ABSTRACT
If the old dichotomies dividing play from work, seriousness, and ritual are too rigid and/or culture-bound; if the classic distinction fencing child play off from adult play is improper; if play need be neither voluntary nor fun; if both flow and reflexivity characterize play; if ethological and semiotic studies asserting that play’s functions are learning, exploration, creativity, and communication are really as much about nonplay activities as about play; if psychoanalytic studies linking play with the expression and reduction of anxiety and aggression are also as much about nonplay as about play; if the negotiated time/space between infant and parent is not the foundation of child and adult play activities, including art and religion; if play is not always transitional or liminal or liminoid; if all definitions of play are “ideologies”—cultural projections and impositions-how can we talk about whatever there is to talk about?
