Lusory Attitude Research Articles

Suits and “game-playing”: formalism and subjectivism revisited. A critique

ABSTRACT In his work, Bernard Suits presents and pursues a stated objective: to define ‘game’ or, more precisely, ‘game-playing’. In The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, the author seeks a definition not as a ‘commitment to the universal fruitfulness of definition construction’, but rather with the idea ‘that some things are definable, and some are not’. This is something he believed could resolve many of the issues surrounding the debate on ‘game’ and ‘play’, such as those with Huizinga (in Homo Ludens) or proposed by the anti-definitionism of Wittgenstein, a philosopher who did not accept that it was possible to define ‘game’. In this article, we will trace Suits’ definitional steps and aim to critique his resolution as a kind of ‘formalism’, as it tended to prioritize rules. Furthermore, notwithstanding the merit of his theoretical endeavor – seen in the attempt to define a social component that is so complex and the target of the most diverse interpretations and misconceptions –, it seems to us that, with his theoretical unifying element (lusory attitude), the author has summoned another problem to the debate, that of ‘subjectivism’, rather than a solution (especially to his formalism), even subjecting himself to comparisons with other conceptions (e.g. Fichte) that are also problematic. This aspect will also be criticized. The attention of this article will shift to these two lines of critique, drawing on an insightful analysis of Malaby’s work at a specific juncture, aiming to delve further into the subject and taking an additional step.

Typologies and Features of Play in Mobile Games for Mental Wellbeing

Background The smartphone market is saturated with apps and games purporting to promote mental wellness. There has been a significant number of studies assessing the impact of these digital interventions. Motivation The majority of review papers solely focussed on the impact of strict rules and award systems of the apps. There is comparatively little attention paid to other game techniques designed to encourage creativity, a lusory attitude, and playful experiences. Results This gap is addressed in this paper in a consideration and analysis of a purposive selection of six mobile games marketed for wellbeing, our focus is on both external and internal motivations that these games offer. Our specific interest is how these games balance rule-based play with creativity. We find that ludic play is a highly-structured, rule-bound, goal-oriented play, in contrast to paedic play which a freeform, imaginative, and expressive. We argue that while ludic play is purposed towards the promotion of habit formation and generates feelings of accomplishment, it nonetheless relies heavily on extrinsic motivation to incentivise engagement. By contrast, paidic play, specifically role-playing, improvisation, and the imaginative co-creation of fictional game worlds, can be used effectively in these games to facilitate self-regulation, self-distancing, and therefore provides intrinsically-motivated engagement. In the context of games for mental wellbeing, ludic play challenges players to complete therapeutic exercises, while paidic play offers a welcoming refuge from real world pressures and the opportunity to try on alternate selves. Conclusion Our intention is not to value paidic play over ludic play, but to consider how these two play modalities can complement and counterbalance each other to generate more effective engagement.

Squid games and the lusory attitude

Abstract On Bernard Suits’s celebrated analysis, to play a game is to engage in a ‘voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles’. Voluntariness is understood in terms of the players having the ‘lusory attitude’ of accepting the constitutive rules of the game just because they make possible playing it. In this paper I suggest that the players in Netflix’s hit show Squid Game play the ‘squid games’, but they do not do so voluntarily; they are forced to play. I argue that this means that we should rethink Suits’s analysis by claiming that all that is needed for players to play is that someone has put the rules in force for them for the reason that it makes playing the game possible. I then illustrate the virtues of the revised analysis by showing how it helps us to defuse Hurka’s recent counterexamples to Suits’s view.

‘Playing sport playfully’: on the playful attitude in sport

ABSTRACT There has been extensive debate among various disciplines about the nature and value of play. From these discussions it seems clear that play is a phenomenon with more than just one dimension: as a specific type of activity, as a form or structure, as an ontologically distinctive phenomenon, as a type of experience, or as a stance or an attitude towards a particular activity. This article focuses on the importance of the playful attitude in sport. It begins by attempting to describe the underpinning features of a playful attitude, and its relation to Suits’ lusory attitude and the concept of gamification. Finally, it considers and critically evaluates the relationship between play and sport and the importance of the playful attitude in sporting activities. The purpose of this paper is a far deeper analysis of the playful attitude and its relationship to sport than has been previously provided, and a more precise definition as to what the playful attitude is. This will ultimately help to answer questions about the value of sport and how sport ought to be played.

