CfP: Indeterminate Futures / The Future of Indeterminacy – Transcdisciplinary Conference University of Dundee, Scotland, 13 – 15 November 2020

Dear game philosophers

We’re inviting submissions for a transcdisciplinary conference on indeterminacy. We’re particularly interested in submissions from game studies/philosophy on infinite games, games with variable rule architectures (e.g. Nomic) and on indeterminate aspects of aleatoric artistic games/works.

The full CFP can be found here: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/01/21/indeterminate-futures-the-future-of-indeterminacy

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Best,

Natasha

Workshop: DiGRA2020 – The Practice (and Philosophy) of Referencing Games

There is currently no consensus within game studies as to how games—the main objects of analysis in the field—ought to be cited in academic publications. While some journals and publishers do offer guidelines on this matter, these guidelines are not followed consistently (Olsson, 2013). No specific guidance for game citation exists in the main referencing systems of APA, Chicago etc. This lack of standardization has led to huge variation in how games are cited in text and in reference lists, if they are cited at all.

At DiGRA last year, I addressed the notions of game authorship and game referencing with my colleagues and friends Riccardo Fassone and Jonas Linderoth in a paper titled: ‘How to Reference a Digital Game’ (http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2019_paper_50.pdf).

This year, for DiGRA2020, I am organizing a game citation workshop together with Paul Martin and Jonathan Frome (on the 2nd of June, starting from 9.30). The objective of this workshop is to consult with game scholars, publishers, and editors on what would constitute an appropriate method for citing games in academic writing on games (both digital and non-digital). The workshop itself will be an opportunity for game scholars to discuss both the principles that should inform the development of a citation standard and some of the technical details involved in creating the standard.

Its intended outcomes are:

  • Criticism of existing reference practices.
  • An agreed upon set of guiding principles for developing a citation standard.
  • A citation standard based on these guiding principles that can be implemented within any of the main existing citation methods.
  • An agreed upon process for establishing this standard in the main journals and publishers of game scholarship and in the next edition of guidelines published by APA, MLA, Harvard, and the other main citation systems.

 How to participate in game citation workshop at Digra 2020

The workshop will be open to everyone at the conference. Since this will be an open discussion, we are not asking for submissions. However, it would be very useful for us to know how many people wish to attend. Please indicate your interest in attending the workshop by emailing one of the organizers (emails listed below) or filling out this short questionnaire (<5 minutes) about game citation: link to questionnaire. This questionnaire will be used to identify the challenges to be discussed during the workshop and is a very important step for us to ensure that the workshop includes diverse opinions on this topic.

Even if you cannot attend the workshop, please fill out the questionnaire to help us solicit a wide range of opinions on game citation in advance of the workshop!

 

References

Gualeni, S., Fassone, R., & Linderoth, J. 2019.“How to Reference a Digital Game”. Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA international Conference. Kyoto, Japan, August 6-10, 2019.

Olsson, C. (2013). Spelreferenser i akademiska publikationer. En kartläggning av referenspraktiker inom spelvetenskap. Bachelor thesis (2013:4), Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås.

Attribution for illustration picture: futureatlas.com / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Reminder: CfP for Workshop on the Philosophy of Games, 3 – 4 April 2020, Oklahoma

The deadline for submitting papers to the workshop on the Philosophy of Games in Oklahoma is fast approaching. Remember to submit a paper/abstract by Saturday, February 1st.

Here again are links to the CFP on PhilEvents and ASA Websites.

https://philevents.org/event/show/78490?fbclid=IwAR2_NRkMyaMg1SWvSfqleDw9bw5uQTlvmuI1IzltNEfaBRshXh2_KVUU7cg

https://aesthetics-online.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1296423

CFP: Workshop on the Philosophy of Games, 3 – 4 April 2020, Oklahoma

Call for Papers

Workshop on the Philosophy of Games

3 – 4 April 2020, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond OK

We invite scholars in any field of study who take a professional interest in the philosophy of games to submit papers to the Workshop on the Philosophy of Games.

Games are obviously growing in cultural weight and importance. They also come in various forms, from board games to sports, videogames to game of make-believe, card games to roleplaying games. There are several philosophical questions that can and have been raised about games: what are games? What is their value? Can games be artworks, or possess aesthetic value? Are there ethical issues that arise with gameplay?

