalité formelle, par une subversion de tous les paramètres" (342). What is questioned during this "Ère du soupçon," as Nathalie Sarraute famously put it, is the validity of all the established intellectual and aesthetic norms that constituted what could be termed "un certain type d'humanisme traditionnel" (207). In the final account and in a general sense, all of this subverting is to be seen as "Le questionnement obstiné du sens"—the title of the third section. In this regard, as Dugast-Portes points out, it becomes necessary to account for the complexity of the contemporary context informing the emergence of the New Novel and to appreciate "l'arrière-plan culturel [End Page 210] dans lequel furent formés, au sens scolaire, les nouveaux romanciers" (214). This background included the recent experience of death camps, Hiroshima, the emergence of "La Nouvelle Critique," the influence of psychoanalysis, of scientific developments such as relativity, quantum theory, computers, and, in a general way, of "l'incertitude liée aux limites de la compréhension humaine, l'importance de la complexité, du paradoxe, de l'entropie" (273). The section "Dans le mouvement des esthétiques" brings up the connections and rapport with other arts, in particular with music, painting, and film. It also brings out the importance of humor, of the ironic and ludic dimensions in the writings of the New Novelists, aspects that serve to underline the critical self-awareness of the authors. And while Dugast-Portes admits at the end that her interpretations probably produced meanings never intended by these authors, her highly informed syntheses make this critical study a most valuable resource in the field. Karlis Racevskis Ohio State University, emeritus Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French

Video Games, Dystopia, and Neoliberalism: The Case of BioShock Infinite

An ideological analysis of video games should include both the narrative and ludic dimensions, since there can be frictions between these two dimensions and they can even contradict one another. This article’s main aim is to analyze BioShock Infinite, an illustrative case study of these conflicts. On the one hand, it is a video game that portrays a dystopian narrative, aligning itself with this genre’s critical progressive tradition; on the other hand, its gameplay has an accentuated neoliberal bent. The analysis of BioShock Infinite also helps us to critically discuss certain trends in game design in contemporary mainstream video games that connect with and reinforce neoliberal values.

Playful Fandom: Gaming, Media and the Ludic Dimensions of Textual Poaching

This paper discusses the idea that fandom, as the collection of activities and behaviours relating to the fan identity, has a ludic dimension, and that said dimension merits individual inquiry from a game-studies perspective. Furthermore, it is argued that there is mutual benefit in exploring the intersection between fan studies and game studies, which has so far been overlooked in research, design and direction.

Teoria do jogo: a dimensão lúdica da existência humana

A presente resenha tem como escopo analisar, de maneira descritiva e crítica, o livro "Teoria do Jogo: a dimensão lúdica da existência humana", de Jeferson J. M. Retondar. Vale ressaltar que o presente livro é composto por cinco capítulos e visa colaborar significativamente com o debate concernente à importância do jogo na formação dos indivíduos. Para tanto, traz uma análise epistemológica do jogo, que sustenta um paradigma de Educação pelo Jogo.

Gamification and multigamification in the workplace: Expanding the ludic dimensions of work and challenging the work/play dichotomy

Gamification approaches in the workplace are encountering strong and passionate critics as well as dedicated proponents as the very notions of games, play, and work are being reconsidered and reframed. Workplaces are incorporating increasing varieties of concurrent and emerging games; some of these games are directly linked to how employees are projected to produce value for an organization and are paid and promoted, while others can be recreational, educational, or even medical (involving health diagnosis or treatment). In effect, many workplace settings have become the platforms for multiple, sometimes interlocking sets of rules, enforcement mechanisms, and related gaming structures. “Multigamification” approaches explicitly recognize game-related complexities and interactions, and provide means for mitigating cognitive overload, character conflicts, and other concerns. Participants can be immersed in technology-enhanced games that infuse social, medical, and economic themes either as a part of strategic initiatives in gamification (and multigamification, as described in this paper) or through emergent and less-tightly structured efforts. The overall wellbeings of organizational participants may relate in some way in how they engage in specific games as well as to how they deal with multiple games either in sequence or simultaneously; one or more games can be designated as “work” and others as “play,” sometimes reflecting traditional narratives that contrast labor deemed as “productive” with recreation. Developers can become active in exploring and tailoring games for specific workplace contexts, addressing issues of intergame compatibility, theme interaction, and synergy as well as participant overload. Multigamification can involve forms of competition among the games themselves as they compete for the limited attention of participants. This paper also addresses the challenging policy and design issues related to workplace games’ effects on participant wellbeing. Emergence of nested and overlapping gaming spheres can increase the complexity of organizational life as well as expand its ludic dimensions.

