[Air-L] Call for Participation: Live Streaming Symposium-Communities of Play

[Christopher John Olson]

Call for Participation: Live Streaming Symposium-Communities of Play
Online April 17-18, 2021

The Digital Cultures Collaboratory in the Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is a research group comprising graduate students, library staff, and faculty. Since 2017 this group has operated Serious Play<https://uwm.edu/c21/research/c21-collaboratory/current-collaboratory-groups/digital-culture-serious-play-collaboratory/>, a channel on the Twitch live streaming network devoted to gameplay and reflective commentary. In April 2021, we are hosting a symposium that celebrates communities of play created and maintained through streaming. All presentations must be pre-recorded, but we also encourage live presentation.

We invite symposium presentations that consider live streaming across its numerous applications. Teachers, critics, and commentators have been using live-streaming technologies since their inception to reflect on games, play and culture. Similarly, a complex network of individual or collaborative streamers and eSports organizations use live streaming as a form of broadcasting. Even more broadly, as we all face a global pandemic that prohibits us from sharing physical space, virtual environments and digital live communication have kept communities connected. As we shift into increasingly online or distant labor and communication, live streaming has become a hub for sharing, generating, and sustaining cultures of play and performance. With this wide potential for critical discourse about live streaming in mind, the Digital Cultures Collaboratory is certain of the importance of this event, which will be held online April 17-18.

The Symposium will feature presentations of approximately 40 minutes using Twitch or a similarly accessible platform to combine the live streaming of gameplay or other performative activities with commentary, reflection, or instruction. Presentations must be recorded and may also be performed live at the event. They may involve multiple participants.

We will consider a wide range of possibilities but particularly encourage proposals that explore live streaming in contexts such as:

  *   Building and sustaining communities
  *   Responding to regional and global crises
  *   Reaching out to communities not privileged in academia
  *   Transforming traditional academic and political institutions
  *   Developing and intervening in popular culture
  *   Emerging pedagogies
  *   Engaging in critical discourse of and through play
  *   Popularizing and encouraging political action
  *   Questioning whether live streaming practices constitute safe spaces

To apply, send a description of your project of approximately 750 words to seriousplayuwm at gmail.com with the subject “SYMPOSIUM ABSTRACT – First Name Last Name”. Your proposal should include:

  1.  Statement of concept, identifying elements of performance and commentary
  2.  What your project is meant to achieve in its immediate context (instruction, research, etc.)
  3.  Possible larger significance of the work
  4.  Platform and technical considerations
  5.  Links to streaming channel or other work as appropriate

Proposals will be reviewed by members of the Collaboratory and external consultants. All presentations selected for the program must have a pre-recorded version to insure against technical contingencies, but we will do our best to support live presentation as a preferred option. Presenters must agree to use of their recorded versions on the Collaboratory website. No fees will be charged for participation.

We look forward to receiving your abstract and welcome questions to the email listed above.

Timeline:

  *   Submission Due Date: November 30th 2020
  *   Accepted Submissions Announced: January 15th 2021
  *   Pre-Recorded Videos Submitted: March 17th 2021
  *   Symposium: April 17th & April 18th 2021

About us: The Center for 21st Century Studies was founded as the Center for 20th Century Studies in 1968 and has a distinguished record of innovative research in the humanities and social sciences. The Digital Cultures Collaboratory, launched in 2017, hosts Serious Play, a channel on the Twitch network operated by graduate students, staff, and faculty, as well as other research projects.


Christopher John Olson

PhD Student: Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Office: Curtin 392

Email: olson429 at uwm.edu

https://seemsobvioustome.wordpress.com/

http://thepopculturelens.podbean.com/


Reviews Editor, The Popular Culture Studies Journal<http://mpcaaca.org/the-popular-culture-studies-journal/>


Author/Co-Author/Co-Editor

Mental Health and Neurodiversity in Entertainment Media (Routledge, In process)

The Greatest Cult Television Shows of All Time<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538122556/The-Greatest-Cult-Television-Shows-of-All-Time> (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020)

Convergent Wrestling<https://www.routledge.com/Convergent-Wrestling-Participatory-Culture-Transmedia-Storytelling-and/Reinhard-Olson/p/book/9780815377641> (Routledge, 2019)

100 Greatest Cult Films<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442208223/100-Greatest-Cult-Films> (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)

Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498539579/Heroes-Heroines-and-Everything-in-Between-Challenging-Gender-and-Sexuality-Stereotypes-in-Children%27s-Entertainment-Media> (Lexington, 2017)

Possessed Women, Haunted States<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498519083/Possessed-Women-Haunted-States-Cultural-Tensions-in-Exorcism-Cinema> (Lexington, 2016)

Making Sense of Cinema <https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/making-sense-of-cinema-9781501320217/> (Bloomsbury, 2016)