The Politics of Play: The Social Implications of Iser's Aesthetic Theory Author(s): Paul B.

Armstrong Source: New Literary History, Vol. 31, No. 1, On the Writings of Wolfgang Iser (Winter, 2000), pp. 211-223 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057594 . Accessed: 29/10/2013 14:33
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The Politics of Play: The Social Implications of Iser's Aesthetic

Paul B. Armstrong

Theory

From

the

early

days

of

reader-response

criticism,

Wolfgang

Iser's

accused of apolitical idealism. This literary theory has been a of his think fundamental misunderstanding charge represents of the functions The Fictive and the literature. about social ing Imaginary, about the art of representation, the culmination of his reflections does not explicitly the of the of and its literature, engage question politics on seem to the if value of and "as the emphasis might "play" disengage concerns. What from worldly the aesthetic Iser means experience by is a profoundly social activity that would important "play," however,
facilitate productive uses of difference to create forms of community

among
resist

decentered
unification.

human

beings

whose

dissonances

and dislocations

As an instrument
interactions, uses of of Iser's power theory Iser's in of the

for staging various

notion of literature of service

kinds of open-ended
offers a model of the democracy. foregrounds

exploratory
emancipatory The politics the role of

communicative representation

nonmimetic

the "as if in producing, and overturning different forms of questioning, acts of staging in life. The playful, nonteleological fictive of functioning turn makes the but nonconsensual of possible reciprocal exchange on which democratic The the Fictive and power mutuality depends. the in in order to of power Imaginary engages question representation affirm the liberating and community-building capacities of literature in
a perpetually to the unstable, political decentered challenges of world. our It time. is thus an important response

The Fictive and the Imaginary moves beyond Iser's earlier concern with a to offer of theory reading textuality in the service of what he general calls "literary anthropology." Two questions drive this anthropology: seem to do human need fictions? And what does the Why beings capacity to make fictions reveal about the being of human being? Iser not by a transcendental these questions phe undertaking reflection but by looking for patterns in several histori nomenological that he thinks provide especially cally and culturally specific domains human of how and thought illuminating examples beings have made approaches

New Literary History, 2000, 31: 211-223

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212
about book

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that make up the bulk of the fictions. Hence the long chapters on the role in philosophy, of and different fictions pastoral poetry, theories of play and the imaginary. This procedure reflects in part the

and that epistemological of hermeneutic phenomenology cannot if be immedi constants, exist, they ontological through grasped ate reflection but must be teased out through cultural interpretation of that a single, their varying manifestations.1 It also suggests Iser's doubt in fictions univocal definition of fiction can be found: "Context-bound, realization let alone ontological clear-cut definitions, grounding. can be only in terms of use. As their use is they grasped manifests itself in constantly shifting fictionalizing potentially manifold, to be of operation in accordance with the changing boundaries modes of fiction not only eludes any essentialist overcome."2 The multiplicity task for a theory of that a central it also suggests characterization; general Instead, elude of fiction-making. is to account for the variety of modes fictionality Iser is interested in reading the literary as evidence of culture-forming processes. The seemingly boundless variety of the fictional, which would
seem to thwart any general theory, turns out to have enormous value as

anthropological
versions of

evidence

of the capacity
"Literature . . . has

of human
a substratum

beings
...

to generate
of a rather

themselves:

featureless
the culturally

plasticity permits
urge however,

that manifests
shapes

itself in a continual
human beings have

repatterning
assumed. ...

of
If

conditioned

literature
the this

limitless
of human will

patternings
beings never issue

of human
to become into a

plasticity,
present definitive to

it indicates
themselves; shape. . . .

inveterate urge,

is propelled reveals that human plasticity [L]iterature by the drive to in ever itself any of the shapes imprisoning shape, without gain are obtained" (FIxi). For Iser, fictions attempts by human beings to give to form themselves which reveal in the process that human beings have no definitive a to itself as, human being form. Without present shape
would not what be nothing, we are, but there since is no we limit can to only the grasp shapes ourselves human as a form beings can that try on. is

