[Xmca-l] Re: Play and symbolic thought --

[White, Phillip]

Beth, last week, reading Albert Murray's "The Omni-Americans: Black experience & American culture", i came across a reference to Johan Huizinga, a dutch socio-cultural theorist (he died in 1945 under Nazi detention) who wrote "Homo Ludens" (1938) where he discussed the possibility that play is the primary formative element in human culture.  this may be a seminal piece of theorizing on the cultural role of play, though different from Gregory Bateson's work on play.


phillip