CfP: RPG Summit @ DiGRA 2015 (Deadline: February 20)

Following its successful inauguration at DiGRA 2014 in Utah, the Role-Playing Game (RPG) Summit will continue on European soil the discussion of all things role-playing related. Please note that the call for papers for this summit is separate from DiGRA, but the event itself is a part of DiGRA and events will be included in the DiGRA program and proceedings.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 20TH

In many ways, the rise in European – particularly Nordic – scholarship on role-playing games has prompting the rest of the world to take notice. It has formed a nexus for what has been a disparate group of scholars of role play spread across a number of different fields of study: education, anthropology, language study, military study, history, and more. At the RPG Summit, we seek to facilitate and expand the dialog between diverse thinkers and bodies of scholarship regarding the use, functions, and aesthetics of role-playing games: from high-profile live-action role plays such as College of Wizardry to the many Kickstarter-funded hacks of Apocalypse World; from the application of role-playing in the military, education and medical fields to the online interactivity found in digital virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft. This summit seeks interdisciplinary work that builds on the theoretical and practical foundations of what can only be called the “role-playing game studies” field.

DiGRA 2015 will be held at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany from May 14-17, 2015, hosted by the Leuphana Centre for Digital Cultures. The RPG Summit itself will be a part of the conference and will bring together international RPG experts. Those submitting to the RPG summit should feel free to submit different, additional proposals to the main conference. All attendees will register for – and have access to – the entirety of DiGRA 2015, including the RPG Summit.

Want to get involved? Sign up for DiGRA right now. If you are interested in presenting in the RPG summit at the conference, please send your submissions to both David Simkins (immersivelit@gmail.com) and Evan Torner (evan.torner@gmail.com) by February 20, 2015.

Submissions should be about 1000 words in length. Authors names and any reference to sources authored by those submitting the proposal should be omitted from the submitted version – author names will be entered on the easychair site, but should not appear on the paper itself. Replace your name with “Author.” Each submission will be treated as an individual paper and will be individually peer-reviewed and grouped into panel presentations once accepted.


Submissions deadline 20 February