Possible topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • What is the definition of a “game”, and how does it relate to other closely allied concepts, such as “artwork”, “sport”, and “play”?
  • What is the nature of the relationship between the play aspects of a game and the fictional aspects of a game?
  • What is the ontological structure of a game? Is it to be identified with the rules of the game, the physical apparatus that supports it, or some larger social structure?
  • How might game scholarship benefit from feminist, queer, or critical race interventions?
  • What are the norms of game-play? Are the norms of gameplay genre-specific or game-specific?
  • Is there an aesthetic value to games? Is there an aesthetic value to the play experience?
  • Is there a moral or political value to games?

As a workshop, we are open to receiving papers-in-progress. Submissions should not exceed 3000 words and be prepared for anonymous review. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2020. Please send your submission to bartelcj@appstate.edu. Please include “Workshop Submission” in the subject title of your email. Travel funding reimbursements of up to $500 will be available for presenters. We welcome submissions from members of underrepresented populations within academia.

The workshop organizers are committed to the goals of increasing the diversity in academic events. In working toward this goal, we wish to collect demographic data from individuals who submit papers. Participation in this data collection is entirely voluntary. Your demographic data will not be shared with the selection committee. Decisions about submitted essays will not be contingent on your participation in submitting this data. If authors wish to participate in this data collection exercise, we ask prospective participants to report along with their submitted essay (1) gender identification and (2) racial and ethnic identification. Please use any terms that you feel are most appropriate. We also ask prospective participants (3) to indicate whether they are a member of the American Society for Aesthetics.

Organizing Committee: Christopher Bartel (Appalachian State University), Mark Silcox (University of Central Oklahoma)

Selection Committee: Eva Dadlez, Zach Jurgensen, Shelby Moser, C. Thi Nguyen, Stephanie Patridge, John Sageng

This workshop is generously supported by a grant from the American Society for Aesthetics.

The Double Game Philosophy Conference in St. Petersburg Starts Soon

We are now less than two days away from the Double Game Philosophy Conference in St. Petersburg!  

As you can see from the programme, we have a big week ahead of us. To create a shared experience for all the participants we have chosen a single-track schedule  with interwoven sessions from both conferences. 

Updates about the conference and the social program will be found on the Facebook event page. It will be used as a common news and talk forum, where everyone can post questions and comments about the conference. Feel free to use it for coordination of any social events during the week.

In order to make the Facebook event page easy to find we have made the web address stpetersburg.gamephilosophy.org which will forward you to the page. When you follow the page click the three dots under the title, click “notification settings” and choose “all notifications”.

Manuscripts for the talks will soon be found under the titles for the respective talks. Video recordings will follow after the conference.

The conference dinner will take place on 23rd October. More information will follow on the Facebook event page and on the conference website.

 We’re looking forward to seeing you all in St. Petersburg.

Panel Discussion: Theoretical Approaches to Digital Game Ecologies (October 20th, St. Petersburg)

Digital games present their players with ecologies of objects, properties, processes and events that are defined by their interrelational roles in the game environment. A game ecology is determined by the materiality of the gaming system, its representational functions and gameplay characteristics, and the social and cultural practices that play takes part in.

The notion of an affordance ecology (Gibson 1979) is widely adopted in interface theory and in game studies (Linderoth 2013), but the notion is often expanded with considerations that go beyond visual perception in order to explain the ontological status of the game environment itself. Examples of such approaches can be realists accounts of virtuality (Chalmers 2017; Juul 2019), make-believe psychology for fictionality (Walton 1990), visual ecology (Kolesnikova, Savchuk 2015), the metaphysics of “agential realism” (Barad 2007; Janick 2017) and in externalist theories of embodiment and mind (Clark 2008). 

The aim of this panel is to present a specter of recommendations for theoretical frameworks and to conduct a discussion about the fruitfulness of the presuppositions they rely on. As best possible, the speakers will present a cohesive picture of the current range of theories relating to digital games as ecologies, while outlining the next steps for this emerging subdiscipline of the field.

The panel is a part of the Double Game Philosophy Conference at the St. Petersburg State University. Everybody is welcome to attend.

Program

19.00 Introduction

19.10 Virtual Reality as the Realm of Affordances. Pawel Grabarczyk, ITU Copenhagen

19.40 Stare by Default: Visual Ecology Criteria in Digital Spaces.  Alina Latypova, St. Petersburg State University

20.10  Ludic Similarity Spaces.  John R. Sageng, Game Philosophy Network

20.40  Game Objects in/as ‘Intra-ecologies’.Conor McKeown, Kings College, London

21.10 Common Discussion

The panel will be held in the Experimental Sound Gallery (ESG-21), which is located in the Pushkinskaya 10 Arts Centre. Address: Location: 10, Ulitsa Pushkinskaya (Attention! Entrance from 53, Ligovsky Prospekt). Subway station: Ploshchad Vosstaniya.

