36th Annual Southwest Popular / American Culture Association Conference
February 11-14, 2015
Hyatt Regency Hotel and Conference Center
Albuquerque, NM
http://www.southwestpca.org
The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area welcomes papers,
panels, and other proposals on games (digital and otherwise) and their
study and development. The Area is also offering a three hour workshop
titled “Empathy Game Design: A Quick Introduction” on the first day of
the conference.
– PROPOSAL SUBMISSION –
Possible topics include (but are in no way limited to):
- Advertising (both in-game and out)
- Alternative reality games
- Archiving and artifactual preservation
- Competitive/clan gaming
- Design and development
- Economic and industrial histories and studies
- Educational games and their pedagogies
- Foreign language games and culture
- Game art/game-based art (including game sound)
- Haptics and interface studies
- Histories of games
- Localization
- Machinima
- MOGs, MMOGs, and other forms of online/networked gaming
- Performance
- Pornographic games
- Religion and games
- Representations of race and gender
- Representations of space and place
- The rhetoric of games and game systems
- Serious games
- Strategy games
- Table-top games and gaming
- Technological, aesthetic, economic, and ideological convergence
- Theories of play
- Wireless and mobile gaming
For paper proposals: Please submit a 250 word abstract and brief
biographical sketch to the conference event management site:
http://conference2014.
Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice topic area. The submission
deadline is 11/1/2014.
For panel and other proposals: Feel free to query the Area Chair first
(Judd Ruggill, Arizona State University, jruggill@asu.edu). Panel and
other proposals should also be submitted to the conference event
management site and include the information requested for individual
paper proposals (each on a separate submission form), as well as a
100-word statement of the panel’s raison d’etre and any noteworthy
organizational features.
As always, proposals are welcome from any and all scholars (including
graduate students, independent scholars, and tenured, tenure-track,
and emeritus faculty) and practitioners (developers, artists,
archivists, and so forth). Also, unusual formats, technologies, and
the like are encouraged.
– AWARD –
Graduate students accepted to present in this area may apply for the
conference’s monetary Computer Culture and Game Studies Award. The
full paper is due to the judges on 12/15/2014. For details on this
award and the conference’s other awards for graduate students, see
http://southwestpca.org/
– WORKSHOP –
The Area Research Coordinator is pleased to announce this year’s Game
Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice workshop, “Empathy Game Design: A
Quick Introduction.” The workshop will be led by Carly Kocurek
(Illinois Institute of Technology). Participants will explore the
emerging genre of empathy games, which includes titles such as
_Depression Quest_, _Spent_, _That Dragon_, _Cancer_, and _dys4ia_,
and work collaboratively to conceptualize games of their own. No
technical knowledge or prior experience is necessary.
The workshop is limited to 10 participants, and the goal is for
participants to leave with a game concept and list of potential
development tools. The limited number of participants will ensure that
everyone involved will get the time and attention they need. If you
would like to enroll in the workshop, please email a 100-250 word
statement of interest to the Area Research Coordinator (Jennifer
deWinter at jdewinter@wpi.edu) and Carly Kocurek (ckocurek@iit.edu).
Nota bene: There is no charge for the workshop (for registered
conference presenters/attendees).
The submission deadline is 1/15/15.
– COLLABORATION & PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITIES –
The Game Studies, Culture, Play, and Practice Area is international in
scope and emphasizes diversity, an openness to innovative approaches
and presentations, and the energetic practice of post-conference
collaboration and publication.
The Area Research Coordinator would like to note the following
publication opportunities for this year’s participants:
1) The SWPACA’s peer-reviewed journal, _Dialogue: The
Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy_, welcomes
submissions. Please visit http://journaldialogue.org for information
on the journal and submission process.
2) As an official affiliate of the SWPACA, _Reconstruction: Studies in
Contemporary Culture_ always welcomes papers, especially from new
scholars and from emerging disciplines. For more information about the
journal, visit http://reconstruction.eserver.
For more information about these opportunities, or to discuss others,
please email the Area Research Coordinator (Jennifer deWinter,
jdewinter@wpi.edu).