UPDATE: [Graduate] 2008 Simon Fraser University Graduate Conference - Games We Play: Strategies of the Everyday

full name / name of organization: 
Marc Acherman
contact email: 

2008 Simon Fraser University Graduate Conference

Games We Play:
Strategies of the Everyday

Dates: May 9th and 10th, 2008
Place: Vancouver, British Columbia
Website: www.sfu.ca/~gradconf

ABSTRACT DEADLINE EXTENDED: March 7th, 2008
Submit to: gradconf_at_sfu.ca

The 2008 SFU graduate conference will investigate how gamesâ€"both as
practices of and metaphors for everyday lifeâ€"“play” for, within or against
dominant ideological discourses. We are seeking papers from graduate
students that address one or more of the following questions:

* Do games have liberating potential or do they reproduce the structures of
power?
* How might studying the cultural representations of games and play
contribute to a better understanding of a particular moment in history?
* What productive combination, if any, can be made between theory, games
and the notion of play?
* How might games, play and the concepts attached to them come together
with the cultural, political and economic concerns of society to produce
new meanings?

Possible topics could include:

* Representations of sports and games in culture
* Relationship between play, work and capitalism
* Repetition, boredom and the suburban
* Narrative, poetic, cinematic and graphic form as play
* The culture of sports, video-games and board-games
* Arcades, fair grounds and shopping malls as public spaces of leisure/capital
* Festivals, feast-days and parades
* The Olympics
* Constructing gender and/or class through games
* The limits of reason and benefits/drawbacks of play and imagination
* Constructing production as pleasure
* Advertising and psychological mind-games
* Gambling, luck and chance
* Children and childhood play
* Technological transformation/enabling of leisure
* Irony, parody and laughter as strategic play

There will be two submission options:

Option 1: scholarly paper â€" please send abstracts of 250-300 words
Option 2: creative work â€" please send either 30 lines of poetry or a 300
word excerpt

Please send all submissions to gradconf_at_sfu.ca by March 7th.
(Note that although we encourage creative submissions, preference will be
given to scholarly papers.)

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Received on Fri Feb 29 2008 - 17:56:18 EST