[Air-L] Reminder: CFP - Breaking the Magic Circle

[Olli Sotamaa]

Hi,

I thought some of you might be interested.

Best,

Olli

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Call for Papers: Game Studies Seminar, Tampere 10-11 April, 2008

*Note the closing abstract deadline: January 15, 2008.*

New: the seminar web site: http://breakingmagiccircle.wordpress.com

One of the classic theories of games and play was presented by Johan
Huizinga in his work Homo Ludens (orig. from 1938). Huizinga wrote about
the free and voluntary nature of play, how it is "an activity connected
with no material interest" and how it "proceeds within its own proper
boundaries of time and space", involving and absorbing players utterly
into a separate world set off from the "ordinary" life, while being
created and maintained by communities of players.

Huizinga's view has become widely known within contemporary game
studies, and it is often referred as the 'Magic Circle' view on games
and play. This concept has also been widely criticised, as it has become
increasingly obvious how various "games external" areas play an
important role in digital play, and also because digital games have
become more widely enmeshed with and applied into various economical,
educational and other social and cultural processes and uses.

"Breaking the Magic Circle" seminar invites presentations from multiple
points of view, including theoretical as well as empirically based
studies into that question or expand existing conceptions regarding
digital games and play. Particular fields of study might include, but
are not limited to:

?        pervasive, mobile or location based gaming,
?        alternate reality gaming
?        casual, non-immersive or coincidental forms of play,
?        professional gaming,
?        money gaming, betting and gambling within digital games and play.

The seminar is fourth in the annual series of game studies working paper
seminars organised by the Games Research Lab in the University of
Tampere. Due to the work-in-progress emphasis, we strongly encourage
submitting late breaking results, working papers and/or submissions from
graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in
progress are most welcome, as the purpose of the seminar is to have
peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and
improving research work in this area. After the seminar, separate
consideration will be given to various options of publishing the seminar
papers.

The papers to be presented will be chosen based on abstract review. Full
papers are distributed prior the event to all participants, in order to
facilitate discussion.

The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce
current research projects and discuss ongoing work in studies of games,
play and their relation to surrounding phenomena. The seminar will be
chaired by professor Frans Mäyrä (Hypermedia Laboratory, University of
Tampere). Paper commentators include researchers Markus Montola
(University of Tampere), Aki Järvinen (Veikkaus) and Simon Niedenthal,
Associate Professor of interaction design (Malmö University).

The seminar will be held in Tampere, Finland and will be free of charge;
the number of participants will be restricted.

Important Dates

?        Abstract Deadline: January 15, 2008
?        Notification of Acceptance: January 30, 2008
?        Full Paper deadline: March 27, 2007
?        Seminar dates: April 10-11, 2007

Submission Guidelines

Abstract submissions should include maximum of 1.000 words (excluding
references). Abstracts should be send to info-gamestudies{at}uta.fi as
plain text only (no attachments). Guidelines for submitting a full
seminar paper will be provided with the notification of acceptance.

Our aim is that everyone participating has been able to read materials
submitted to the seminar, therefore the maximum length for a full paper
is set to 6.000 words (excluding references). Note also that the
presentations held at the seminar should also encourage discussion,
instead of only repeating the information presented in the papers.
Tentatively, every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed
for 20 minutes.

Seminar web site: http://breakingmagiccircle.wordpress.com/

Organised by: http://gamelab.uta.fi

University of Tampere / Hypermedia Laboratory / Games Research Lab