Call For Papers - The World's Largest Index/List of Call For Papers

Digital Heroisms

URL: http://www.digitalheroisms.com
Event Date: 2020-08-05 ~ 2020-08-05
Abstract Submission Date: 2020-07-08
Submission Date: 2020-07-08
Organizer: Games and Gaming Lab / University of Glasgow

Humanities, Literature & Arts (General) English Language & Literature Interdisciplinary Studies (General)

Hello Digital Heroes!

We are excited to announce the relaunch of the Digital Heroisms Conference!

Given the effect that Covid-19 has had on the University of Glasgow and on all of us, Digital Heroisms will be moving online. It will be hosted in the world of Gielinor, in Runescape, to embody the spirit of Digital Heroism by connecting scholars from across the globe to exchange research in a Fantasy world.

We are reopening the call for papers from today, with an amended deadline of July 8th.

The conference itself will take place on August 5th.

As the conference is now online, we would like to take the time to make sure that it is accessible as possible and can now offer support for people with impairments, which include reading papers on their behalf, using text-based Q&A, editing help for those with English as a second language and limited technical support.

We hope that this change in direction will make Digital Heroisms a more inclusive and international than ever!

Modifying the format has allowed us some new and exciting opportunities to experiment with locations:

- Conference papers and discussions will now take place on discord which will feature breakout and discussion groups as well as a Q&A channel for those with any queries about the day. Please join us at: https://discord.gg/MQvTWeE

- As mentioned above, we will be holding a virtual meeting in the free MMORPG Runescape, for those able to attend. The exact location (tbd - we are open to suggestions) and a tutorial for the installation of the game will be released close to the time. We ask both speakers and attendees to make their Runescape characters at least a week beforehand and to send their character information to Digitalheroisms@gmail.com for invitations.

Please see the links below for vital information:

https://digitalheroisms.eventbrite.com (To register for the event.)

https://www.facebook.com/DigitalHeroisms/ (For updates, announcements and memes.)

http://www.digitalheroisms.com (Our website, currently under construction.)

https://www.instagram.com/digitalheroisms/ (Behind the scenes content.)

https://discord.gg/MQvTWeE (Join our discord server to take part in the Digital Heroisms Community and to attend the event.)

Digitalheroisms@gmail.com (Email us your submissions and queries.)

Please find the up-to-date CfP for Digital Heroisms below.

Thank you all for your patience and perseverance with Digital Heroisms during these difficult times!

DIGITAL HEROISM (August 5th – 12:00-17:00PM GMT)

Digital Heroisms is an online conference exploring Fantasy, the digital and the concept of heroism in collaboration with the Games and Gaming Lab based at UofG College of Arts, University of Glasgow School of Critical Studies and Game Studies at Glasgow.

"The power of the fantasy increases if it offers us something genuinely new and compelling. The limitations of our own corporeality can be abolished or the ground rules changed to give us new experiences.”

KATHRYN HUME

Where readers once understood heroism through a Gilgamesh, a Frodo or a Katniss, the digital subject can now figure heroism through actions, decisions and events that are in many ways their own. Video gaming has an especial talent for creating heroes that are lived-through by their users, whether this is via the experience of leading characters such as Link through the temples of Hyrule; via choice-based play utilising avatars such as Frisk of Undertale fame; or by creating entirely unique personas in role play games such as Dragon Age. In a contemporary moment enabled and mediated by a multiplicity of digital spaces, the way we conceptualize heroism will be both enabled and contaminated by games, the virtual, and ever-increasing screentime. The realm of the digital, functioning as a receptacle of imagination can equip players with the means to express the self. Digital spaces can serve as a conduit for both ludic and fantastical impulses. Heroic research must adapt to this interactive environment – its places, its communities, its values – if it is to keep a handle on the heroic constellation formed of informatic, computational and digital materials.

Fantasy scholars and authors alike have sought to define the Fantasy genre. Whether that be as experienced by characters as ‘hesitation’ (Todorov, 1970), a loose genre that can be described as a ‘fuzzy set’ (Attebery, 1992), or as being ‘the mirror of mimetic literature and its inner soul’ (Mendlesohn, 2008), digital iterations of fantasy have enhanced and extended our capability to experience the immersion of fantastic worlds. Though Fantasy video games may pay tribute to the literature from which it sprang, each form with its differing modes of performance allows the Fantastic an opportunity be presented in all of its heterogeneity; players are given the opportunity to experience a new kind of protagonism, a heroism that enables the player to effect and interact with fantasy narratives. The interactivity offered by video games can enable players to experience the self in new ways, whether that be through choice-based narratives, the player-led exploration of a Walking-Simulator or via avatars which enable players to live the ‘posthuman fantasy of extending the human subject beyond itself’ (Boulter, 2015) and craft fantasy personas.

The symposium will be seeking submissions for 20 min papers on themes such as, but not limited to, the following topics:

Defining/constructing digital heroism

The converging interests of fantasy and digital heroism

Digital and fantastic video game environments and their effect on heroism

Fantasy video games and avatar creation

Fantastic VR experiences, the self, and digital heroism

The social/theoretical implications of digital iterations of fantasy

Considerations of digital spaces as fantastic ones

Heroic fantasy video game character(istics)

Considerations of what heroism means in the digital age

Problems with digital heroism

Digital heroism examined through:

Convergence culture

Participatory culture

Feminism

Postcolonialism

Queer Studies

Disability Studies

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Digital Heroisms will run with the view to contributing a special issue to the student video game journal Press Start. We encourage speakers to submit their drafted proposal to the organising committee after the conference (date TBD). Please see the Press Start website for the submission guidelines and style guide.

https://press-start.gla.ac.uk

Please submit your paper as a 250 word abstract and 100 word bio to digitalheroisms@gmail.com by July 8th.

We look forward to receiving your contributions to Digital Heroisms!

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Organising Committee:

Monica Vazquez(University of Glasgow)

Gabe Arcana (University of Glasgow)

Francis Butterworth-Parr (University of Glasgow)

FB: Digital Heroisms

Twitter: @DigitalHeroisms

Instagram: Digital Heroisms

Event Promotion

2024-06-02 ~ 2024-06-06

2024-08-19 ~ 2024-08-22

Digital Heroisms

Event Promotion

Journal Promotion