The

of fictions plasticity of human beings gives rise to the multiplicity multi fictional for differences. cultural and makes possible Accounting are con cultures how different help explain plicity may consequently also then interact worlds structed. The ways in which fictional might can As an be mediated. offer models for how cultural differences of human plasticity, Iser's anthropology of the implications a response of negoti to the contemporary political dilemma worlds. incommensurable between differences ating as "a crossing of boundaries" "the act of fictionalizing" Iser describes limits are are in his view, when New (FI 3). generated, meanings as the of notion He therefore representation rejects overstepped. exploration constitutes

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THE

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213

fictions do not merely because mirror reality but instead copying from the world. The the materials take transform they pre-given seems to him of "fiction" and because fictions "reality" faulty opposition of fiction contain elements of of any devoid always reality ("a piece [FI1]) and reality would be incomprehensible" because reality includes many fictional elements (narratives, beliefs, and that are part of the texture of the real). He proposes myths, for example, connection
"to replace this duality with a triad: the real, the fictive, and . . . the

with known

imaginary. It is out of this triad that the text arises" (FF 1 ). The imaginary is the featureless, to otherwise inaccessible capacity for making meaning which fictions give form. As what Iser calls "the generative matrix of the of the real and to text" (FI 21), it is the ability to play with elements transform determine them by selecting and combining them in ways they cannot or The the fictive and mediates between imaginary predict. the real and animates their interaction, but it is knowable only through its effects. Not a faculty or an essence, it is the power of human plasticity
to create forms, play with the given, and overstep limits.

Iser calls representation "an act of transgression" it (FI 3) because the crossing of boundaries. This entails is true of each of the three of fictionalizing he describes: dimensions and selection, combination, if a literary text is constructed For example, self-disclosure. by selecting
"from a variety of social, historical, cultural, and literary systems that

the text," then this process outside involves "a are in elements selected that the lifted out boundaries, stepping beyond of the systems in which their fulfill function" (FI 4-5). they specific it by depragmatizing Taking the given out of its original context changes its instrumental it observ it?suspending activity and thereby making able. The context from which it is taken is altered as well because it is as the the selected which item emerges: highlighted background against "It is as ifwhat is present in the text must be judged in the light of what to create a text is not a mechanical is absent" (FI5). Selecting materials
act but a transformative process, then, because it changes what it picks

exist as referential

fields

out by crossing over the boundaries that had previously it. defined crosses The act of combining boundaries similarly by staging possibili not necessarily ties of relationship out of by the context prescribed
which ally the selected elements elements" came. can be contradictory According made to to coexist Iser, otherwise in a text "mutu "through

that are established them," and "the fact that such among to be is not primarily to "any code due appear convincing" to manner but rules" in the which the linked elements governed "mainly are made to extend beyond the borders of their previous validity" (FI9). New combinations of elements from the given overstep the limits that had previously defined them by establishing different of patterns the relations connections

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214
connection,

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their ability to enter into relations of thereby extending elements from the limits of their Combination meaning. emancipates even as to new situation liberates them it relations. Combina prior join
tion has transformative power because it "transgresses the semantic

enclosures"
"Transgression"

(F/19)

that had previously

for Iser is first a

defined
semantic

the materials
process rather

it realigns.
than a

and critique act, but as such it is the capacity for innovation political to change the world or expose without which interventions its deficien cies would not be possible. Iser's argument that boundary crossings of various kinds open up semantic possibilities does not imply that texts are can occur in meaning but shows how invariably emancipatory changes can that be used for activities different purposes. through particular or constrained in advance by the functions Those aims are not defined that make them possible. The different ways in which acts of textual
construction can step across boundaries allow them to take on different

social and political

Iser's explanation of

significance
how acts of

and do various
semantic

kinds

of cultural
can

work. but

transgression

transform

textual materials
demonstrates Because how crossing

does not prescribe

literature boundaries can

a particular
serve a variety is what

politics
of social transgressed

of literature
ends. in

carries

its wake,

a "doubling" of worlds, which Iser finds most fictionalizing evident in the "self-disclosure" of literary fictions?their of exhibition often fictions the "as if structure of fictionality, which instrumental mask. The structure of what Iser calls the "split signifier" is fundamental to the "as if of fictionality?its of a world that both is and is projection acts entail
not but what it was it claims not so"). to be (as in the to common Iser, "the narrative 'as-if formula construction "it was discloses so, According

world is only the fictionality of fiction" and "shows that the represented as if it were a world in order that it should be taken to to be conceived realities are other than itself "Whenever (FI 19-20). figure something
transposed into the text," Iser argues, "they turn into signs for some

selected and combined thing else" (FIS). The "as if allows the materials to assume purposes not within them. This immanent into fictions of into that the processes observability fiction-making brings doubling a use in life conceals. It also of fictions pragmatic everyday provides not it that is of These for the world (F/16). part viewing "vantage point" the because epistemological gains are produced of fiction all cross boundaries and do not simply the various The "doubling" that characterizes for Iser. In broad anthropological implications three basic dimensions copy the given.

