Call for Papers
CEEGS 2022: Ludic Realities
Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference (CEEGS)
October 13-15, 2022
Tallinn University, Estonia [see NOTE below]
https://web.htk.tlu.ee/ceegs2022/
Submission deadlines:
Abstracts: June 10, 2022
Workshop proposals: June 20, 2022
After two consecutive postponements in 2020 and 2021, the Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference (CEEGS) is back this year and will take place in Tallinn, Estonia.
The binary opposition between games and reality, between the playful and the serious, is a concept present in many cultures and deeply ingrained in the Western popular imaginary. And yet, the assumption that games are “not serious” and that play is clearly separable from “real life” risks obscuring the complex and often ambiguous interconnections between play and other spheres of life.
Some of these interconnections have come to the fore due the manifold crises faced by humanity in recent years. Videogames such as Animal Crossing became spaces for social interaction for many people deprived of it during COVID-19 lockdowns, helping them cope with anxiety and loneliness. Political activists across the globe—from Hong Kong to Belarus—have used self-made games as a medium to promote their causes and fight for democracy. At the same time, games have become powerful propaganda tools, not just in terms of how they represent history, but also as a way to spread misinformation, such as when videogame footage has been used in Russian propaganda videos purporting to show real battle footage from Ukraine.
It is perhaps more than coincidental that many of the recent crises have prominently affected Eastern Europe—a region that, much like play itself, has often been a liminal, ambiguous, contested space. Following two consecutive, COVID-induced postponements, this year’s Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference invites participants from the region and beyond to reflect on games’ interactions with other social phenomena and the “ludic realities” lying at the intersection of games and other domains of life. More broadly, the conference is open to all research into digital and non-digital games, their players, histories, and underlying sociocultural contexts. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Rhetoric, ideology, and ethics in games
- Histories and sociocultural contexts of (non-)digital play
- Educational games, serious games, and games for change
- Game ontologies and games’ formal aspects
- Players, their communities, discourses, and shared practices of play
- Psychology of play and psychological aspects of game design
- Games’ artistic, narrative, and transmedial dimensions
- Production practices in the game industry and beyond
- Formal approaches to game design and teaching it
- Game platforms and the materiality of play
- Intercultural aspects of gaming
SUBMISSIONS
Please submit abstracts of 400–600 words no later than June 10. All submissions must include a list of references, which should only feature works directly cited in the abstract. The reference list does not count towards the word limit.
All submissions will undergo a process of blind peer review. As such, abstracts must not contain any information revealing the identity of the author, such as explicit references to one’s own publications (indirect self-citing is allowed). Please note that abstracts containing such information or the name of the author will automatically be rejected.
To help us assign reviewers, each abstract needs to be submitted to one of the following tracks:
- Theory: humanities-informed inquiries on the general nature of digital and non-digital games.
- History: analyses of games and play practices from a historical perspective.
- Interpretation and Criticism: in-depth analyses of particular game titles.
- Player Studies: ethnographic, sociological, and psychological research on player practices, communities and cultures.
- Game Design and Production Studies: research on game design, production, and industry.
Note that the track division only applies to the review process. When putting together the conference program, abstracts will be grouped based on their topics.
Papers can be co-authored, but we only accept individual papers (no posters or preconstituted panels). Each participant may present no more than one paper as the first author, and an additional one as a co-author, assuming that the first author is also involved in the presentation of the additional paper. If an author submits several papers and more than one is accepted, they will be asked to choose which one to present. Participation in workshops and the doctoral consortium does not count towards this limit.
Each presentation should be about 20 minutes long and will be followed by a brief discussion.
Please submit your paper via EasyChair. If you have any questions about the submission and review process, please email the organizers at ceegs@tlu.ee.
WORKSHOPS
CEEGS has a tradition of hosting inspiring thematic workshops, meant mainly to present and discuss work in progress. Workshops will take place on the first day of the conference. Workshops should be open for submission (rather than preconstituted), and the conveners are responsible for the selection process. For a better idea of the range of themes addressed by CEEGS workshops in the past, you can consult the list of workshops held as part of CEEGS 2019 and CEEGS 2018.
If you wish to propose a workshop, please send a short overview of its focus and scope to the Organizing Committee at ceegs@tlu.ee no later than June 20, 2020.
NOTE: Following two years of virtual events and the resuting “Zoom fatigue,” we are committed to having CEEGS 2022 as an on-site, face-to-face event in Tallinn. At the moment, the organizing committee is not considering a remote participation option. This is both due to the technical complexity of combining online with on-site participation and because we are looking forward to the event being a space for networking, catching up, and other forms of social interaction that the pandemic has severely curtailed.
Further practical information, including related to registration, will be available soon. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us at ceegs@tlu.ee with any queries.