[Commlist] CfP Edulamos Special Issue: What Are Antifascist Games?

Call for Papers: 'What Are Antifascist Games?' Special issue of 
Edulamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture.
In many places around the world, the fascist threat is rising. Far 
right, neonationalist and ultra-conservative parties, politicians, and 
pundits have taken advantage of growing inequalities and alienation to 
gain power and influence.
This rising fascistic tide is deeply entangled with games and play 
(Lankford et al. 2024; Schlegel and Kowert 2024; Wells et al. 2024). 
Over the last decade or more, scholars have witnessed the intertwining 
of fandoms with reactionary politics (Massanari 2024; Wilson 2018). 
Others have observed the darkly playful behaviour of the digital 
far-right (Davies 2022; Grobe 2022; Haiven et al. 2022; N’Guessan 2024). 
These tendencies build on the long-standing presence of authoritarian 
and exclusionary narratives and structures in commercial games (Did 
2024; Hammar 2020) that frequently draw on cryptofascist notions of play 
(Eidelpes 2014), already, at least implicitly, invested in cultures of 
white-supremacy (Trammell 2023).

And it coincides with the gamification of many violent and exclusionary 
aspects of our worlds (Flanagan and Jakkobsen 2024; Haiven 2026; Hon 
2022). But games and play(fulness) also offer possibilities for rupture 
and resistance, which can be turned to antifascist aims and towards the 
horizon of collective liberation (Flanagan 2009; Ruberg 2020; Woodcock 
2019).

When we speak of games, we are not only thinking of the massive digital 
games industry. We also want to expand our attention to include board 
games, role-playing games (tabletop, live action/LARP and more), sports, 
the gamification of… everything, sexual and romantic play, educational 
games, serious games and the broader concept of play. When we speak of 
fascism as a global phenomenon, we are thinking historically and in the 
present, about not just an ideology and political organization but also 
a reactionary set of attitudes, dispositions and orientations that 
entrench and celebrate power and domination, both in “the West” and in 
the majority world.

To explore these contradictions and conundrums, we propose a special 
issue of Edulamos that poses questions, including:

How are today’s forms of fascism (dangerously) playful and with what 
consequences? How are they mobilizing games? How do they make use of 
gamified platforms (Twitch, YouTube, Discord) and gamified digital 
practices? Does this gamification make them different from their 20th 
century ancestors?
How are fascist games and play entwined with the hyper-capitalist and 
games industry and its exploitation of workers throughout its supply 
chains, from the extractive mining operations to the self-exploitative 
hustle of “independent” developers? How are they entangled with the 
broader tendency towards capitalist gamification, and with the even 
broader climate of capitalism that feels, to so many people, like an 
unwinnable game?
How is ludic fascism connected to resurgent patriarchy, racism, 
nationalism, colonialism and genocide (in Palestine and beyond), 
revanchist politics, and rampant and violent transphobia?
How do mainstream and alternative games (digital and analogue) promote 
or encourage fascist attitudes in either content or form (or both)? And 
how can such games (or other playful pursuits) be part of an antifascist 
project?

We will also ask questions of resistance, rebellion and renewal, including:

What role (if any) do play and games play in defending our communities 
from and ultimately abolishing fascism?
How can anti-capitalist, queer, feminist, decolonial crip or “gaming 
from below” coordinate with anti-fascist efforts? And how can we support 
or encourage resisting or rebelling against fascist games?
How shall we, who care about the power of games, draw the line and hold 
the line against fascist imaginaries? How shall we recognize enemies and 
encourage our allies?
What games will help us win a new postfascist, postcapitalist world? How 
will games and play feel after we win? What games will we play on the way?

These intentionally provocative questions are intended to excite, rather 
than limit the imagination about submission proposals to the special 
issue. They are based on discussions held at the “What is the 
Antifascist Game” symposium held in London in July of 2025 as part of 
the Games Transformed festival, whose participants include Max Haiven, 
Sebastian Quack, Carina Erdmann, Sarah Thorne, Nick Koppenhagen, Paolo 
Ruffino, Konstanze N’Guessan, Venessa Theonia, Thomas Spies.

We welcome a plurality of responses to our call from people including 
game designers, interactive theatre practitioners and artists, scholars 
and intellectuals (with or without institutional affiliations and 
credentials), community organizers who share an opposition to fascism 
and a recognition of its entanglements with racism and white-supremacy, 
with patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia, with capitalism, 
nationalism, and imperialism, with ableism, and with other systems of 
domination. We can only publish work in English.

