[India] Call for Papers: Special Issue of CyberOrient on Postcolonialism, Orientalism, and Video Games

[Zahra Rizvi]

Dear friends,

I hope this email finds you well.

I am delighted to inform you that Prof. Souvik Mukherjee and I will be
guest-editing a special issue of *CyberOrient* on Postcolonialism,
Orientalism, and Videogames focusing on South Asia. We look forward to
receiving submissions by all who are interested. The call for papers is
attached below. Please let us know if you have any queries.

Thank you for your interest.

Warmly,
Zahra

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*Call for Papers*

CFP: Postcolonialism, Orientalism, and Videogames

*CyberOrient: Journal of the Virtual Middle East and Islamic World*
Editor-in-Chief: Daniel M. Varisco
Guest Editors: Souvik Mukherjee and Zahra Rizvi
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2022 (Full Papers)

*Aim*

Video games have literally become a game-changing medium in global culture
since the 1970s and yet the representation of gaming cultures still remains
the preserve of the Global North. Although there are very few
representations of Asia in games (see Hjorth and Chan 2009, Patterson
2020), South Asia is particularly notable in its absence in games studies’
discourses and the larger allied scholarship on digital culture. In video
games, when South Asia is at all represented, it is mainly through the
lenses of colonialism and orientalism, thereby often resorting to
stereotypes or ‘cybertypes’ (Nakamura 2002) and also eliding the vast
diversity of the region. This special issue of CyberOrient follows in the
path of earlier research based on the very recent concept of ‘regional
games studies’ (Liboriussen and Martin 2016; Phillip Penix-Tadsen 2019),
bringing some of the major and critical issues in the gaming cultures of
what is arguably one of the most diverse and populated parts of the globe.
In doing so, it also plugs into the assemblage of the South-South discourse
and the global challenges to colonialism and orientalism in understanding
narrative cultures, play-cultures and code.

In the light of the above-mentioned interventions in games research, we
welcome submissions on the following topics as well any other related topic
connecting South Asia and games:


   - Orientalism in and as videogames
   - Oriental pleasures of play
   - Play as Empire, Playing against the Empire
   - Postcolonialism and videogames
   - Imperial utopia/dystopia in games
   - Navigating South Asia through gameworlds
   - Debates around caricature vs representation
   - Gamers, gaming cultures and fandoms in South Asia
   - Mobile/indie games in South Asia


We welcome submissions from across disciplines and methodological
approaches that are empirically and theoretically grounded.

*About CyberOrient*

CyberOrient (cyberorient.net) is a semi-annual interdisciplinary journal
published by the American Anthropological Association, the Faculty of Arts
of Charles University, and the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies
and the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies of Lund University.
CyberOrient presents original, peer-reviewed articles, comments and books
reviews on the online representation of any aspect of Middle Eastern
cultures, Islam, the imagined “Orient” and the use and impact of the
internet and new media in the Middle East and Islamic countries.

*Submissions:*

Please email your articles directly to Zahra Rizvi (
rs.zrizvisasuke at jmi.ac.in), Souvik Mukherjee (souvik at cssscal.org) and Vit
Sisler (vit.sisler at ff.cuni.cz).

** Articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words (including references),
and follow the current edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Upon
acceptance, articles will be published online with free access in 2023.
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