Playing Pregnancy: The Ludification and Gamification of Expectant Motherhood in Smartphone Apps

Like other forms of embodiment, pregnancy has increasingly become subject to representation and interpretation via digital technologies. Pregnancy and the unborn entity were largely private, and few people beyond the pregnant women herself had access to the foetus growing within her (Duden). Now pregnant and foetal bodies have become open to public portrayal and display (Lupton The Social Worlds of the Unborn). A plethora of online materials – websites depicting the unborn entity from the moment of conception, amateur YouTube videos of births, social media postings of ultrasounds and self-taken photos (‘selfies’) showing changes in pregnant bellies, and so on – now ensure the documentation of pregnant and unborn bodies in extensive detail, rendering them open to other people’s scrutiny. Other recent digital technologies directed at pregnancy include mobile software applications, or ‘apps’. In this article, we draw on our study involving a critical discourse analysis of a corpus of pregnancy-related apps offered in the two major app stores. In so doing, we discuss the ways in which pregnancy-related apps portray pregnant and unborn bodies. We place a particular focus on the ludification and gamification strategies employed to position pregnancy as a playful, creative and fulfilling experience that is frequently focused on consumption. As we will demonstrate, these strategies have wider implications for concepts of pregnant and foetal embodiment and subjectivity. It is important here to make a distinction between ludification and gamification. Ludification is a broader term than gamification. It is used in the academic literature on gaming (sometimes referred to as ‘ludology’) to refer to elements of games reaching into other aspects of life beyond leisure pursuits (Frissen et al. Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures; Raessens). Frissen et al. (Frissen et al. "Homo Ludens 2.0: Play, Media and Identity") for example, claim that even serious pursuits such as work, politics, education and warfare have been subjected to ludification. They note that digital technologies in general tend to incorporate ludic dimensions. Gamification has been described as ‘the use of game design elements in non-game contexts’ (Deterding et al. 9). The term originated in the digital media industry to describe the incorporation of features into digital technologies that not explicitly designed as games, such as competition, badges, rewards and fun that engaged and motivated users to make them more enjoyable to use. Gamification is now often used in literatures on marketing strategies, persuasive computing or behaviour modification. It is an important element of ‘nudge’, an approach to behaviour change that involves persuasion over coercion (Jones, Pykett and Whitehead). Gamification thus differs from ludification in that the former involves applying ludic principles for reasons other than the pleasures of enjoying the game for their own sake, often to achieve objectives set by actors and agencies other than the gamer. Indeed, this is why gamification software has been described by Bogost (Bogost) as ‘exploitationware’.

Allegory Plays

In this brief polemic, I draw upon two exemplary rhetorical treatises—the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium and Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria —in order to argue that moral allegory no longer plays and it needs to. Allegory plays in both senses of the term: it plays for the stage as good drama, and it plays in the sense that its authors, producers, directors, and actors had some fun with it. Over time, both senses have been lost in translation. Both can be recovered, however, once we reintegrate a bona fide, mnemotechnically inspired rhetoric of performance into the theory and practice of allegory. The rhetorical and mnemonic conception of allegory as prototheatrical or theatrical practice allows us to recuperate the patently ludic dimensions of allegorical theater and theatrical allegory.

A interação entre estranhos no Omegle.com: sociabilidade, relacionamento e identidade

À luz do método proposto por Simmel, centrado no conceito de sociabilidade, investigamos neste artigo a dimensão lúdica do site de conversação Omegle.com, com o objetivo de apreender a forma das suas interações. Para isso, problematizamos as duas características diferenciais do site. Primeiramente, baseados na fenomenologia social de Schutz, discutimos a formação de relacionamentos através do uso de um sistema randômico. Em segundo
 lugar, fundados na dialética da identidade de Ricoeur, refletimos como o site constitui um sujeito anônimo, designado de “estranho”. Como conclusão, entendemos que o jogo social praticado no Omegle se caracteriza pelo equilíbrio, dinamismo e efemeridade, sendo utilizado para os mais diferentes propósitos, como a simples conversa, o sexo virtual, a aprendizagem autônoma e a observação social.
 
 Palavras-Chave:
 Interação social. Omegle. Sociabilidade. Relacionamento. Identidade.

