Tag: Conferences: E-sports and gaming

The proposed sixth installment of the international Playing the Field conference series focuses on the multifaceted relationship between video games and labour. Such a topic is particularly relevant today given the aggravating contradictions inherent to neoliberal capitalism on a global scale, as well as a tendency in video game cultural studies towards relegating the economic dimension of video games to discussions of class identity representations. To counterbalance the hyperfocus on representation in game studies, we encourage a dialectic materialist approach.

This Graduate Workshop seeks to investigate contemporary video games as an emergent space to be considered under the auspices of Area Studies, with special consideration given to practices, memory politics, and identity negotiation. By bringing together scholars and young professionals from a wide array of disciplines, we aim to advance the dialogue concerning methodological and conceptual approaches for video games in the humanities and social sciences.

The focus of the symposium is to acknowledge and discuss, but also, to move beyond the understanding of animation as ‘a cartoon’ and the assumption that sport is merely ‘live’ or ‘as broadcast’ and to properly evaluate and critique sport’s representational visualization in graphic and materially based, design-led, moving image media.

Gaming Beyond the Digital Divide aims to bring together perspectives on video games and the cultures of the global south covering a range of disciplines, perspectives, critical methodologies, and theoretical approaches. Contributors are encouraged to submit work examining the relationship between games and culture in specific cities, countries, and/or regions of the global south.