Developing a Ludic Identity in Writing: Play as a Means of Reflection

Writing is commonly taught through a process-based approach which opens up possibilities for productive, interdisciplinary work that takes a similar approach. Play and games are one such approach and can improve how we approach the teaching of writing. Through active reflection, the similarities between writing and playing games are shown through their awareness of and interaction with audience; their embodied forms of praxis; and their development of complex, situated ecologies. Fostering the lusory attitude found in play as a basis for problem-solving in writing is one way to help students reflect on their own identity, agency, and argument.

Academics at play: Why the “publication game” is more than a metaphor

It is increasingly common to describe academic research as a “publication game,” a metaphor that connotes instrumental strategies for publishing in highly rated journals. However, we suggest that the use of this metaphor is problematic. In particular, the metaphor allows scholars to make a convenient, but ultimately misleading, distinction between figurative game-playing on one hand (i.e. pursuing external career goals through instrumental publishing) and proper research on the other hand (i.e. producing intrinsically meaningful research). In other words, the “publication game” implies that while academic researchers may behave just like players, they are not really playing a game. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we show that this metaphor prevents us, ironically, from fully grasping the lusory attitude, or play-mentality, that characterizes academic work among critical management researchers. Ultimately, we seek to stimulate reflection about how our choice of metaphor can have performative effects in the university and influence our behavior in unforeseen and potentially undesirable ways.

Dungeons & Dragons & Drama

Players sit around a table. A group of adventurers pause in their pursuit of escape. Stunned, they stare at the die that just rolled poorly, resulting in the loss of a dear friend, his throat ripped out because they could not save him. The players mourn the death of a fictional character who only ever existed within the game. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a popular role-playing game illustrating the interconnectedness of drama, performance, and games. My presentation will examine this relationship, identifying factors from gameplay that suggest how performance fosters success in D&D for both actual players and fictional characters. Research into dramatic theory and game theory reveals how interdisciplinary concepts such as the “magic circle”, the “lusory attitude”, and uncertainty can apply to elements of D&D (Salen and Zimmerman, Suits, Costikyan). Data collected from in-person observation of D&D sessions, coding participants’ behaviour, and watching for instances of performance (e.g. voice change, pronoun switches, or mimetic gesture), has been combined with theoretical research to determine elements that better facilitate success in the game/campaign. These elements range from emotional situations that provoke players, to forms of invitations encouraging participation (Isbister, White). I have discovered that while in theatre performance acts as a vehicle for story, in D&D the story acts as a vehicle for performance. The in-game performance often facilitates fun between players, as well as leading them to success in the game, so a campaign that maximizes theatricality will not only result in more fun, but also more success.
 Works Cited
 Costikyan, Greg. Uncertainty in Games. MIT Press, 2013.
 Isbister, Katherine. How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. MIT Press, 2016.
 Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press, 2004.
 Suits, Bernard Herbert. The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. Broadview Press, 2014.
 White, Gareth. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Springer, 2013.

La oposición entre la razón instrumental y la lúdica en la propuesta utópica de Bernard Suits

En este texto analizamos el estudio que Bernard Suits hace del uso instrumental de la razón en The Grasshopper a través de su utopía. Para ello, analizamos el papel que juega la razón instrumental en la teoría del juego y en la utopía de Suits. Luego, comparamos el uso instrumental de la razón con lo que denominamos «actitud lúdica». Esta última encarna la racionalidad lúdica que los jugadores han de adoptar para jugar al juego y vivir en el mundo utópico de Suits. Para concluir, defendemos que la actitud lúdica ofrece una alternativa a la predominancia del uso instrumental de la razón en nuestra sociedad.