acts has fictionalizing his view, "the simulta neous presence in literary fictionality "makes it of doubled positions" nature and this is a of itself of the (FI 82), doubling representative Iser finds "division that useful function because, with Helmuth Plessner,

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215

. means . is characteristic of human beings": "Being oneself. being able double oneself Iser cites with approval Plessner's argument (FI SO, 81). that human being has a "doppelg?nger" structure: "human being as a ... is related to its social role but cannot be defined by being generally a particular role. The role-player or bearer of the social figure is not the same as that figure, and yet cannot be thought of separately from it . . . means without being deprived of its humanity. of the other Only by of itself does it have?itself."3 Iser describes this duality as evidence of
"our decentered position?our existence is incontestable, but at the

to us" (FI 81). We are, but we do not have a is inaccessible and that absolutely essentially defines us, and we can be and know being ourselves roles that we both are and are not. As Iser only through time
explains, "the fact that we cannot capture ourselves in any absolute role

same

that can be played" (FI 82). acts the constitutive of human be dividedness Fictionalizing "present the world" and "point to an ings as the source of possible worlds within eludes that and that manifests anthropological disposition grasping itself only by way of its kaleidoscopically effects" (FI 84, 83). changing acts of boundary Textual the transformative crossing not only employ lifts all limits the number of roles powers
"Play" special

on

of doubling
is an interest aesthetic to

but also make

as well because as Iser

them available
an anthropological particularly

for observation.
phenomenon pervasive, useful, of and

it is a

of doubling. In his vocabulary, play is not just a revealing manifestation term for how differences formal category but a general one engage
another. ment, The a notion basic Iser structure borrows of from play his is oscillation, teacher or to-and-fro move Gadamer:

If we

examine

metaphorical play of gears

play of gnats, movement that it renews itself

on is used concentrate and its so-called "play" talk of the of the of the the waves, play light, play or of the of the of the limbs, forces, parts machinery, interplay play even a on words. case what In each is intended is to-and-fro play senses, we find is not tied to any goal that would The movement bring it to an backward end; and . . . rather, forward is in constant

how

the word

repetition. so central to the definition obviously ... what this movement. performs whether movement or not there is a subject as such.4

no difference of play that it makes or who It is the game that is played?it is irrelevant it. The who is the occurrence of the plays play

is not a subjective attitude or exclusively an aspect of the aesthetic a ever but experience potentially never-ending, self-renewing movement to and fro. Play sometimes shows itself in games that have a particular of a single result? goal?the victory of one side or the determination but this "instrumental its end by play" (as Iser calls it) only achieves Play

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is over). By contrast, "free play has to play stopping play (the game to and the seeks of play in back-and-forth (FI 237) against endings" keep
motion.

from

In practice, free play is an idealization that can only be abstracted the different ways games are played under specific conditions, with
rules, toward determinate ends. As Iser explains, "the endless

particular

ness of play has and this is done by a "contraflow

various forms.

to be conveyed by playing through specific possibilities, of games" (FI 257). Games are characterized by means of free and instrumental play" (FI 247) that can take
combine free and instrumental play according to

Games

the to-and-fro in motion to and aiming Keeping a are a sense two in result of which may aspects particular play on each other. On the one contradict each other, but they also depend hand, no game can be purely instrumental without ceasing to be playful different establish
and becoming is an in itself, merely a means to an end. On the other hand, there is an

ratios.

