This one-day colloquium is geared towards graduate and undergraduate students currently researching the video game Minecraft (Mojang, 2009). Minecraft has attracted a huge and diverse audience on account of its open-ended format, multiple play styles, creative possibilities, and even its practical uses in education and architectural planning. It has proven to be an extremely rich source of scholarly engagement, and its possibilities for research are only in the first stages. This colloquium seeks to bring together ideas for papers, presentations and panels as diverse as the possibilities within the game. We invite proposals from a range of disciplines and perspectives, including game studies, research/creation, fine arts, education and pedagogy, computer science, and digital humanities, and encourage submissions that approach the game from uncommon and unexpected angles.
The Building Blocks of Life: A Minecraft Colloquium
February 13th, 2015, Concordia University, Montreal QC, Canada
Submission Guidelines
Please submit your 250-word proposals along with biographies and head shots (300 dpi minimum) to Natalie Zina Walschots (nataliezina.walschots@concordia.ca) and Nic Watson ( nwatson@algol.concordia.ca) by January 5th, 2014. Acceptance notices will be emailed by January 12th.
Accepted papers should be approximately six pages in length (12 point, double-spaced) and presentations should adhere to a strict 15-minute time limit. If accepted, any slides, audio and visual components or mixed media presentations should also be submitted to the organizers a week before the conference date.
We welcome full-panel proposals as well as proposals for single papers. Full panel proposals require the above information from all panelists. Panels should consist of three presenters and a moderator.
This colloquium is presented in collaboration between the IMMERSe Research Network, Concordia Research Centre for Technoculture Art and Games (TAG), Hexagram and The Ampersand lab of the Concordia Media History Research Centre (MHRC)