Only a game? Player misery across game boundaries

ABSTRACTVideogames often confront players with frustratingly difficult challenges, fearsome enemies, and tragic stories. As such, they can evoke feelings of failure, sadness, anger, and fear. Although these feelings are usually regarded as undesirable, many players seem to enjoy videogames which cause them. In this paper, I argue that player misery often originates from a fictional or lusory attitude which brackets game events from real-life, making the player’s emotions solely relevant within the game context. As they are part of the game themselves, these negative emotions can be enjoyed and easily relativized, since players can acknowledge that their cause is ‘only a game’. However, there are feelings of misery associated with the playing of videogames which are not caused by either the game’s fiction or challenge. In the last part of this paper, I describe a qualitatively different kind of player misery: one that is caused by elements that are not perceived as part of the game by the player, and is not bracketed from real life by a lusory or fictional attitude.

An Epistemic Condition for Playing a Game

ABSTRACTIn 'The Grasshopper' Suits proposes that ‘playing a game’ can be captured as an attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by rules (lusory means). These rules prohibit more efficient means, and are accepted because they make the activity possible (lusory attitude). I argue these conditions are not jointly sufficient. The starting point for the argument is the idea that goals, means and attitudes can pick out their content in different ways. They can involve a direct reference (‘crossing this specific finish line’), or a description that picks out something (‘crossing a line on the track after running 100 m’). I provide cases in which one’s attitudes, accepted goals or accepted means pick out their content by a description such that the person does not play a game, even if Suits’s conditions are satisfied. I show that this demands an epistemic condition for playing a game that also applies to commitment based accounts. Finally, I discuss what such an epistemic condition could be. I argue that the condition does not require personal knowledge of all goals and means, but merely enough epistemic access that the goal and permissible means can guide one’s behavior safely enough. This might be satisfied by social extensions, such as access to tools (e.g. a rulebook) or other people (e.g. referees).

Playful Furniture

Are shaggy seats which make cute noises playful or disruptive in a conference setting? This article pushes the limits of game scholars’ lusory attitude by breaching an academic seminar with a playful experiment. Five MurMur Moderator seats, interactive and interruptive furniture prototypes, were set up at a game research seminar where they were used as ambient elements during the presentations. The experience was evaluated by observation, accompanied with seminar tweets, and by conducting a small survey after the seminar. The experiences of the participants varied from enthusiastically positive to strong negative feelings. Through this experiment, we were able to explore the important issue of polarized attitudes of adults toward play and provide some food for thought for the future design of adult play.

A Kantian view of Suits’ Utopia: ‘a kingdom of autotelically-motivated game players’

In this paper, I engage the debate on Suits’ theory of games by providing a Kantian view of Utopia. I argue that although the Kantian aspects of Suits’ approach are often overlooked in comparison to its Socratic-Platonic aspects, Kant’s ideas play a fundamental role in Suits’ proposal. In particular, Kant’s concept of ‘regulative idea’ is the basis of Suits’ Utopia. I regard Utopia as Suits’ regulative idea on game playing. In doing so, I take Utopia to play a double role in Suits’ theory of games. First, it highlights the primary condition of possibility of game-playing, namely, the lusory attitude. Second, it provides a normative criterion that serves as a critical principle to evaluate instances of game playing and as a counterfactual assumption that makes game playing possible. I provide further support for my Kantian interpretation of Suits’ Utopia by bringing to light the anthropological assumptions upon which Utopia is built. In doing so, I argue that both Suits’ theory of games, in general, and his Utopia, in particular, lay out the conditions of possibility of game playing, not an analysis on the life most worth living.

“Games with learning”: adpositions and the lusory attitude

Purpose Games and learning research has diverged into “games for learning” and “games as learning” research. This paper aims to provide a third framing, “games with learning”, that can help address the lived experiences learners have with these media outside of formal, instructional contexts. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a critical analysis of the current games and learning field, considering what has been missed by recent research in the field and how we might benefit from further consideration of what Bernard Suits calls the “lusory attitude” or voluntary choice to accept inefficiencies in achieving goals. The paper analyzes dominant rhetoric of educational game research, with the intent of revealing the implicit assumptions about play and choice that much recent “games for learning” and “games as learning” work may have ignored. Findings The paper reveals that the further consideration of learning through extant play with games (characterized here as “games with learning”) can be a means of shifting the direction of educational games research toward investigations of how games are played “in the wilds” of out-of-school contexts. The paper advocates for a shifting of focus from compulsory contexts to the study of voluntary game play. Social implications The paper argues for the complex value of games and gameplay in non-institutional settings, and advocates for further research to understand games in non-institutional spaces. Originality/value The key argument is that games and learning to date has focused inordinately on how games can further educational design, rather than how the use of games can reveal important new contexts for learning.