Viewpoint: Reflections on Ludic Dimensions in Hindu-Christian Scholarship

Viewpoint: Reflections on Ludic Dimensions in Hindu-Christian Scholarship

O teatro em foco: estratégia lúdica para o trabalho educativo na saúde da família

Trata-se de relato de experiência de acadêmicas de enfermagem que utilizaram o teatro como estratégia lúdica para o trabalho educativo com as equipes de Saúde da Família. Realizou-se Diagnóstico Situacional de Saúde no interior de Minas Gerais, cujas morbidades mais prevalentes serviram de temáticas a serem abordadas nos esquetes. Em três meses, foram escritos nove esquetes, encenados para um público diversificado. Percebeu-se uma ruptura no cotidiano da comunidade, em que, sob a dimensão lúdica, as pessoas deixaram fluir o lado prazeroso da vida, decodificando o mundo de seu jeito: uma mistura agradável de arte e ciência. O teatro possibilitou vislumbrar as várias aplicações na Saúde da Família: estratégia lúdica eficaz para aquisição de conceitos de saúde; recurso de lazer; e espaço de convivência. Constatou-se necessidade de promover capacitação de multiplicadores na comunidade como forma de dar continuidade à montagem de oficinas de teatro em prol da construção do conhecimento coletivo.

A framework for the design and integration of collaborative classroom games

The progress registered in the use of video games as educational tools has not yet been successfully transferred to the classroom. In an attempt to close this gap, a framework was developed that assists in the design and classroom integration of educational games. The framework addresses both the educational dimension and the ludic dimension. The educational dimension employs Bloom’s revised taxonomy to define learning objectives and applies the classroom multiplayer presential game (CMPG) pedagogical model while the ludic dimension determines the gaming elements subject to constraints imposed by the educational dimension. With a view to validating the framework, a game for teaching electrostatics was designed and experimentally implemented in a classroom context. An evaluation based on pre/post testing found that the game increased the average number of correct answers by students participating in the experiment from 6.11 to 10.00, a result found to be statistically significant. Thus validated, the framework offers a promising basis for further exploration through the development of other games and fine-tuning of its components.

Keeping One’s Distance: Translation and the Play of Possibility

Keeping one's distance: Translation and the play of possibility – This article proposes a ludic theorisation of translation examining the implications of the concept of play for translation theory and translation pedagogy. The equation of play with a simulative mode of action points to the centrality of mechanisms of identification and projection in the translation interpreting classroom. The shift from the pre-operational to the operational level of logic and the metacommunicative and metalinguistic dimensions to play and translation demonstrate the cognitive importance of the latter, in intellectual development and the elaboration of identity. Play, metaphor and translation are linked through the concept of bisociative thinking which grounds the essential creativity of translation and its capacity for discovery. The paradoxical nature of translation and play are considered both in relation to the cognitive possibilities of translation and its contribution to aesthetic renewal. The use of a tripartite division of ludic text types in translator education and the potential of limits are further evidence for the significance of the ludic dimension to translation.

Coconuts in Camelot: Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the Arthurian Literature Course

Teaching Arthurian literature affords a perhaps rare opportunity for medieval specialists to use the medium of film to interest undergraduate students in a period that is otherwise often considered foreign to their cultural world or concerns. The significant number of Arthurian films in the twentieth century reflects the continuous appeal of the Arthurian legend, a legend whose survival can be attributed to its adaptability, shifting throughout the centuries between elite and popular cultures, and disseminated in different forms through visual, oral and textual traditions. While there has always been a ludic dimension to Arthurian tradition, one postmedieval comedic portrayal of Arthur and his knights, Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, has had a significant impact on how Arthurian material has been adapted on the silver screen. One possible consequence of Twain's comic vision and its early transposition into the newly emerging film medium is that, while Bresson's brooding tale of Arthurian ennui may be the hallmark of the twentieth-century cinematic Arthurian corpus, the film that has come to represent the Round Table's cinematic incarnation in the minds of the generations that now fill the postsecondary classroom is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a comic masterpiece that embodies the spirit of Twain's dismissive coinage, "holy grailing." Student enthusiasm for Monty Python's film contrasts with the noticeably more restrained stance of scholarly opinion which, while rarely omitting to mention the film's existence in discussions of cinematic Arthuriana, has relatively little to say about the actual film. Part of the reason Monty Python's medieval film has not received as much scrutiny as it deserves from medievalists is because it can be perceived as being preoccupied with its own cinematic form. The ubiquity of Kevin J. Harty's comment that Python's film is "not so much a send-up of the Arthurian legend, as it is a send-up of other film versions of that legend" has perhaps refracted scholarly attention away from precisely how Monty Python does deal with a legend which the film itself presents as distinctly literary. By redirecting our attention to the literary scaffolding around which Monty Python and the Holy Grail is built, Arthurian scholars can encounter the hermeneutic dynamism of this film, a quality which also recommends the film as a pedagogical tool.