Call for Papers:
Videogame Theory
A special issue of Media Theory
https://mediatheoryjournal.org/cfp-videogame-theory/
Deadline for submission of abstracts and bio statements: February 1, 2025
Media Theory is an independent (scholar-led), online and (libre) open access journal of peer-reviewed, theoretical interventions into all aspects of media and communications.
This special issue will commission articles on videogame theory from scholars in the humanities and social sciences, especially those working in the field of videogame studies.
Videogame scholars have drawn on a range of theories to analyse and interpret the medium, including affect theory (Anable 2018), queer theory (Ruberg 2019), visual theory and critical race theory (Murray 2018), and postcolonial theory (Mukherjee 2017). Yet, while a range of theories have been used to gain insight into videogames, videogames are themselves rarely used to gain insight into theory. Unlike film and literature, for example, videogames are not typically mobilized to give voice to theoretical insights that theorists have not yet articulated for themselves. While exceptions exist, like McKenzie Wark’s (2007) Gamer Theory, such experiments are rare.
The articles commissioned for this special issue will not simply apply theory to the study of videogames or recapitulate key theories in videogame studies, but explore how and to what extent videogames prompt us to theorize anew. Rather than revising the formalist debates associated with the field’s formative years, articles will utilize videogames to make contributions to broader theoretical conversations in media and cultural studies and/or critical and continental thought.
Prospective authors are invited to address how videogame studies can disrupt or reshape critical approaches to media and cultural theories. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
- Theories of play
- Theories of subjectivity
- Theories of affect and the body
- Theories of posthumanism
- Theories of technology and materiality
- Theories of platforms and monetisation
- Theories of simulation and speculation
- Media and screen theory
- Marxism and psychoanalysis
- Critical race theory
- Critical disability theory
- Postcolonial theory
- Feminist theory
- Queer theory
- Genealogies of videogame theory
- The political potential of videogame theory
We encourage submissions from authors writing from global majority contexts and submissions on ability/disability.
SUBMISSION INFORMATION
Guest Editors include Benjamin Nicoll (Queensland University of Technology), Aleena Chia (Goldsmiths, University of London), Braxton Soderman (University of California, Irvine)
Please submit a 500-word abstract and a 150-word bio to all guest editors: b2.nicoll@qut.edu.au, a.chia@gold.ac.uk and asoderma@uci.edu by 1 February 2025. Contact the guest editors with any questions.
Notification of abstract acceptance: March 2025
Submission of manuscript: 15 August 2025
A selection of authors will be invited to submit a full paper. Please note that acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee publication, given that all papers will be put through the journal’s peer review process.
REFERENCES
Anable, Aubrey. 2018. Playing With Feelings: Video Games and Affect. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.
Mukherjee, Souvik. 2017. Videogames and postcolonialism: Empire plays back. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Murray, Soraya. 2018. On Video Games: The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space. New York: Bloomsbury.
Ruberg, Bo. 2019. Video Games Have Always Been Queer. New York: NYU Press.
Wark, McKenzie. 2007. Gamer Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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