“A Games” and Their Relationship to T and E Games

In this essay, I revisit my claims about game structures and amend them by adding achievement-regulated games to previously analyzed time- and event-structured activities. In describing achievement formats, I discuss their heavy reliance on the world of work, their strong dependency on Suits’ lusory attitude, and their relative independence from constitutive rules. I argue that achievement-structured games carry disadvantages not shared by time- and event-regulated activities. I speculate that achievement gaming came first in our evolutionary history, but show that it still holds value for modern players and spectators.

Gaming Up Life: Considerations for Game Expansions

Those of us who have been involved with sport philosophy for a number of years have learned much from Bernard Suits. For this, we owe him a debt of gratitude. His definition of games has been regarded as the gold standard against which other such efforts are judged. Even his occasional detractors did not so much attack his definition as question his broader project, one of discovering a phenomenon’s necessary and sufficient conditions. Suits, in a playful but pointed way, called these critics “terminal Wittgensteinians.” Much to his credit, Suits drew normative attention to games when much previous literature focused on the value of play. He saw gaming behavior not only as a logical outcome of human progress, but also as humankind’s most potent antidote for boredom and malaise. He expanded previous discussions on the juxtaposition of work and play to the more inclusive and complex interrelationships among work, games, and play. He did this, and so much more, in his own inimitable way—with his keen sense of humor fully at play. I remember asking myself as a young professor how unusual it was to read a serious philosophy text that provoked uncontrollable laughter . . . for the right reasons! However, for those who knew Suits in person, and for others who got to know him only through words spoken by the Grasshopper, he was a very funny person. In many ways he acted out what he preached. When life became a little tedious, he gamed it up. When the prospect of writing a dreary text on definitions seemed, well, a little dreary, he decided to game it up too. Thus, in The Grasshopper, he added a story line, paradoxes, scintillating dialogue, teases, false leads, old jokes, dozens of allusions to popular and classical literature, resurrections, mysteries, and bawdy metaphors to the core argument. One gets the sense that he put all of these additional literary hurdles in his way just to see if he could write a serious treatise under these more difficult conditions. He employed the lusory attitude, in short, when writing his own lusory text. I believe that Suits was right about the role of the so-called lusory attitude in promoting the good life. We seek and enjoy artificial challenges both formally and informally. Formal gaming tendencies produce free-standing, culturally recognized activities like baseball and soccer. Informal routes to gaming can be found

'Cheater!': The Central Moral Admonition of Legal Ethics, Games, Lusory Attitudes, Internal Perspectives, and Justice

Starting with the puzzle of why the moral admonition of cheater has gone missing from legal ethics courses, this article, with the help of a much expanded version of Bernard Suit's definition of game, argues that the lusory attitude upon which this moral admonition depends should be the pedagogical goal of legal ethics. Instead, the argument continues - partly in a response to Arthur Applbaum - law students are taught an attitude quite at odds with it. This is, I argue, much to the detriment of the profession, those affected by it, and, finally, to an adequate understanding of the practice's relationship to justice.

