[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Videogames and the Alien/Other (2/1/06; 4/7/06-4/8/06)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

From: zach whalen <zwhalen@english.ufl.edu>

CFP : Video Games and the Alien / Other

Call for Papers: "The Alien/Other"
Second Annual University of Florida Game Studies Conference
Gainesville, FL
April 7-8, 2006

The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is 
pleased to
announce the 2006 UF Game Studies Conference: "Video Games and the 
Alien/Other,"
which will be held in Gainesville, Florida, on April 7-8 2006.

Keynote Speaker: Lee Sheldon (writing credits include _Agatha Christie: 
And then
there were none_ [The Adventure Company], _Uru: Ages beyond Myst_ 
[Cyan], _The
Riddle of Master Lu_, and _Dark Side of the Moon_.)

This conference seeks to explore the figure of the Alien and the Other 
and the
various ways it has been employed in video games. Since the original _Space
Invaders_, video games have frequently construed difference as the site of
conflict and conflict as the principle operation of the individual fighting
alone against a hostile Universe. In this game, for example, the aliens 
which
invade the earth are marked as Other by their bodies, and their 
hostility toward
the earth is a foregone conclusion of their difference.

In a different sense, video game quest narratives often position the
player-character as an outsider working to protect the status quo (e.g. 
Link in
the Zelda series) or destroy it (e.g. the  various protagonists in the Grand
Theft Auto series). More generally, one marker of success in any 
electronic text
is the ability for its programmatic characters to overcome the othering
difference of the game's diegesis by exhibiting a high degree of autonomy or
human-like individuality. Further, even in their construction of in-game 
avatars
and representations of Alien bodies, many games truncate marks of difference
into one monolithic form of otherness, eliding race, gender and religious
diversity. Thus, the figure of the alien or other occupies the space of
difference in video games in a variety of positive and negative ways 
which are
above all complex renderings of otherness within a specific.

This second annual Game Studies conference will focus on the theme of the
Alien/Other. In particular, we seek to emphasize the technological, 
social, and
cultural construction of identity and the Alien or Other in and through 
video
game texts.

This conference will examine these constructions as oriented around 
several key
themes:

* Player-Characters and the role of the outsider
* Gaming cultures and subcultures
* Gender, race, religion and the avatar
* Monstrosity and avatars
* Otherness and online societies (e.g. MMORPG's)
* Technology as Othering
* Designing the Alien/Other through AI and NPCs
* Video game villains and anti-heroes

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

* The Other and the industry -- the role of independent game developers.
* Localization and the alleged erasure of cultural difference through video
games.
* Marketing and approaching new demographics.
* Becoming the Other in online role-playing communities.
* Colonialism and Orientalism within historical simulations.
* The representation (or lack) of religious pluralism in video games.
* Representations of race, gender, and/or sexual preference in games.
* The Evolution of the Alien/Other in games.
* Becoming Other -- choosing a path in _KOTOR_ or _Black and White_.
* Subversive game play.
* Psychoanalysis, video games and the other/Other.
* Becoming Alien/Other in online games: how players function as others 
to other
players.
* Alien/Other and the differences inherent in console or interface
   configurations.
* Close studies of specific Alien/Others and tropes of Alien/Otherness.

Abstract submissions should be approximately 250-500 words in length.
Presentations will be 15 minutes with 5 minutes of question and answer
following.

The deadline for abstract submissions is Friday, February 1, 2005.

Submissions may be emailed to zwhalen@english.ufl.edu (preferred) or
sent in hard copy to

Zach Whalen
Department of English
Univ. of Florida
4008 Turlington Hall
P.O. Box 117310
Gainesville, FL 32611-7310




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