ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: PLAY STUDIES: INTEGRATING DRAMA, GAMES, AND LUDI FROM THE MEDIEVAL TO THE DIGITAL AGE Nathan Kelber, Doctor of Philosophy, 2017 Dissertation directed by: Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum, English Professor Theodore Leinwand, English At first glance, the fact that the English word for drama is “play” must strike the modern reader as odd. Playing is usually an activity we associate with games (or musical instruments), yet this odd linguistic trace is a forgotten marker of how far the modern sense of drama has strayed from its antecedents. This dissertation recovers the historical relationship of drama, play, and games, developing a shared discourse under the rubric of “play studies.” Play is defined in two complementary phenomenological frameworks, methexis and mimesis, to enable scholarship that transcends historical, cultural, and material boundaries. The first chapter engages the linguistic confusion surrounding late medieval drama (with examples from Mankind, cycle plays, and Fulgens and Lucres) and medieval games (The Game and Playe of the Chesse, The Book of Games), arguing that the medieval English view of play can help correct and complicate modern game scholarship. The second chapter takes up this medieval perspective of play-as-methexis and demonstrates its applicability to digital media of the late 20th century with examples from video games like Tetris and Dragon’s Lair. Along the way, this chapter also makes ontological arguments in relation to early computer history, software studies, and media archaeology, advocating that a fuller understanding of games depends on the willingness of humanities scholars to build, hack, and play with media using methods normally reserved for artists and scientists. The final chapter considers the lasting legacy of the medieval play-as-game, particularly how the development of English drama is indebted to the theater buildings that created a space for the sustained collaboration of players with a variety of skills. The final section considers the current state of Shakespeare-as-play, including 21st-century productions, digital video games, and board games. PLAY STUDIES: INTEGRATING DRAMA, GAMES, AND LUDI FROM THE MEDIEVAL TO THE DIGITAL AGE by Nathan Kelber Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Advisory Committee: Professor Matthew Kirschenbaum, Co-Chair Professor Theodore Leinwand, Co-Chair Professor Theresa Coletti Associate Professor Jason Farman Assistant Professor Scott Trudell © Copyright by Nathan Kelber 2017 Dedication To my family, whose unwavering support gave me the freedom (and privilege) to finish this work. ii Acknowledgements It is a stroke of luck to have a great dissertation advisor. I was blessed with two: Matthew Kirschenbaum and Theodore Leinwand. Matt’s Mechanisms was the inspiration for the second chapter and the very reason I decided to study at the University of Maryland. His expertise in media archaeology and game studies made my dissertation much richer. I am also indebted to Matt for welcoming me into the digital humanities community, especially through the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Ted has (mostly) patiently read nearly every word I have written on play and games in the last five years. No one has read more of my writing—and I suspect no one ever will. I chose Ted for his wide-ranging expertise in Shakespeare and early modern drama. What an incredible stroke of luck then to discover an advisor who could help me push my writing craft farther than I ever thought possible. This dissertation is also indebted to many scholars who read drafts and shared their own works-in-progress. Theresa Coletti read drafts of the first chapter, making recommendations that led my research in new and vital directions. Ian Bogost, whose Persuasive Games and Alien Phenomenology were key inspirations, sent me a video of his I am TIA project for the second chapter. Tom Bishop and Gina Bloom read an early draft of chapter one at the Shakespeare Association of America. Gina supplied footage of her Play the Knave project for chapter three. My science colleagues at Lawrence Technological University, Hsiao-Ping Moore and Yawen Li, taught me to use confocal and electron microscopes that led to key images for chapter two. I also owe a special thank you to Melinda Weinstein and Lior Shamir of Lawrence iii Technological University, precious colleagues who share a love of knowledge that exceeds all disciplinary boundaries. The process of writing a dissertation is a long journey but I did not take it alone. The other English graduate students at the University of Maryland were an incredible source of support, especially Ted Kaouk (who got me into Heidegger), Maggie Ray (who demonstrated the dedication I needed to persevere), Porter Olsen (who inspired me to think more deeply about digital cultural criticism), Jasmine Lellock (whose inquisitive fortitude I could only hope to model), Andy Black (whose wisecracks kept me grounded), and Rob Wakeman (who listened to all my deepest and most half-baked thoughts about most anything). Additionally, I want to thank the academic rebels and miscreants at BABEL for encouraging me to pursue bold scholarship (and presenting me with a significant grant to present my work). Thank you to Eileen Joy, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Brian Upton, and Elizabeth Upton for being disruptively weird with me. Lastly, thank you to Craig Dionne and Christine Neufeld, my undergraduate professors who never stopped supporting my work, and I am now honored to call my colleagues. iv Table of Contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... v List of Figures .............................................................................................................. vi Introduction ................................................................................................................. vii Medieval Play Studies: Early English Drama, Ludi, and Games ................................. 1 Medieval Games: The Origins of English Theater ................................................... 6 The Theater of Becoming: Mankind and Fulgens and Lucres ................................ 20 Play Studies and Object-Oriented Ontology ........................................................... 39 Objects of Play: Media and Methexis in the 20th Century .......................................... 56 The Virtual Fallacy: How We Forgot that Software is Material ............................ 60 The Stuff Games are Made Of: Nintendo 10NES Under the Microscope .............. 60 The Digital Fallacy: Video Games are not Digital because Reality is not Analog . 91 The Video Game in Analog Terms: Dragon’s Lair .............................................. 101 The Phenomenology of Play: Why Video Games are More than Coded Media .. 105 Alien Phenomenology, Critical Making, and the Ontography of Space Time ..... 113 Theater Games: Playing with Shakespeare in the Past and Present.......................... 127 The Shakespeare Game: Processing and Remediating Shakespeare in the 21st Century .................................................................................................................. 163 Appendix: Key Moments in the Ontograph of Space Time ...................................... 196 Powering Space Time, Coining, and Starting a Game ...................................... 200 Ball 1 ................................................................................................................. 202 Ball 2 ................................................................................................................. 205 Ball 3 ................................................................................................................. 207 Ball 4 ................................................................................................................. 208 Ball 5 ................................................................................................................. 209 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 211 v List of Figures Figure 1: The Egg Dance (1552) Pieter Aertsen ......................................................54 Figure 2: Mapping the Republic of Letters Project .................................................58 Figure 3: Consoles of Nintendo Donkey Kong ........................................................75 Figure 4: Cartridges of Nintendo Donkey Kong .....................................................75 Figure 5: U.S. Patent for the 10NES Program ........................................................77 Figure 6: The CIC Chip and Super Mario Bros .....................................................79 Figure 7: Microscopic View of Nintendo Chip 3193A ............................................80 Figure 8: MIT Tetris .................................................................................................84 Figure 9: Analog Signal Wave ..................................................................................93