Gawain and the Godgames

Gaines and abound in Sir Gawain and Green Knight, and by such amusements Gawain-poet investigates ways they reveal knight's understanding of his individual identity as a Christian. Through intersecting dynamics of Arthur's chivalric court of and Green Knight's gaming challenge to it, Green Knight brings a crisis of self-definition to Gawain: this forces Gawain to confront his personal limitations and to gain a better understanding of his place within a Christian world. The ample scholarship on poem covers this territory extensively. (1) This study expands on previous scholarship by providing a structural analysis of game's many levels, by locating romance within tradition of godgame, by analyzing critical juncture between and crucial to godgame, and by examining overlap between godgames of Green Knight and of Christianity. Thus, my goal is to reexamine Gawain and through a novel theoretical framework; from this perspective we see ways in which Christianity is figured merely as romance's default world view but as an active player in this fascinating game. The Green Knight's godgame of chivalry ultimately merges with Christianity's godgame of spirituality, forcing Gawain to confront his limitations in these two key aspects of his identity. Games, at their simplest, must involve a goal, rules, and participants willing to attempt to achieve goal while adhering to rules. Bernard Suits theorizes that all games incorporate objectives, rules, and attitudes into their structure: To a is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by (lusory means), where prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means (constitutive rules), and where are accepted just because they make possible such activity (lusory attitude) (41). The players accept and requirements of game, for whatever reason they have decided to enter into it. Robert Rawdon Wilson suggests that lusory attitude is incorporation of into players' mindset, the internalization of rules (Rules/Conventions 23). In addition to a goal and rules, most games also have stakes; although these stakes may be minimal (the joy of winning) or large (money, prestige, glory), their presence in a indicates that matters to players, that typically bears some personal significance to them. In many analyses of and play, two terms are treated interchangeably, as if game and were synonyms. A quick distinction between and play, however, is that most games have a structure of rules, goals, and stakes, but need have none of these. Johan Huizinga provides a concise (and oft-quoted) definition of play: Summing up formal characteristics of play[,] we might call a free activity standing quite consciously outside ordinary life as being not serious, but at same time absorbing player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed and in an orderly manner. It promotes formation of social groupings which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from common world by disguise or other means. (13) This definition, remarkable for its simplicity and apparent completeness, (2) underscores that incorporates a much looser structure than game, so much looser that may be more of an attitude than an activity. Brad Lowell Stone, for example, comments that play does indeed require a certain attitude to enter it (68). By distinguishing between as structure and as attitude, we see dynamics of Green Knight's much more clearly. …

The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (review)

346Philosophy and Literature many of whom turned out to be self-serving farceurs) to the concluding pipe dreams about an "Anarchist University," there is here more than a touch of what Marxists righdy deride as Utopian socialism. David Hume's sound remark on other-worldly men of his day speaks even more pointedly to this-worldly activist-Utopians of our own: "A delicate sense of morals, especially when attended with a splenetic temper, is apt to give a man a disgust of die world, and to make him consider the common course of human affairs with too much indignation." Rumson, New JerseyWill Morrisey The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, by Bernard Suits, with drawings by Frank Newfeld; 178 pp. Boston: David R. Godine, 1990, $10.95 paper. Philosophers are not generally known for fine writing, but once in a generation or two a book appears out ofnowhere, unclassifiable, inspired, amazing, mesmerizing, wonderful, classic. What books are these? Well, Alice in Wonderland and Through tL· Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, and Either/Or and Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard, four of the greatest philosophy books of the nineteenth century. Before that there was Candide by Voltaire and Rameau's Nephew by Diderot, and in our own century there are Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Bachelard's TL· Poetics ofSpace. These are books that shock, entertain, instruct, and edify, that can be reread many times for profit (how do they do it?) and pleasure (they do it so well!). Do what? For one thing, in a book in this class the intensity of its author's vision is sustained at its highest peak throughout. You read it the way you watch a tightrope walker, with a great, contented sigh when the end is reached, as perfecdy balanced as the beginning. These are usually marginal books, in the French sense, if not wayward philosophically , at least out of the way, as is, for example, another tour de force, Willie Master's Lonesome Wife by William H. Gass. Occasionally one, say Nietzche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, or the Tractatus, careens into the lead on philosophy's autobahn to be pursued madly by lesser vehicles for awhile. Many have trouble finding a publisher. In 1978, having been rejected by a dozen other publishers (including Oxford University Press, whose guardians "almost" took it but in the end found it unsuitable), TL· Grasshopper by Bernard Suits was released by the University of Reviews347 Toronto Press. It was received with a few rave reviews and mosdy silence, and soon went out of print. But though such books often die, they also rise again, and now that marginal if not wayward (but possessed of impeccable taste) independent publisher, David R. Godine, who prints always only what he likes, has resurrected TL· Grasshopper. Good. TL· Grasshopper is in the form of a Socratic dialogue, only more so. When Prudence asks near the end, "And do you really believe, Grasshopper, that there w some Agency which controls our destinies?," the Grasshopper replies, "More specifically, I believe that there is some Author who writes our dialogue." And when Skepticus suggests that this Author is playing the game ofPirandello with them, the Grasshopper responds drily, "I think he is writing a treatise on the philosophy ofgames." And so he is: "To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by rules (lusory means), where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means (constitutive rules), and where the rules are acceptedjustbecause they make possible such activity (lusory attitude) . . . playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" (p. 41). One need not be a philosopher to rise and cheer at the succinct elegance of that summation after 41 pages of feinting to get there. But then the counterexamples begin: the annoying triflers, cheats, and spoilsports; the batde to worse than death between Ivan and Abdul; the sexual act; the frustrations of Sir Edmund Hillary who would climb a mountain for sport; the adventures of Porphyryo Sneak, the greatest spy in the world, and of Bartholomew Drag, the greatest bore; the counsel of the therapist Dr. Heurschreck; and...