instrumental
and-forth Even to

quality
attempt

to free play itself to the extent

to establish games, on a with however, reply a move and meaning no move a result and has

that each move

decide its meaning entirely can the

back

outcome. intrinsic control: never be

instrumental but game depends begins

it cannot consequences

"every

whose

(FI 261). The element totally foreseen" no move is complete but always depends
not yet reached. "Free play" and

of free play in all games is that on what it is not, a future it has

play" are opposites that

"instrumental

are deeply and profoundly linked to one another. The four categories of games, which Iser borrows
agon, combine alea, mimicry, to make and games ilinx?show more how open-ended free and or

from Roger
instrumental more directed

Caillois?
play may toward

"the endlessness and the finality of play" are finality.5 As Iser explains, "two countervailing tendencies" that can interact differently in (77264) various kinds of games. Although agon (games of contest or struggle) and alea (where chance rules) are both defined by the ends of winning
and against chance, losing, agon, whereas their valence may change in textual games. reduces that seek There the to "alea element control whose alea antithetical explodes" arrangement oppositions plays of or

structure meaning and limit the play of accident (FI 261 ). "If agon aims to overcome the difference that arises out of antagonistically arranged a to it aims into alea rift that it, positions, intensify thereby making cannot be overcome, all play to mere and reducing chance" (FI 261). Textual position
of

games where are countered

conflict

seeks

by strategies

aimed

in the triumph of one resolution at opening up the possibility

If there are already

unforeseeable,

uncontainable

consequences.

elements chance,

of both free and instrumental then the counterflow between

play in games of conflict and of and finality becomes endlessness

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and contradictory when the different kinds of

even more
games

complicated

combine.

toward closure because it mimicry as a game tending of "the difference" between and the (FI 262) copy promotes forgetting the original and opposes disruptions that might undermine the illusion in imitation's of reality. But the element of of free play pursuit verisimilitude is exposed all fixed by ilinx, the game of subverting to induce vertigo. This "carnivalization in order of all the positions Iser describes in the text" (FI262) exposes assembled the boundlessness and of the illusions differ ineradicable multiplicity possible ultimately given ence between the fictive and the real: "Ilinx may therefore be seen as a game in which free play is at its most expansive. But for all its efforts to positions reach beyond
because it can

what
never

is, free play

quite extinguish

remains
the

bound

to what

it overshoots,
and overtones

undercurrents

of instrumental the subversion of roles in the play" (FI 262). Even on interests of opening directed up meaning depends instrumentally ends for it to undermine. Its liberating aims are significant only against the backdrop of the games of finality it undercuts. Free play and instrumental in the intertwined play are inextricably
games texts play as they range between open-endedness and closure.

to Iser, "the text game is one in which and limitation According can be played to an equal degree" endlessness one On the (FI 265). of their must "because be in hand, forms, games limited; inevitably contrast with play, they are designed for endings. The result ends play" text, "the (FI265). Even with the most anarchic, disruptive, open-ended endlessness of play cannot be maintained, since the text itself is limited"
(FI 257). On the other hand, strategic, in contrast and economic to "result-oriented ones, as well especially mathematical, games, as those

and skill, all of which are designed to remove existing play a as can text take the its of opportunities game spaces," multiplication for play, whether each the other" various games it by "play[ing] against includes or by demonstrating that they can be played without end, so that the "game is not ended by itself but by its (77 265, 266). player" some determinate or didactic texts may aim to close off play in Although the interests of the results they desire, to play the games of it is possible even these texts in ways that and for keep open expand their potentiality of chance
meaning. Even the most instrumental text can, because it is a text, be

and purposes it cannot limit as for its observation rather games up games, for example, (offering to their ends, or than submitting oneself them with other engaging of instrumental modes of finality). notions play governed by different all texts have limits because are finite ways Paradoxically, although they of playing particular games, the only ultimate limit on their capacity to

read

in ways

that open

it up

to meanings

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218
mean

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is the resourcefulness and energy of the player (or the history of in their readers) keeping play in motion. of these contradictions, textual games are especially Because illumi models of the and social functions of nating anthropological play. Iser's of not the of is exploration paradoxes play important only as a of the games of texts but also as an explanation clarification of the of play as a particular usefulness the way of deploying power. Both
endless to-and-fro of free play and the result-oriented moves of instru

mental

play instrumental
In aims

entail
contrast and

the use
to always the

of power.
widespread for dominance,

But

play distinguishes
only

helpfully

the opposition of free and between ways power may be

assumption of instrumental that play, the aim

employed. power

contemporary

to achieve victory and end the game by determining with the uses of power for expanding the potential
the to-and-fro motion of free play makes possible.

the result, contrasts for meaning, which

The element of

in instrumental that even the open-endedness potential play suggests use of power a is not monolithic for masterful ends but contains
counter-movement onto which the subversive counterflow of free play

can cathect. The need that free play has for limits and aims offers a of open-ended critique of the dream of innocence play without finality, of instrumental but the disclosure of the playful element games opens that power can be used without the inevitability of up the possibility
coercion or violence.

