[ecrea] cfp: Central and Eastern European Game Studies Conference 2016

CALL FOR PAPERS
CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN GAME STUDIES CONFERENCE 2016
LUBLIN, POLAND, OCTOBER 20-22
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About the conference

CEEGS 2016 aims to integrate the community of Central and Eastern
European game scholars and professionals and serve as a platform for
academic exchange and networking. The conference is a continuation of
the events hosted by the Masaryk University in Brno in 2014 and the
Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 2015, and aims to establish a
platform for games studies scholars from and beyond the region and
facilitate the emergence of a unique perspective into the international
arena of game studies.

Theme and Scope: Ludic Rhizomes

Much of the recent history of game studies, both in Central/Eastern
Europe and elsewhere, has been invested in the construction of the
field’s unique identity that sharply distinguishes it from other
disciplines. Between the narratology/ludology wars of the early 21st
century, the debates of the artistic status of the medium, and the
predictions of cultural dominance in the years to come, game critics
have devoted an extraordinary amount of discursive energy to firmly
establishing the singularity of their medium, often with fervency that
is both understandable given the relative youthfulness of the medium and
autarkic in its overprotectiveness against incursions by scholars from
other fields.

But now, the number of dedicated academic journals can already be
counted in tens; the number of book volumes and conferences in hundreds;
and the number of articles and reviews in thousands. The field has
several vibrant academic associations and communities, boasts numerous
links with the industry whose sales revenues rival Hollywood’s box
office, and has been officially canonized in academia following the
creation of degree and research programs at numerous universities in
Asia, Europe, and North America. In fact, critics have started to
emphasize the influence games have had on other media, such as film and
television, while popularisers like Jane McGonigal have been preaching
the gospel of universal gamification. It is now safe to open the gates
and start trading again – the conference co-hosted by the
auspiciously-named Centre for the Meeting of Cultures is an apt
opportunity for this.

For this year’s conference, we are thus primarily interested in
rediscovering older and forging new links with other disciplines, media,
cultural forms, and practices. We invite participants to address how
approaches, theories, and concepts borrowed from other frameworks and
apparatuses can be applied to and in the study of games; to seek new
bridges between games and other cultural forms and practices; and to
reflect how game theories can reinvigorate discussions of film or
literature. While we do not wish to re-tread the well-blazed paths of
games’ connectivity to other forms and conceptions of play or reiterate
the usefulness of traditional literary theories in interpreting some
game narratives, we also believe that there are numerous intersections
between the gaming medium and other cultural domains that have thus far
received little or no critical attention.

Possible topics and angles include but are not limited to:

-bridges between the study of games and literary studies, visual
studies, and media studies (film studies, television studies, etc.);
-transactions between game studies and art history;
-game archaeology and the medium’s roots in earlier media;
-narrative, philosophical, and aesthetic theories that have not been
applied to games in any systematic manner;
-not-games, game-like constructs, and border texts that defy traditional
game definitions;
-inspirations, influences, and borrowings, both thematic and formal,
from other -cultural forms and practices;
-diversity of gaming communities, cultures, practices, and histories;
-relationships between game genres and traditional genre systems;
-bridges between games and previously unexplored or largely unexplored
media and practices, such as photography, radio, or theater and ballet;
-two-way transactions between games and the world of advertising and
marketing;
transmedia texts in which games constitute integral (not passively
adaptive) elements;
-avant-garde, art, and museum games;
-the ways in which game theories can reinvigorate the experience and
study of other cultural forms and practices;
-game histories and their similarities to and differences from histories
of other media;
-critiquing and teaching strategies borrowed from other fields.

We encourage applicants to fit their own research approaches and
interests into the proposed framework but are also open to all kinds and
shapes of game studies papers. We welcome submissions from game
scholars, educators, students, and creators.

Please note that abstracts and workshops are not limited to the Central
and Eastern European themes and topics.

Submissions

Submissions for CEEGS 2016 should be submitted as abstracts of around
500 words (400 words minimum and 600 words maximum). Each submission
needs to be accompanied by a list of references, which do not count
towards the word limit.

Each paper presentation will be about 20 minutes long, followed by a
discussion. Papers can be co-authored. We only accept individual papers;
no posters or discussion panels are accepted. We do not accept complete
panel proposals, either, but each submission may indicate suggested
grouping with other abstracts in order to form a panel, and we will try
to accommodate them. There are no limitations on the number of abstracts
one can submit, but a maximum of one individually written paper and a
maximum of two total papers per author can be accepted. This means that
the maximum contribution of one participant is either co-authorship on
two papers, or sole authorship of one paper and co-authorship on another
one.

We welcome suggestions for workshops or special events. If you would
like to offer one, please contact us directly by email.

All abstracts will undergo a process of blind peer review. For this
reason, the abstracts cannot contain any information allowing for
identification of the author (for example references to their own
publications or conference papers). Please note that abstracts
containing the name of the author will be automatically rejected, so
make sure sensitive information is removed from the text.

Abstracts should be submitted by May 31 2016 23:59pm GMT via EasyChair
website of the conference -
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ceegs2016.

If you are having troubles submitting your abstract through EasyChair,
or if you have any questions about the submission and review process,
please email the Program Committee at (ceegs2016 /at/ easychair.org)
<mailto:(ceegs2016 /at/ easychair.org)>.

Important dates

submission deadline: May 31, 2016
notification to authors: August 2, 2016
registration deadline: October 1, 2016
conference: October 20–22, 2016

Program Committee

Jaroslav Švelch, Charles University in Prague (chair);
Hans-Joachim Backe, IT University of Copenhagen;
Radosław Bomba, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University;
Martin Buchtík, Czech Academy of Sciences;
Gordon Calleja, University of Malta;
Paweł Grabarczyk, University of Łódź;
Kristine Jørgensen, University of Bergen;
Bjarke Liboriussen, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China;
Jakub Macek, Masaryk University in Brno;
Jan Miškov, Masaryk University in Brno;
Torill Elvira Mortensen, IT University of Copenhagen;
Bernard Perron, Université de Montréal;
Paweł Schreiber, Kazimierz Wielki University;
Piotr Sitarski, University of Łódź.

Additional reviewers may be appointed by the members of the Program
Committee.

Conference Fee: 25 €

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jaroslav Švelch, Ph.D.
New media and digital games researcher (http://svelch.com)
Member of the PolCoRe research group (www.polcore.cz
<http://www.polcore.cz>)
Faculty of Social Sciences
Charles University in Prague



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