The seventeenth annual colloquium of the Board Game Studies Association will be hosted by Computer Games Design staff and students at UCS, Ipswich, in the UK, from Wednesday 21st May to Saturday 24th May 2014. Previous colloquia have been held in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and USA.
The BA (Hons) Computer Games Design course is located on the Ipswich campus of University Campus Suffolk (UCS), within the Humanities division of the School of Arts and Humanities. Currently, some eighty students are engaged in the study and production of both digital and non-digital games over three course-years. Students engage with key aspects of game design and game mechanics for paper-based and digital games. Students are taught by five permanent members of staff, together with visiting speakers from the games industry, including local and regional employers.
The XVIIth colloquium will particularly welcome papers from games designers, researchers or scholars in any academic field that share current research, provoke discussion or explore:
* The promotion of board game studies as a university discipline (for example, through the construction and analysis of classification, taxonomies, etc.)
* Continuities between cardboard and computer-based games (for example, what do computers offer to games that is new and unique? What do board games offer that explains their permanence? What relationships exist between board games and computer games?)
As in previous colloquia, papers on other aspects of board game studies will also be equally welcome.
Please submit proposals with a title and informal summary (in English) of no more 500 words to bgs@ucs.ac.uk by 20th December 2013.
If your paper is accepted, you will be invited to make a presentation at the colloquium. You should then provide a formal abstract (the informal summary can be used as the abstract) of 200 – 500 words by 28th February 2014.
Initial proposals should be sent as an email attachment in doc, docx or PDF format, together with a brief biography which includes previous publications, institutional affiliation and academic or other relevant credentials, along with a passport-style photographic portrait (jpg) suitable for reproduction in the colloquium programme.
Abstracts and biographical information will be included, with portraits and email addresses, in the colloquium programme. Delegates will receive a copy of the colloquium programme on arrival at UCS.
Presentations are to be given in English and should not exceed thirty minutes. A short period for questions and comment will follow each presentation. Please prepare a Powerpoint or Keynote-type slide document to support your presentation.
Detailed information on travelling to Ipswich, accommodation, arrangements for the cultural visit and colloquium dinner, and an online booking facility will be provided on the UCS website during 2013 at http://wwwucs.ac.uk/bgs.
Proposals, summaries, abstracts and any enquiries should be sent to Eddie Duggan at the UCS BGS 2014 Colloquium email address, bgs@ucs.ac.uk.
Eddie Duggan
Senior Teaching Practitioner
School of Arts and Humanities
University Campus Suffolk
Waterfront Building
Neptune Quay
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP4 1QJ
International Board Game Studies Association
XVIIth Annual Colloquium
University Campus Suffolk
21st – 24th May 2014
Web: https://wwws.ucs.ac.uk/bgs
Email: bgs@ucs.ac.uk
Original Photo by Lu Monte.
Cropped version above is Licensed under Creative Commons 