The mutually
textual games

illuminating
can be seen

interaction
as a model

of free and instrumental

for the ethical use of

play in
power.

ironic about Guided by such an ethics, instrumental play would become its ends by recognizing Such an ethics their limits and contingency. uses of force that the achievement of would also instruct instrumental an to their aims can be ironically self-defeating end the game by putting that had defined them. But such an ethics would also inform free play
that its subversive, anarchic advocacy of an endless to-and-fro is empty

without
expansion

the forms
of free

and aims
play would

that give play meaning.

be countered by an

The will
ironic

to infinite
of its

awareness

the other it opposes. The counterflow of inability to sustain itself without an free and instrumental ethics would aim such have the play informing all the others in the of preventing any one game from dominating the space of play open. It would interests of keeping seek to have rival that their conflicts do not engage each other with the recognition to but can be mutually the will dominance of each frustrate simply on and modes because of play typically depend opposing enhancing an such ethics benefit from one another. The play-space opened up by games would be a democratic community of often incommensurable games

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of interaction is not indifferent tolerance of the other whose principle but ironic and energetic with difference.6 engagement An Iserian ethics of play would but not consensus. seek reciprocity in fictional play. Play is central This can be seen in the role of doubling
to fictionality because, as a structure that doubles worlds, meanings, and

the fictional is characterized forms against one another, by "the coexist ence of the mutually of the exclusive" "coexistence (77 79). This of the fictive world and exclusive" can be seen in the doubling mutually the real (from which in the it selects and combines its materials), of perspectives in a text (which may refuse kaleidoscopic multiplication in the interaction of opposing (which pursue games or in the of the reader's ends), juxtaposition incompatible experiential horizon with the worlds opened up by the text. In each case there is in that meaning between is generated the doubled reciprocity parties not by either pole on its own but by the to-and-fro between them. This not to to need in resolution order be lead The doubling productive. interaction of differences and from the acquires energy playful creativity in a final synthesis. If and when resistance of doubled pairs to coalescing the play of doubling ends. The to-and-fro of play resists unity is achieved, on difference consensus even as to keep it in motion, it depends because so that the back it requires reciprocity the parties it engages between or a lack of response. is not halted by violence and-forth of play suggests that social and linguistic relations can The doubling even if?or be productive do not end in precisely because?they An lesson not of is that need difference issue agreement. important play or violent discord if it can be in either solipsistic disconnection staged as consensus The of shows that is not reciprocal exchange. doubling play or for Prior final not is for necessary reciprocity. agreement required to take if conditions to-and the exchanges meaningful place facilitating can be maintained. fro of play between differences By the same token, an in between need not thwart partners reciprocity opposing exchange their ability to make and invent moves in the games through which they
pursue their interests and aims. Indeed, opposing games often need one

to coalesce),

another more than they realize, and they can find their differences from one another mutually if conditions beneficial of playful doubling allow to occur. The ideal polis of play would be a exchanges meaningful on of difference based nonconsensual The community reciprocity. of would entail the this of ideal. politics play pursuit Such a politics offers an important response to the alternatives widely to the available for addressing the represent thought primary options on of An ideal difference. of based nonconsensual challenges play 'snotion that cultural oppositions constitute reciprocity opposes Habermas

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a condition of fragmentation

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that should be overcome by noncoercive, of Iser's explica the cooperative goal negotiation guided by agreement.7 errs in assuming tion of the values of doubling that Habermas suggests that consensus is an implicit ideal of language that successful communi cative action undistorted may by force aims to bring about. Differences be
on

not
based

the

specialization, Habermas's
cation may the where still "better be

result of but may

a splitting in the interests of off of faculties between games reflect irreconcilable oppositions
rules, assumptions, and aims.

