[Digra Finland] CFP: Breaking the Magic Circle, Tampere, 10-11 April, 2008

[Frans Mäyrä]

*Breaking the Magic Circle*

Call for Papers: Game Studies Seminar, Tampere 10-11 April, 2008

One of the classic theories of games and play was presented by Johan 
Huizinga in his work Homo Ludens (orig. from 1938). Huizinga wrote about 
the free and voluntary nature of play, how it is "an activity connected 
with no material interest" and how it "proceeds within its own proper 
boundaries of time and space", involving and absorbing players utterly 
into a separate world set off from the "ordinary" life, while being 
created and maintained by communities of players.

Huizinga's view has become widely known within contemporary game 
studies, and it is often referred as the 'Magic Circle' view on games 
and play. This concept has also been widely criticised, as it has become 
increasingly obvious how various "games external" areas play an 
important role in digital play, and also because digital games have 
become more widely enmeshed with and applied into various economical, 
educational and other social and cultural processes and uses.

"Breaking the Magic Circle" seminar invites presentations from multiple 
points of view, including theoretical as well as empirically based 
studies into that question or expand existing conceptions regarding 
digital games and play. Particular fields of study might include, but 
are not limited to:

•    pervasive, mobile or location based gaming,
•    alternate reality gaming
•    casual, non-immersive or coincidental forms of play,
•    professional gaming,
•    money gaming, betting and gambling within digital games and play.

The seminar is fourth in the annual series of game studies working paper 
seminars organised by the Games Research Lab in the University of 
Tampere. Due to the work-in-progress emphasis, we strongly encourage 
submitting late breaking results, working papers and/or submissions from 
graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in 
progress are most welcome, as the purpose of the seminar is to have 
peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and 
improving research work in this area. After the seminar, separate 
consideration will be given to various options of publishing the seminar 
papers.

The papers to be presented will be chosen based on abstract review. Full 
papers are distributed prior the event to all participants, in order to 
facilitate discussion.

The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce 
current research projects and discuss ongoing work in studies of games, 
play and their relation to surrounding phenomena. The seminar will be 
chaired by professor Frans Mäyrä (Hypermedia Laboratory, University of 
Tampere). Paper commentators include researchers Markus Montola, Aki 
Järvinen and Simon Niedenthal, associate professor of interaction design.

The seminar will be held in Tampere, Finland and will be free of charge; 
the number of participants will be restricted.

Important Dates

•    Abstract Deadline: January 15, 2008
•    Notification of Acceptance: January 30, 2008
•    Full Paper deadline: March 27, 2007
•    Seminar dates: April 10-11, 2007

Submission Guidelines

Abstract submissions should include maximum of 1.000 words (excluding 
references). Abstracts should be send to info-gamestudies{at}uta.fi as 
plain text only (no attachments). Guidelines for submitting a full 
seminar paper will be provided with the notification of acceptance.

Our aim is that everyone participating has been able to read materials 
submitted to the seminar, therefore the maximum length for a full paper 
is set to 6.000 words (excluding references). Note also that the 
presentations held at the seminar should also encourage discussion, 
instead of only repeating the information presented in the papers. 
Tentatively, every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed 
for 20 minutes.


-- 
Best regards,

    Frans


**  Frans Mäyrä * Professor, PhD * Hypermedia Laboratory **
**  University of Tampere * Games Research Lab * Finland **
* www.uta.fi/hyper * http://gamelab.uta.fi * www.digra.org *
** frans.mayra at uta.fi *gsm +358503367650 *tel +358335517933 **
  *** www.unet.fi/fransblog **** www.uta.fi/~frans.mayra ***