Abstract
The phenomenon of play is evaluated as key theme in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, where self-referential paradox is used as a passage way into play, game, and ritual. Hermes as hybrid, semi-divine God, embodies the metamessage ‘this is play,’ incessantly capitalizing on the chaotic ambiguity and generative power of play and paradox. Designing a sequence of paradoxes, Hermes moves processually along paradoxical contiunua to create a ‘play reality,’ trapping his opponents in a world of illusion, ‘magic,’ and movement and utlilizing the trajectory of his new creations to propel himself along the larger continuum of his own essential hybridity.
About the author
Carol A. Kidron (b. 1960) is a Post-doc Fellow in the Social Science of Medicine and Division of Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University, Halbert Fellow at the University of Toronto, and Morris Ginsberg Fellow at Hebrew University 〈Kdcarol@mscc.huji.ac.il〉. Her research interests include collective memory, traumatic memory, symbolic anthropology, and identity constitution. Her major publications include ‘Surviving a distant past: A case study of the cultural construction of trauma descendant identity’ (2003).
© Walter de Gruyter
