[Air-L] "Gamevironments of the Past", #5 (2016), and 2 new CfP: regular issue + "Jewish Gamevironments"

[Xenia Zeiler]

Dear all,

we are happy to announce this year's Special Issue of GAMEVIRONMENTS  
by Derek Fewster and Ylva Grufstedt (Helsinki) on gaming and history!
"Gamevironments of the Past", #5 (2016), includes articles, reports on  
current activities/trends, and interviews - all from the field of  
gaming and history:

Derek Fewster and Ylva Grufstedt: Introduction: Gamevironments of the  
Past – A Broad Take on Games and History
Robert Houghton: Where did you learn that? The self-perceived  
educational impact of historical computer games on undergraduates.
Samir Azrioual: Developing Time: Representing Historical Progression  
through Level Structures
Jayme Dale Mallindine: Ghost in the Cartridge: Nostalgia and the  
Construction of the JRPG Genre
Vinicius Marino Carvalho: History and Human Agency in Videogames
Brittany Kuhn: The Architecture of Bioshock as Metaphor for Ayn Rand’s  
Objectivism
Cassone & Thibault: The HGR Framework: A Semiotic Approach to the  
Representation of History in Digital Games
Sarah Zaidan: The Adventures of Ms. Meta: Developing a Historical  
Superhero Video Game
Owen Gottlieb: Who Really Said What? Mobile Historical Situated  
Documentary as Liminal Learning Space
Xenia Zeiler: The Indian Indie Game Development Scene – History and  
Cultural Heritage as Game Themes
Cecilia Trenter: Interview with the Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw and  
Lead Writer David Gaider (and Lucas Christiansen) at BioWare about the  
Dragon Age games.

All articles are available on http://www.gamevironments.org. Enjoy!

_________________________________

In addition, we announce two new CfP:
1) The next regular issue of gamevironments will be published in  
summer 2017. We invite submissions (articles, reports, interviews,  
game/book reviews) by:
31.01. Full Chapter Submission
31.03. Review Results Returned
15.05. Revised Chapter Submission
summer Online-Publication

All submitted articles will be reviewed on a double-blind peer-review  
basis. Please get in touch with us if you have questions.

2) The next Special Issue of gamevironments, "JEWISH GAMEVIRONMENTS"  
by Owen Gottlieb, will be published in Dec 2017.
The journal invites researchers to submit their work to gamevironments  
(http://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/) for possible publication in  
a special issue due for publication December 2017.

Whether by console, PC, mobile phone, VR headset, or other interface,  
video games and modern Jewish expression are now often intertwined.  
Jews who grew up with video games over the last forty years and who  
are growing up today are literate in the mechanics, visuals, sound  
effects, music, tropes, trends, and storylines of these games. That  
literacy necessarily can frame and bend contemporary Jewish practices.  
Likewise, those immersed in Jewish cultural and religious expression  
read video games through sensibilities informed by their Jewish  
journeys. Educator-researchers now develop video games for the  
purposes of the acquisition of Jewish cultural practices, such as  
understanding Jewish history, literature, and ethical reasoning.  
Players explore religious and cultural through game interfaces.

In an effort to collect new research and perspectives on these and  
related themes, gamevironments seeks paper proposals for an issue with  
focus on Jewish cultural practices, including religious expression. We  
wish to collect results as well as theoretical, analytical,  
methodological, and other social science and humanities approaches to  
Jewish expression and video games, in a broad sense. Papers may  
explore any aspect of the relationship between video games and Jewish  
cultural practices, including religious practices. For example, but  
not limited to:

         Video games as Jewish cultural expression or practice

         Video game practices intersecting with contemporary Jewish  
cultural and religious practices

         Jewish studies approaches to video games; video game  
approaches to Jewish studies

         Design principles based on data and scholarly theoretical  
frameworks known in the humanities and the social sciences

         Interreligious or interfaith studies of video games including  
Jewish cultural practices

         Analysis of video game culture through Jewish scholarly lenses

         Expressions of Jewish life in video games, regardless of genre

         Video game studies, critical and cultural analysis on Jewish topics

         Jewish cultural expression or history in the video game industries

         The use of Jewish sources for creating environments, styles,  
art, soundscapes, traditions, languages, lore, myths, religions or any  
sense of adaptation of Jewish sources

         Space, time, and/or place: the use in video games of Jewish  
conceptions of time, maps tied to Jewish history, and/or of Jewish  
locations

         The use of Jewish tropes, allusions, stereotypes, storylines,  
literary references, or narrative structures

         Approaches to creating speculative/fictional religious  
systems influenced by Judaism

         Issues of Jewish journeys, beliefs, ideas, ideologies,  
politics, ethics, morality, and agency in video games

         Video games as elements, adjusters, or renewers of a  
collective and narrative memory

         Video games as history, politics, including e.g. themes of  
historical traumatization, nationalism, anti-Semitism, emancipation,  
gender, totalitarianism, heritage, Jewish ethnic identities,

         Serious games, games for social impact, games for learning  
related to Jewish life.

Studies related to any of the above-mentioned ideas, or other similar  
topics, are welcome as submission to this issue.

Submission deadlines:
Title and abstract submission (approx. 500 words plus Harvard style  
references to be included): 29.03.2017
Full text submission: 12.07.2017
Review results returned: 13.09.2017
Revised text submission: 8.11.2017
Online publication: 31.12.2017

Please consult the gamevironments submission style sheet before  
submitting your paper,  
http://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/gv-stylesheet.pdf , as well as the Help Desk http://www.gamevironments.uni-bremen.de/submission-guideline/ for some general  
principles.

Note: All abstracts must include Harvard style references.

Please send any queries, texts and articles as RTF files to the issue  
editor, Owen Gottlieb using the subject header “gamevironments:”

_____________________________________________

All the best and a Happy New Year to all!
Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Xenia Zeiler
(editors-in-chief)
-- 
Prof. Dr. Xenia Zeiler
Associate Professor
South Asian Studies

P.O. Box 59 (Unioninkatu 38B)
00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
+358 50 4482713
http://tuhat.halvi.helsinki.fi/portal/en/person/zeiler