[ecrea] CfP: (Video)udic history as an alternative mode of knowing the past (14th AHC Conference)

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*CfP: (Video)udic history as an alternative mode of knowing the past 
(14th AHC Conference - Alicante, Spain)*

This workshop, which is part of the XIV Conference of the Contemporary 
History Association (AHC), addresses the field of historical game 
studies, a new discipline that approaches the study of ludic cultural 
artefacts that make sense of the past through narratives build from the 
interaction between the player and the game’s set of rules. Ludic 
representations of the past go back to the 19^th century – with//the 
Prussian simulation /Kriegspiel/ as one of the first examples – and have 
been evolving as they have adapted to new formats – first analog, such 
as card and board games, then digital. The 21^st century is paramount in 
the popularity of playable history, as demonstrated by best-selling 
franchises such as /Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield/ and the COIN tabletop 
series. These phenomena, though relatively new, have been addressed by 
scholars in general and a group of historians in particular, a process 
that has led to the founding of the historical game studies discipline. 
This innovative approach to historical games goes beyond the mere 
content analysis and focus on explaining how both the ludic nature of 
the medium and the active role of the player exert pressures on 
remediations of the past. As a result, ludic representations are the 
outcome of tensions between simulation, playability and historical 
authenticity. Therefore, in order to accomplish its goals, this 
particular research field has taken an interdisciplinary approach and 
borrowed both theoretical concepts and sets of analytical tools from 
different academic fields such as game studies, literary studies, and 
philosophy of history.

The goal of this workshop is twofold. First, to establish a forum in 
which scholars of any field can share their research on historical 
games, discuss their methods, approaches and conclusions with their 
colleagues, and generate shared knowledge. Second, to make  historical 
game studies known to the rest of the academic community, especially 
between historians. Finally, in order to have a consistent workshop, we 
propose the following research lines:

·The history of historical games: evolution of representations, 
historical games and game genres, trajectory of particular franchises.

·Design and production: Triple A industry tendencies, indie historical 
games, marketing and advertisement.

·Content analysis: historical master narratives in games (nationalism, 
imperialism, liberal, marxist), tensions between historical authenticity 
and ludic environments, audiovisual politics of representation, 
historical myths in games.

·Reception: online communities, forums, ABR (after battle reports), 
ludic historical reenactment, let's’play/gameplay/streaming, subversive 
gameplay, modding…

·Influence of historiography and collective memory/public history in the 
design of fantastical, sci-fi, and ucronic game worlds.

·Historians, designers/developers, and games: game developers as 
historians, historians as advisors for historical games, historians as 
critics, use of historical games in learning and educational environments…

·Transfers between digital and analog history: the adaptation of 
historical videogames to analog formats and vice versa, similarities and 
differences.

Therefore, we invite you to send proposals that fit the aforementioned 
topics or any others that deal with games and historical representations 
in a broad way. *The deadline for the reception of proposals (the title 
and an abstract up to 100 words*) *will be March 1^st , 2018.* The 
abstracts will be sent to the workshop’s coordinators, who will proceed 
to the evaluation and selection of the proposals.

After that, titles of the selected proposals and the names of the 
speakers will be formally announced in the Third Circular of the XIII 
Congress. *The deadline for the submission of originals will close on 
June 1^st , 2018*. The originals *will not exceed 8.000 words and will 
follow the publication guidelines of the journal /Ayer/ 
*(https://www.ahistcon.org/envio.html).

*The Conference will be held between September 20^th and 22^nd , 2018  
at the University of Alicante (Spain). *

The workshop coordinators:

Juan Luis Gonzalo Iglesia (Universitat Rovira y Virgili) 
(juanluis.gonzalo /at/ urv.cat) <mailto:(juanluis.gonzalo /at/ urv.cat)>

Federico Peñate Domínguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) 
(fpenate /at/ ucm.es) <mailto:(fpenate /at/ ucm.es)>




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