About a quarter of a century ago, game studies emerged as a separate academic field. Until then, existing disciplines such as media studies and cultural analysis covered early scholarly research on games. Awareness grew that game studies should be seen as a distinctive field in its own, with specific approaches, methods and discussions.
As cultural artifacts, games should be approached differently than conventional media. For example, research on historical video games can focus on how audio-visual elements and game structures contribute to the creation of particular historical representations. By investigating games, fresh perspectives on long-standing philosophical problems may come about. Because of the interactive nature of games, narrative analysis needs to be approached in novel ways. Art historians can offer insights into new visual phenomena such as gamescapes. Additionally, issues of authorship acquire new dimensions as a result of the many writers and programmers contributing to game development.
Locus – Tijdschrift voor Cultuurwetenschappen/Scholarly Journal invites researchers to contribute to a special issue (‘dossier’) exploring the opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue between games studies and more established humanities disciplines.
On the one hand, Locus aims to encourage researchers from outside game studies to relate their expertise and methods to a relatively young medium, and to reflect on interdisciplinary dialogue.
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- To what extent and how do games reflect longstanding and current debates in fields such as history, philosophy, art history and literature, and perhaps suggest novel approaches to these very debates?
- How can new developments within particular humanities disciplines contribute to a better comprehension of games and gaming?
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On the other hand, Locus Scholarly Journal encourages specialists in the field of game studies to make connections between their individual research and larger, interdisciplinary debates within the humanities.
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- What might fellow scholars learn from game studies?
- What traditional debates are still underexplored in game studies?
- How can games enhance (inter)disciplinary knowledge or skills?
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By raising such questions, Locus aims to encourage an ongoing exchange of ideas between disciplines, stemming from the belief that there is more that binds scholars than divides them. Articles can deal with specific games, but also with particular genres, or gaming in a wider sense. Moreover, contributions may focus on the content, the reception, the mechanics as well as the production of games. Send your abstract (max. 200 words + a short bio) to locus@ou.nl by November 30, 2022.
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locus@ou.nl
URL: https://locus.ou.nl/