About the venue:  Since 1989 Pushkinskaya 10 used to be a core of the underground and non-conformist Russian culture during the perestroyka time, where the most influential avant-garde musicians, artists, intellectuals met and shared their works. Now it is the arts centre gathering under its roof various museums (e.g. Museum of Non-Confor mist Art, John Lennon Temple of Love, Peace and Music, Sound Museum, etc.) and galleries.

Daniel Vella is the Third Confirmed Keynote for PoCG 2019

Dr. Daniel Vella is the third confirmed keynote speaker for the 13th International Philosophy of Computer Games Conference: the Aesthetics of Computer Games.

Dr. Daniel Vella is a lecturer at the Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta, where he teaches classes in digital game studies, player experience and narrative in games. His research has focused on the development of theories of ludic and virtual subjectivity, on phenomenological and existential approaches to virtual world experience, on aesthetic theory and games, and on space and architecture in games. His work has been published in journals such as Game Studies, Countertext, the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research and Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, and, most recently, in the edited volume Ludotopia: Spaces, Places and Territories in Computer Games (2019). He is also active as a writer and narrative designer for games, most recently working on the board game Posthuman Saga (Mighty Boards, 2019). 

For more information on this year’s conference, please visit our conference website.

Olli Leino is the Second Confirmed Keynote for PoCG 2019

Dr. Olli Leino is the second confirmed keynote speaker for the 13th International Philosophy of Computer Games Conference: the Aesthetics of Computer Games.

Olli Tapio Leino is an associate professor at School of Creative Media of City University of Hong Kong. His background is in computer game studies and philosophy of computer games. Building on insights from (post-)phenomenology and existentialism, he has written on materiality, experience, emotion, interpretation, and performativity in computer games and playable media. Has been the PI on numerous research projects, including “Existential Hermeneutics for Playable Media”, “All Work and No Play? Ideas and Realities of Gamification” and “From Game Arcades to eSports Arenas”, supported by Hong Kong General Research Fund. Olli’s publications include articles in Game Studies (2011), Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (2016) and Games and Culture (2017). His texts have been translated into Polish (2017) and Brazilian Portuguese (2019). He is the co-editor of “Extending Experiences” anthology on player experience (2008) and Philosophy & Technology’s SI on philosophy of computer games (2014). He curated the “New Playable Art” exhibition (2014) for the IFVA Festival at Hong Kong Arts Centre. Olli earned his PhD (2010) from the Center of Computer Games at IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is a member of the “Ludic Boredom” collective.

For more information on this year’s conference, please visit our conference website.

Susanna Paasonen is the First Confirmed Keynote for PoCG 2019

Prof. Susanna Paasonen is the first confirmed keynote speaker for the 13th International Philosophy of Computer Games Conference: the Aesthetics of Computer Games.

Susanna Paasonen is Professor of Media Studies at University of Turku, Finland. With an interest in studies of sexuality, networked media, and affect, she is the author of NSFW: Sex, Humor and Risk in Social Media (MITP 2019, with Kylie Jarrett and Ben Light), Many Splendored Things: Thinking Sex and Play (Goldsmiths Press 2018), and Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography (MITP 2011). Susanna serves on the editorial boards of e.g. New media & society, Sexualities, and International Journal of Cultural Studies and is the PI of the Academy of Finland research project, Sexuality and Play in Media Culture (2017–2021) and the consortium, Intimacy in Data-Driven Culture (2019–2022).

For more information on this year’s conference, please visit our conference website.

Extension to CfP for the 13th International Conference on the Philosophy of Computer Games: The Aesthetics of Computer Games (St Petersburg, Oct 21-24)

Dear all,

Following a number of requests, the submission deadline for the 13th
International Conference on the Philosophy of Computer Games: The
Aesthetics of Computer Games (St Petersburg State University, Oct 21-24th) has been extended to Wednesday, 14th  August 2019, 23:59 BST.  Please send your abstracts to: http://review.gamephilosophy.org

Please note that the submission deadline for workshops and panels is Sunday,
25th Aug 2019, 23:59 BST. Please email me your proposal of up to 1,000 words (excluding references): feng.zhu@kcl.ac.uk

Warm regards,

Feng Zhu,
Program Chair