But First, Let’s Jam - A New Materialist Twist on the Ontology of Play

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Mabel

Explores jamming as creative play through a new materialist lens, treating the jam session as a transformative event that enables genuine intrasubjective dialogue. The analysis draws on Karen Barad’s agential realism and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ethics of play to frame jamming as an ethico-socio-political practice. It argues that the jam supports communal creation-centered existence while fostering learning responsibility, “response-ability,” and accountability, grounded in shared agency and relational ontology.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time32 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Relational-ontological view of play

Creative play definitions and criteria

Play motives and noncompetitiveness

The role of the “other” in play

But First, Let’s Jam A New Materialist Twist on the Ontology of Play • Loretta Fois The author follows a new materialist approach to consider the informal and collaborative creative gathering called jamming as creative play, and she makes a case for the jam as a transformative event of genuine intrasubjective dialogue. She uses Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ethics of play to argue for the jam as an ethico-socio-political event that supports the communal and creation-centered aspects of our collective existence and offers an opportunity for learning responsibility (or“response-ability,” as Karen Barad calls it) and accountability. She concludes that jamming, like creative play, offers the kind of cooperative underpinnings essential to our relational and ontological makeup. Key words: agential realism; Hans-Georg Gadamer; jam session; Karen Barad; play as an ethical, social, and political activity; shared agency Introduction Man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays. —Friedrich Schiller If play, as Schiller writes, is essential to the human condition, how can it move us toward a more profound interconnectedness with self, others, and the environment? Is play a personal experience, or is it inclusive, reminding us that existence is not an individual condition? Is there something created amid play that provides a sense of meaning? Viewed through a relational-ontological lens, creative play can encourage an ethical response to the world and its inhabitants. However, it is more than that.“Play,” according to Eugen Fink,“is always a confrontation with Being. In the plaything, the whole is concentrated in a single object. Each game is an 233 American Journal of Play, Volume 14, number 3 © 2022 by The Strong Contact Loretta Fois at [lfois@raritanval.edu](lfois@raritanval.edu) attempt at existence, a vital experiment that encounters in the plaything the essence of unyielding reality”(Fink, Saine, and Saine 1968, 23) . In a culture that strongly embraces autonomy and largely views existence through a humanistic lens, a deeper understanding of the impact of creative play helps further the importance of collaboration and the shared conditions of the material-discursive spaces of the world. Brian Sutton-Smith asserts that play is a genetic gift, an evolutionary task with an experiential reality at its roots. He argues that “play’s positive pleasure typically transfers to our feelings about the rest of our everyday existence and makes it possible to live more fully in the world, no matter how boring or painful or even dangerous ordinary reality might seem . . . in this way play genetically refreshes or fructifies our other, more general, being”(Sutton-Smith 2008, 97) . In this article, I investigate a new materialist approach to jamming by diffractively reading the work of Karen Barad through Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ethics of play. I conclude that the jam is an ethico-socio-political event of genuine intrasubjective dialogue that supports the communal aspects of our collective existence and offers an opportunity for learning responsibility (or “responseability,” as Barad writes) and accountability. The term “play” has various broad definitions. Sutton-Smith’s genetic gift offers a buttress against life’s challenges, exercising “physical or mental or social adaptations that translate—directly or indirectly—into ordinary life adjustments”(Sutton-Smith 2008, 118) . Play can be a type of preparation for adulthood (Dewey), an expression of exuberant energy (Schiller), a means of social and intellectual development (Piaget, Vygotsky), or a recapitulation of ancestral activities (Hegel, Ziller, Hall). Gordon Burghardt (2011) characterized play with the following five criteria; play is not fully functional in the form or context in which it is expressed; it is spontaneous, pleasurable, and voluntary; it is incom

FAQs

What approach does the author use to analyze jamming?

The author investigates jamming via a new materialist approach, diffractively reading Karen Barad through Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ethics of play.

Why does the author treat the jam as more than leisure?

The jam is presented as an ethico-socio-political event that enables genuine intrasubjective dialogue and strengthens communal, creation-centered aspects of collective existence.

How is “creative play” defined in relation to competition?

Using Burghardt’s criteria and the discussion of play motives, the author defines creative play as noncompetitive, emphasizing creating rather than winning.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Mabel