<html class="apple-mail-supports-explicit-dark-mode"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><b style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Edited Collection Call for Papers</span></b></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; text-align: center;"></p><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games</span></b></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><div><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Edited by Michael Austin and Kate Galloway</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><br></span></div></span><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games</span></i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> is an edited collection that examines how video games render environments through sound, with particular attention to the sonic expression of materiality. While game studies has long emphasized visual worldbuilding and environmental storytelling, this volume foregrounds how sound communicates the textures, behaviors, and affordances of virtual matter, including water, ice, stone, wind, vegetation, and more, as dynamic, interactive systems.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></p><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The collection takes inspiration from prismatic and elemental frameworks to organize chapters around environmental-material categories rather than genres, platforms, or franchises. Each section focuses on a specific ecological or material domain, such as aquatic, forest, subterranean, atmospheric, or frozen environments, examining how sound design produces meaning, embodiment, situatedness, ecological relations, and affect within these spaces.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 12pt 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">By shifting attention from “green” ecologies toward a broader spectrum of elemental and material conditions, the volume contributes to interdisciplinary conversations across sound studies, game studies, media ecology, and environmental humanities. It asks: how do players hear matter and how is the immaterial sonified? How do game sounds render environmental processes, resistance, and transformation? And how do these sonic cues shape player perception, action, and identity within virtual worlds?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We invite contributions that explore (but are not limited to) the following topics:</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><ul type="disc" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Environmental and material sonification in games </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sonic representations of elemental ecologies (water, fire, air, earth, ice, etc.) </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sound and environmental storytelling beyond music and voice </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The relationship between sound, physics, and material simulation </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Acoustic affordances and player interaction with virtual environments </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sound design and immersion in ecological or environmental gameplay </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sonic atmospheres and affective environmental design </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Media materiality and the auditory communication of virtual and immaterial objects </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sound, embodiment, and sensory knowledge in gameplay </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Experimental, indie, or non-traditional approaches to environmental sound </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Historical or comparative perspectives on environmental audio in games </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Intersections of sound, environment, and identity or player experience </span><o:p></o:p></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We especially welcome interdisciplinary approaches and methods, including but not limited to ethno/musicology, music theory and analysis, sound studies, media studies, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, and game design analysis.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Submission Guidelines</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Please send abstracts and inquiries to: <a href="mailto:kate.a.galloway@gmail.com">kate.a.galloway@gmail.com</a> </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">and submit with the email subject heading “Resonant Worlds Collection”:</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><ul type="disc" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">An abstract of 250–300 words </span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">A brief bio of 100–150 words</span><o:p></o:p></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Selected contributors will be invited to submit full chapters of approximately <b>5,000–7,000 words</b>.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Timeline</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><ul type="disc" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Abstract submission deadline:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> <span dir="ltr">August 15, 2026</span></span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Notification of acceptance:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> <span dir="ltr">September 15, 2026</span></span><o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Chapter submission for editorial feedback:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> <span dir="ltr">March 15, 2027</span> </span></li></ul></div></body></html>