44 DELIBERATELY FALLING THROUGH A CODED RABBIT HOLE: A SOCIOCULTURAL WRITTEN “LET‟S PLAY” OF AMERICAN MCGEE’S ALICE Dominique Angela M. Juntado Doctoral Candidate in Social & Cultural Anthropology University of the Philippines Diliman dmjuntado@gmail.com ABSTRACT Based on an in-class gameplay lecture series conducted by the author during the quarter terms she has taught in Mapua Institute of Technology (Intramuros) in years 2009 and 2010, the article is a conversion of her academic surmises on American Mcgee‟s PC game inspired by Lewis Carrol‟s Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass into print. This written version includes an expansion to the lecture series which involves the addition of more levels and the inspection of game data. The heart of the discourse covers how the game can be played using a social scientific gaze, from appreciation of game data to select in-depth level analysis. The article then concludes with some final remarks regarding the gameplay narrative as well as recommendations for those intending to carry out future related studies. Keywords: American James Mcgee, Alice in Wonderland, We‟re All Mad Here, SS11, PSY10, Mapua Intramuros, Juntado-ism, EA Games, Wicked Disney, Rogue Entertainment, Cheshire Cat, Steampunk, Throwback for Videogames, Beware of spoilers [I.PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS] One true description of „the Classic‟ is its ability to withstand the test of time. Young students are versed with this premise, and some have noticeably been satisfied with a familiarity of this truth on its own; they have yet to interrogate what it is that they know. How can a classic work withstand the test of time? What does the present epoch require for a classic to speak to, and most critically to, the youth of today? Alice Liddell would answer „technological entertainment‟. Indeed, Lewis Carroll‟s twin „Alice‟ novels have been easily lended and even readily so to numerous types of symbolic interpretation [Gardiner: 2000]. On occasions, passages from these books become devices introducing discourses by logicians, scientists, philosophers, as well as theologians; and they are also employable as available founts of allusion on public and household occasions [Kiebel 1974: 605]. It is as if saying that scholars have nearly pulverised the work from the conduct of so much hermeneutic inspection and exercises