mutually

incompatible

goal of establishing
no force rules But will other its value result valuable. argument"

conditions
than arises from the force not

of undistorted
of the better agreement exchanges because

communi
argument about or even

uncoerced

because
contradiction recognizes). that rule

power

can
in the

ever be banished
formula as an attempt "no

from
force

such

interactions
than ..." of to-and-fro

(as the
implicitly reciprocity of an

other

Rather, out violent

to establish to decide

conditions the

intervention

would facilitate of uncoerced Habermas's model negotiation exchange, a sense of positions in Iser's of ever-renewing doubling play potentially
which resist synthesis or unification. The counterflow of various forms of

to establish and maintain such Iser describes would help play not dream?but force?an by by banishing setting impossible exchanges of power that would assertions between up interactions opposing that
counter interacting an image differences Such the each other's will offers to an dominance. alternative undistorted another. the be notion that the the that to alternative only sublime powers privilege harmony to of A to positions of how communication to engage one play-space the model by violence of of reciprocally consensus enable as

might

a play-space coerciveness of Iser

also opposes consensus must shares Lyotard's

to advocate concern

rule-breaking.8

and agreement their play and

games. Lyotard's "unpresentable"

in a world of heterogeneous language games is to limit to inhibit semantic and the creation of new innovation
endorsement by rebelling of against the "sublime"?the restrictions, defying pursuit norms, of the and

smashing
tions,

the limits of existing

which Iser's

paradigms?is
of play

undermined
recognizes

by contradic
and addresses.

however,

explication

as Lyotard acknowledges, is that it The paradox of the unpresentable, a game of representation. can only be manifested The sublime through If violating in Iser's sense, an instance of doubling. is, consequently,
norms carries creates in new its wake games, the this crossing conventions of and boundaries structures depends it oversteps. on and The

to be bound by sublime may be uncompromising, asocial, and unwilling or system in not order contained but of what is its limits, any pursuit on the forms it opposes. makes it dependent

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THE

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is not only terroristic in the sublime of other games whose rules it declines and self-destructive in its impossible others it the opposes. As a structure of a requires play-space it can interact. Such

of radical presumption to claims the refusing recognize to limit itself by. It is also naive that it can do without imagining the sublime pursuit of doubling, The that includes conditions of other,

the unpresentable less radical games with which

would be provided by the nonconsensual exchange of Iserian play. reciprocity of play offers a way of conceptualizing Iser's notion power which of the force constraints and without necessity disciplinary acknowledges as coercive and them contradic The unequivocally seeing determining. of restriction and openness in how play deploys power tory combination is evident in Iser's analysis of "regulatory" and "aleatory" rules. Even the submit to in regulatory rules, which set down the conditions participants
order to play a game, "permit a certain range of combinations while also

establishing game without

They do

a code

of possible play. . . . Since these rules limit the text but not prescriptive. it, they are regulatory producing
than set the aleatory in motion, and the aleatory rule

no more

differs

from

Submitting itmakes possible certain kinds of interaction ing and enabling because or that the rules cannot completely in advance. Hence prescribe predict the existence of aleatory rules that are not codified as part of the game itself but are the variable customs, procedures, and practices for playing it. Expert facility with aleatory rules marks the difference, for example,
between someone who just knows the rules of a game and another who

the regulatory to the discipline

in that it has no code of its own" (77 273). of regulatory restrictions is both constrain

rules are more flexible and open really knows how to play it. Aleatory to ended and more variation than susceptible regulatory rules, but they
too are characterized by a contradictory combination of constraint and

possibility, As a rule-governed
deploying power

limitation
in a

and unpredictability, and spontaneity. discipline but open-ended for activity, play provides a model
nonrepressive manner that makes creativity and

innovation
them. Not

possible
all power

not
is

in spite of disciplinary
playful, of course, and

constraints
some

but because
are more

of

restrictions

than enabling. But thinking about the power coercive the model of rules governing play helps to explain
restrictions constraints can as be productive structures for rather establishing than a merely play-space

of constraints on the paradox that

repressive. as and Seeing guides for

practices

of exchange it envisions within and power not necessarily as a to force in be resisted the interests of freedom; it allows always for power to become a constructive the potential social imagining
energy that can animate games of to-and-fro exchange between par

ticipants

whose

possibilities

for

self-discovery

and

self-expansion

are

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222
enhanced the other intrinsic played. Iser human

