[ecrea] cfp: Closed Systems / Open Worlds

Closed Systems / Open Worlds ( extended deadline: Sept. 15, 2014)

Contact: (ClosedandOpenBook /at/ gmail.com)

Deadline for précis: 15 September 2014

Edited by: Jeremy Hunsinger (Wilfrid Laurier University), Jason Nolan 
(Ryerson University) & Melanie McBride (York University)

This book will consist of explorations at the boundaries of virtual 
worlds as enclosed but encouraging spaces for exploration, learning, and 
enculturation. Game/worlds like Second Life, OpenSim, Minecraft, and 
Cloud Party are providing spaces for the construction of alternatives 
and reimaginings, though frequently they end up more as reproductions. 
We seek to challenge those spaces and their creativities and imaginings.

These worlds exist as both code and conduct. Code is a modulating 
multiple signifier, in that the interpreters of the code vary from human 
to machine and that our understanding of the signifier changes the 
worldliness in itself. The conduct of both participants and 
administrators of these spaces influences how they flourish and then 
fade. As such the worlds and their anima/animus are socially constructed 
fictions where authors/creators/users, both above and below the actions 
are sometimes in concert, yet often in conflict with the space and 
intentions of the originators.

This book seeks critically engaged scholars who want to risk the 
possibility of change in the face of closed systems. We are looking for 
critical or speculative essays that must be theoretically, empirically 
and/or contextually grounded chapters of 5000-6500 words plus apparatus. 
Doctoral students and non-tenure faculty members will be afforded blind 
peer review upon request.

We are aiming for 12 -14 chapters that define the boundaries and thus 
likely futures of research on virtual worlds.
Dates

Sept. 15, 2014 – 250 word précis with 5-10 key references

Sept. 30, 2014 – accept/reject proposals

Feb 1, 2015 – final draft due

July 1, 2015 – feedback from reviewers

September 1, 2015 – final version

December 1, 2015 – in press
Queries and submissions: (ClosedandOpenBook /at/ gmail.com)

Topics may include:
• alternative and minor game/virtual/etc. worlds

• archeologies/genealogies of virtuality

• augmented and mixed-reality worlds

• distributed cognitions

• early explorations in virtual learning environments

• the freedom of limitations
• identity construction and/or identity tourism

• the limits of simulation and emulation
• memories and forgetting in virtual worlds

• multisensory virtual environments

• multisensory exclusions in virtual worlds

• narratival and post-narratival andragogies, ‘learning worlds’

• negative spaces as learning spaces (bullying, trolling, flaming, etc.) 
in virtual worlds

• non-social virtual worlds (dwarf fortress, some forms of minecraft, etc.)

• real world virtual worlds and boundaries (Lego, Hello Kitty, WebKinz, 
etc.)

• replication of real world environments/problems

• surrealism, unrealism and constructable alterities of/within virtual 
worlds

• transformative virtual classroom
• vapourware and virtuality
• the virtuality of learning
jeremy hunsinger
Communication Studies
Wilfrid Laurier University
Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
Virginia Tech


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