Call: Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice at Southwest Popular/American Culture Association conference

Call for Papers: Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area
36th Annual Southwest Popular / American Culture Association Conference

February 11-14, 2015
Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center
Albuquerque, NM

http://www.southwestpca.org

The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area welcomes papers, panels, and other proposals on games (digital and otherwise) and their study and development. The Area is also offering a three hour workshop titled “Empathy Game Design: A Quick Introduction” on the first day of the conference.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

Possible topics include (but are in no way limited to):

  • Advertising (both in-game and out)
  • Alternative reality games
  • Archiving and artifactual preservation
  • Competitive/clan gaming
  • Design and development
  • Economic and industrial histories and studies
  • Educational games and their pedagogies
  • Foreign language games and culture
  • Game art/game-based art (including game sound)
  • Haptics and interface studies
  • Histories of games
  • Localization
  • Machinima
  • MOGs, MMOGs, and other forms of online/networked gaming
  • Performance
  • Pornographic games
  • Religion and games
  • Representations of race and gender
  • Representations of space and place
  • The rhetoric of games and game systems
  • Serious games
  • Strategy games
  • Table-top games and gaming
  • Technological, aesthetic, economic, and ideological convergence
  • Theories of play
  • Wireless and mobile gaming

For paper proposals: Please submit a 250 word abstract and brief biographical sketch to the conference event management site:  http://conference2014.southwestpca.org/. Make sure to select the Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice topic area. The submission deadline is 11/1/2014.

For panel and other proposals: Feel free to query the Area Chair first (Judd Ruggill, Arizona State University, jruggill@asu.edu). Panel and other proposals should also be submitted to the conference event management site and include the information requested for individual paper proposals (each on a separate submission form), as well as a 100-word statement of the panel’s raison d’etre and any noteworthy organizational features.

As always, proposals are welcome from any and all scholars (including graduate students, independent scholars, and tenured, tenure-track, and emeritus faculty) and practitioners (developers, artists, archivists, and so forth). Also, unusual formats, technologies, and the like are encouraged.

AWARD

Graduate students accepted to present in this area may apply for the conference’s monetary Computer Culture and Game Studies Award. The full paper is due to the judges on 12/15/2014. For details on this award and the conference’s other awards for graduate students, see http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/.

WORKSHOP

The Area Research Coordinator is pleased to announce this year’s Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice workshop, “Empathy Game Design: A Quick Introduction.” The workshop will be led by Carly Kocurek (Illinois Institute of Technology). Participants will explore the emerging genre of empathy games, which includes titles such as Depression QuestSpentThat DragonCancer, and dys4ia, and work collaboratively to conceptualize games of their own. No technical knowledge or prior experience is necessary.

The workshop is limited to 10 participants, and the goal is for participants to leave with a game concept and list of potential development tools. The limited number of participants will ensure that everyone involved will get the time and attention they need. If you would like to enroll in the workshop, please email a 100-250 word statement of interest to the Area Research Coordinator (Jennifer deWinter at jdewinter@wpi.edu) and Carly Kocurek (ckocurek@iit.edu). Nota bene: There is no charge for the workshop (for registered conference presenters/attendees).

The submission deadline is 1/15/15.

COLLABORATION & PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES

The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area is international in scope and emphasizes diversity, an openness to innovative approaches and presentations, and the energetic practice of post-conference collaboration and publication.

The Area Research Coordinator would like to note the following publication opportunities for this year’s participants:

1) The SWPACA’s peer-reviewed journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, welcomes submissions. Please visit http://journaldialogue.org for information on the journal and submission process.

2) As an official affiliate of the SWPACA, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture always welcomes papers, especially from new scholars and from emerging disciplines. For more information about the journal, visit http://reconstruction.eserver.org/.

For more information about these opportunities, or to discuss others, please email the Area Research Coordinator (Jennifer deWinter, jdewinter@wpi.edu).

Cheers,

Judd Ruggill, Area Chair
Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice
jruggill@asu.edu
http://southwestpca.org/

Jennifer deWinter, Research Coordinator
Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice
jdewinter@wpi.edu
http://southwestpca.org/

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