UC Riverside

This project interrogates metalepsis as a practice of playful worldmaking. Working across a variety of mediums, I explore how ludic metalepsis—narrative acts that create a space for reader, text, and author to engage in play—question readerly subjectivity through textual interactions. Theorists like Espen Aarseth, Jesper Juul, Nick Montfort, and Astrid Ensslin all wrestle with tying interactivity to media and narrative. Across these scholars, there is a consistent trend of using “play” and “game” language without fully exploring the ramifications of applying theories of play to might bring to bear to understandings of interacting and even reading texts. I contend that overlooking these ludic elements forecloses potential theories on what play offers to questions of textual engagement, readership, narrativity, and even genre. Through graphic novels, visual novels, games, and social media spaces, I examine aspects of ludic metalepsis in acts of world-breaking and -making and reframe readerly subjectivity through a lens that acknowledges the reflexive play found in imaginative acts.