Signatures of the Visible (review)

Reviews347 Toronto Press. It was received with a few rave reviews and mosdy silence, and soon went out of print. But though such books often die, they also rise again, and now that marginal if not wayward (but possessed of impeccable taste) independent publisher, David R. Godine, who prints always only what he likes, has resurrected TL· Grasshopper. Good. TL· Grasshopper is in the form of a Socratic dialogue, only more so. When Prudence asks near the end, "And do you really believe, Grasshopper, that there w some Agency which controls our destinies?," the Grasshopper replies, "More specifically, I believe that there is some Author who writes our dialogue." And when Skepticus suggests that this Author is playing the game ofPirandello with them, the Grasshopper responds drily, "I think he is writing a treatise on the philosophy ofgames." And so he is: "To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by rules (lusory means), where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means (constitutive rules), and where the rules are acceptedjustbecause they make possible such activity (lusory attitude) . . . playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" (p. 41). One need not be a philosopher to rise and cheer at the succinct elegance of that summation after 41 pages of feinting to get there. But then the counterexamples begin: the annoying triflers, cheats, and spoilsports; the batde to worse than death between Ivan and Abdul; the sexual act; the frustrations of Sir Edmund Hillary who would climb a mountain for sport; the adventures of Porphyryo Sneak, the greatest spy in the world, and of Bartholomew Drag, the greatest bore; the counsel of the therapist Dr. Heurschreck; and the final resolution of the puzzle as to why, in Utopia, no one would ever do anything but play games. Watson: Grasshopper, you obsessive monomaniac, I love you, but you're wrong to think that in Utopia we would only play games. My idea of Utopia is eternally to read books like this. Grasshopper: If you think that undercuts my case, you'd better reread Chapter 15. Washington UniversityRichard A. Watson Signatures ofthe Visible, by FredricJameson; 254 pp. New York: Roudedge, Chapman & Hall, 1990, $25.00. "The visual is essentially pornographic," FredricJameson begins his new book: films "ask us to stare at the world as though it were a naked body" (p. 1). In 348Philosophy and Literature the pages that follow, the tension which generates the text of Signatures of the Visible emerges from what Jameson will call an "ontology of the visual"—the existential struggle between "mastery of the gaze" and the "illimitable richness of the visual object." True to the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic, Jameson approaches film as a medium which simultaneously fascinates and disgusts him: the sheer physicality ofthe cinematic experience, the intensely intimate manner in which film comes to be inscribed into the very being of the viewer, provokes Jameson to conclude that "film is an addiction that leaves its traces in the body itself" (p. 2). Readers who have struggled withJameson's prose in the past will be pleased to learn that his latest book constitutes his most personal and accessible study to date: in the opening pages, a parallel is drawn between what is attempted here and the analytic writings of Freud, a therapeutic "exorcism" ofsorts which tries to extract the filmic image from the very body ofthe writer. Though never entirely at ease with the inevitably "self-indulgent" character of film analysis itself, Jameson maintains that we must not neglect the uniquely ontological dimensions of the cinematic experience which necessitate such personal film readings. However, as we would expect, the "historicity of perception," for Jameson, must also be understood as saturated through and through with the social and historical. Since the early eighties, Jameson has increasingly shifted his attention away from theory towards a more practical application of the principles first established in Marxism and Form (1971), TL· Prison-House of Language (1972), and TL· Political Unconscious (1981). Not surprisingly, in Signatures of the Visible, Jameson's readings of film all gravitate within the arena of the hermeneutic procedures...