By December 19, 2025, we welcome 250-300 word proposals for:
9000-word research articles (for peer review stream)
3000-word essays, artist statements, review essays or other material

Please send your proposal, along with a 50–125 word biographical note, 
using this form: 
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/ZylyI85ROlgWBvbO5z7b8OT5XlzwXO9iP1G+jBi+xmg/

This special issue is edited by Briar Dickey, Max Haiven, 
Konstanze N’Guessan, Sarah Thorne, Thomas Spies.
For inquiries, please contact Max Haiven or Thomas Spies at 
edulamos-special-issue [at] reimaginingvalue [dot] ca

Preliminary timeline:

Deadline for abstracts: 19th December ‘25
Response to abstracts: early January ‘26
Deadline for paper drafts: early May ‘26
Papers sent to reviewers: early June ‘26
Revisions due: late November ‘26
Copyediting: from January ’27
Publication: July ‘27

No payment of any kind will be required from authors to submit and publish.

Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture is an international, 
interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the critical 
academic study of games and play. Eludamos is fully open access. 
Copyright for all manuscripts published at Eludamos remains with 
authors. All submissions need to be fully formatted in accordance with 
Eludamos guidelines. Please consider Eludamos’ information for 
authors when preparing your submission.

Works cited

Davies, Hugh. “The Gamification of Conspiracy: QAnon as Alternate 
Reality Game.” Acta Ludologica 5, no. 1 (2022): 60–79.

Did, Marijam. Everything to Play for: How Videogames Are Changing the 
World. First edition paperback. Verso Books, 2024.

Eidelpes, Rosa. “Roger Caillois’ Biology of Myth and the Myth of 
Biology.” Anthropology & Materialism. A Journal of Social Research, no. 
2 (April 2014). 
Https://doi.org/10.4000/am.84](https://doi.org/10.4000/am.84.

Flanagan, Mary. Critical Play: Radical Game Design. MIT Press, 2009.

Flanagan, Mary, and Mikael Jakobsson. Playing Oppression: The Legacy of 
Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games. The MIT Press, 2023.

Grobe, Christopher. “The Deep, Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots.” 
Performance Research 27, nos. 3–4 (2022): 51–62. 
Https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2022.2155396.

Haiven, Max. The Player and the Played: From Gamified Capitalism to 21st 
Century Fascism. The MIT Press, forthcoming 2026.

Haiven, Max, A.T. Kingmsith, and Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou. “Dangerous 
Play in an Age of Technofinance: From the GameStop Hunger Games to the 
Capitol Hill Jamboree.” TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 45 
(October 2022): 102–32. Https://doi.org/10.3138/topia-2021-0004.

Hammar, Emil Lundedal. “Imperialism and Fascism Intertwined. A 
Materialist Analysis of the Games Industry and Reactionary Gamers.” 
Gamevironments, gamevironments, December 21, 2020, 41 Pages. 41 Pages. 
Https://doi.org/10.26092/ELIB/409.

Hon, Adrian. You’ve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and 
Schools Use Games to Control Us All. Basic Books, 2022.

Lankford, Adam, Clare S. Allely, and Sonya A. McLaren. “The Gamification 
of Mass Violence: Social Factors, Video Game Influence, and Attack 
Presentation in the Christchurch Mass Shooting and Its Copycats.” 
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2024: 1–25. 
Https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2024.2413184.

Massanari, Adrienne Lynne. Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled 
up the Far Right. The MIT Press, 2024.

N’Guessan, Konstanze. “Only Playing? Ethnographic Perspectives on Ludic 
Fascism in Germany,” Working Papers of the Department of Anthropology 
and African Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 209. 
Https://cms.zdv.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas/wp-content/uploads/sites/396/2025/04/AP-209_NGuessan_Only-Playing_AP_209.pdf 


Ruberg, Bo, ed. The Queer Games Avant-Garde: How LBGTQ Game Makers Are 
Reimagining the Medium of Video Games. Duke University Press, 2020.

Schlegel, Linda, and Rachel Kowert, eds. Gaming and Extremism: The 
Radicalization of Digital Playgrounds. Taylor & Francis, 2024.

Trammell, Aaron. Repairing Play: A Black Phenomenology. Playful 
Thinking. The MIT Press, 2023. 
Https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14656.001.0001

Wells, Garrison, Agnes Romhanyi, Jason G. Reitman, Reginald Gardner, 
Kurt Squire, and Constance Steinkuehler. “Right-Wing Extremism in 
Mainstream Games: A Review of the Literature.” Games and Culture 19, no. 
4 (2024): 469–92. Https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120231167214.

Wilson, Katie. “Red Pillers, Sad Puppies, and Gamergaters.” In A 
Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2018. 
Https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119237211.ch27.

Woodcock, Jamie. Marx at the Arcade: Consoles, Controllers, and Class 
Struggle. Haymarket Books, 2019.

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