2016 DiGRAA National Conference, 17th-18th November, 2016 to be held at Swinburne University of Technology. The theme for the DiGRAA National Conference 2016 will be ‘Tensions’.
Details
Games have frequently been sites of conflict, contention, and competition. As both games and gaming culture develop, however, these sites of conflict and their related tensions are shifting across multiple axes. Games themselves are objects of tension in different ways: while conflict is still often used to drive narrative and gameplay, designers continue to experiment with the line between comfort and unease. Conversely, those who play and make games are more diverse than ever before, and the tensions over representation, politics, and demographics continue to dominate public games discourse. The purpose of the 2016 DiGRAA Symposium is to explore the tensions in all aspects of engaging with games. This may include: gameplay, mechanics, game design, or game culture.
We organise such an event acknowledging that understanding games is not an exclusively academic endeavour and excellent work is occurring in a wide variety of spaces outside of formal scholarship. Consequently, we encourage non-academic game researchers, critics, designers, developers and artists to attend and contribute to the event.
Some suggestions for topics include (but are not limited to):
- Representations of race
- Gender and sexuality
- Sex in games
- Conflict as game mechanic
- The aesthetics of violence
- Death and tension
Important Dates
Abstract Submission Deadline: 19th August
Notification of Acceptance: 19th September
Symposium Date: 17-18 November
Following on from the success of previous DiGRA Australia events, we fully expect that DiGRA Australia 2016 will remain a single track conference.
The Event
The conference will run from 13:00 – 17:00 on the 17th November, and from 9:00 – 17:00 on the 18th November at Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn campus. An evening social event and exhibition will occur on the 17th on campus. A morning doctoral workshop will run from 9:00 – 12:00 on the 17th, which will require registration prior to the event
Submission Format
We invite interested authors or makers to submit 400-800 word abstracts (not including references), anonymous for peer review. We will also accept full papers of up to 4,000 words and the same rules apply. Submissions from academics are typically expected to have references to reflect the author’s engagement with existing scholarship.
We advise potential authors to review the abstracts accepted for publication at previous DiGRA Australia conferences as a guide to the expected tone and quality. We welcome submissions that explore both in-progress and complete works, but must represent novel (unpublished) scholarship. If the abstract resembles previously published work, we recommend the author explicitly identify the additional contribution of their DiGRAA submission. We recommend that papers articulate the issue or research question to be discussed, the methodological or critical framework used, and indicate the findings or conclusions to be presented and/or the relevance to the wider game studies discipline. Papers can present any kind of research, analysis or commentary, but should be written so that the importance of the work can be understood by reviewers working in different disciplines or using different approaches.
Submissions are required to use the DiGRA conference publication format. Accepted abstracts will be uploaded to the DiGRA Digital Library as will accepted full papers.
Submission Process
Submissions will be made online, via easy chair.
Easychair Submission link: https://easychair.org/
Please enter your 400-800 word abstract or full paper in the abstract box in easy chair, as well as uploading it as a formatted attachment.
Conference Chairs
Laura Crawford (Vice President, DiGRAA Australia/Lecturer Games and Interactivity, Swinburne University of Technology)
Daniel Golding (Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology, Media and Communications)