NEW

LITERARY

HISTORY

the one or by the limits shaping their interactions. Whether in of these possibilities situation is not any particular prevails to the structure of power; it depends, rather, on how games are

of his thinking much about literature, play, and to of in his notion Iser, being "staging." According "staging is the to ourselves with which can be confront ourselves, attempt indefatigable : in done only by playing ourselves" literature makes (77 303) "Staging human the extraordinary of conceivable beings, who, precisely plasticity summarizes
they do not seem to have a de terminable nature, can expand

because

almost unlimited range of culture-bound to ourselves of becomes impossibility being present no a to out fullness knows ourselves that bounds. play into
of human nature human allows, through limitless self-cultivation, its multiple literature culture-bound becomes a

an

The patternings. our possibility to ... If the plasticity

panorama patternings, of what

is possible" (77297). much in the content for observation

in ever-changing

ultimate political value of literature lies not so as in its laying bare of any particular representation to stage itself and analysis the power of human plasticity The
cultural forms. As a demonstration of how play can

forms of life, exclusive of mutually the productive doubling a the for how offers differences model also through which can If interact. human plasticity stages itself "only by being beneficially can human beings be linked with" one another (77 303), then staged a life form of is particularly political playful nonconsensual reciprocity to enacting Iserian play conducive socially useful relations of difference. human it would because allow decentered has political implications facilitate literature
beings scopic produce world. social to and exchange versions of themselves in a kaleido

State

University

of New

York

at Stony

Brook

NOTES
1 Because the evidence the being of human by being provided through characterizing is a better description of his project is Iser's ultimate aim, "anthropology" or "sociology" would be. In the lexicon of phenomenology, "anthropology" historical its concrete, to understand to the attempt human by examining being

fiction-making than "politics" refers particularity direct route

or metaphysical as opposed to ontological try to take a more inquiries which of the model to being. My aim in this essay is to show the political implications Iser's anthropologically from that emerges and cultural of human being production in the tradition of the great intellectual As a German motivated analysis of fiction-making. and existen Iser is primarily with making concerned epistemological phenomenologists, tial claims. these claims As an American can contribute thinkers have I am interested in how in the late twentieth century, pluralist of democracy that recent to the r??valuation of the meaning of postmodernism and in light of the challenges undertaken

neoliberal

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THE POLITICS OF PLAY 223

multiculturalism. dimension, me make reconfiguring 2 Wolfgang Although the differences inclined an a to have expect anthropology political Iser's defining intellectual traditions and my own may to bring to the fore the implications of his for thought would one

between

more

and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology (Baltimore, cited in text as 77. 1993), p. xv; hereafter "Soziale Rolle 3 Helmuth und menschliche Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Natur," Plessner, et al. (Frankfurt, tr. in Iser, The Fictive and the G?nter Dux 10:235, 1985), qtd. and Imaginary, p. 80. 4 2nd 5 6 7 tr. Joel Weinsheimer Truth and Method, Gadamer, Hans-Georg ed. (New York, 1989), p. 103, qtd. in Iser, The Fictive and See Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, tr. Meyer Barash and Donald G. Marshall, the Imaginary, p. 237. 111., 1958). (Glencoe, 13.1 (Winter 1991), 157-71.

democracy. Iser, The Fictive

See my essay "Play and Cultural Differences," KenyonReview, in The Anti-Aesthetic, See J?rgen Habermas, ed. "Modernity?An Incomplete Project" Hal Foster Wash., 1985), pp. 3-15; The Philosophical Discourse (Port Townsend, ofModernity, tr. Frederick Lawrence Mass., 1987); and The Theory of Communicative Action, (Cambridge, 1: Reason and theRationalization (Boston, 1984). Also of Society, tr. Thomas McCarthy see my analysis of Habermas in "The Politics of Reading," Culture and the Imagination, ed. Heide 1995), pp. 117-45. Ziegler (Stuttgart, See Jean-Fran?ois 8 the Question: is Postmodernism?" What essay "Answering Lyotard's as well as the it is collected, in his The Postmodern Condition: A with which monograph Report Volume essay on Knowledge, tr. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi 1984). (Minneapolis, "The Politics of Reading" for an elaboration of this analysis of Lyotard. Also see my

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