ABSTRACT
In the conclusion of Chapter 6, I state that what I am calling a hexis of enchantment involves tracing the aleatory agency of nonhuman actors in mundane texts, like a videogame’s code. I note that one additional strategy for exploring this withdrawn agency lies in Bogost’s heuretic notion of carpentry. With carpentry, videogames do not attempt to make a persuasive argument to change an audience’s mind about a political topic. Rather, designers and players use videogames to simulate the absence of human agency or representational ability within a videogame, such as Ben Fry’s Deconstructulator. In the final case study of Procedural Habits, I want to make a more specific appeal for how carpentry in relationship to a hexis of enchantment and procedural habits can form part of the ways in which writing teachers seek to incorporate videogames into various writing classrooms.
