INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN ATHENS 2011: THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTER GAMES
Patrick Coppock
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN ATHENS 2011
April 6th-9th, 2011
Call for Papers
We hereby invite scholars in any field of studies who take a
professional interest in the phenomenon of computer games to submit
papers to the international conference "The Philosophy of Computer
Games 2011", to be held in Athens, Greece, on April 6th-9th 2011.
Accepted papers will have a clear focus on philosophy and
philosophical issues in relation to computer games. They will also
attempt to use specific examples rather than merely invoke "computer
games" in general terms. The over-arching theme of the conference is
Player Identity. Papers are encouraged to explore one of the following
topics and invited speakers will focus on this area. On the other
hand, this is not the sole domain the conference will cover and
submissions dealing with other relevant aspects of game philosophy are
also welcome.
Player-Avatar Identity
In describing gameplay there seems to be a presumed identity-relation
between the player and her avatar. What an avatar does can be taken to
be what the player does, and what happens to the avatar can be taken
to happen to the player. This presumption even makes it possible for a
player to point to her avatar and claim “that is me”.
What is the nature of the reported identity-relation between player
and avatar either as a cognitive relation (such as the construction of
one’s self-image and projected intentionality), as a form of
embodiment or as a metaphysical relation capable of directly extending
personal identity to the avatar?
Identity and Conceptions of the Self
Modern philosophy offers various models and critiques of the self (and
the 'other') through the work of Descartes, Husserl, Wittgenstein
etc. Computer games - explicitly as well as implicitly - adopt these
models and offer interactive representations of self-models that can
be acted out and thereby evaluated.
What are the affinities between such philosophical models of the self
and the structural elements of computer games? Do the models express
or contradict the structures?
Identity and Immersion
Issues of identity in virtual environments, and consequently in
digital games, have been discussed primarily from the perspective of
the opportunities for formation, experimentation and expression of
social identity. These discussions importantly highlight the role that
games play in re-writing identity through digital gameplay. The focus
here is on the presentation of self to others in a virtual
environment. This addresses one aspect of immersion, namely the
increased sense of inhabiting the environment by virtue of others
being aware of the player within the environment.
We invite papers on a second, equally important aspect of immersion-as-
habitation: the effect that this sense of habitation of virtual
environments has on the self. What is the influence on player identity
of absorbing into consciousness a game-world and its inhabitants?
Identity, Artifacts and Memory
Recent philosophical (and technological) studies of ontologies for
digital documentation and archiving practices connected with the
coding and verification of personal, collective, artefactual and other
cultural identities make it of pressing interest to examine the role
of gameplay activities and digital artefacts that represent new forms
of cultural capital. These can be viewed as traces of an ongoing
narrative construction of individual and collective memories and
identities deposited in game worlds.
How is the construction, during gameplay, of individual and collective
gameplay identities, memories and forms of gaming capital, related to
eventual digital artefacts that derive from such activities?
Your abstract should not exceed 1000 words including bibliography. If
your submission falls under one of the four headings, please indicate
which one.
Deadline for submissions is 17.00 GMT, February 1st, 2011. Send your
abstract to submi...@gamephilosophy.org.
All submitted abstracts will be subject to double blind peer review,
and the program committee will make a final selection of papers for
the conference on the basis of this. A full paper draft must then be
submitted by March 31st and will be made available on the conference
website. There will be an opportunity to revise the paper after the
conference.
Notification of accepted submissions will be sent out by March 1st,
2011.
Gordon Calleja
John Richard Sageng
Patrick Coppock
Seth Giddings
Stephan Günzel
Ian Bogost
Anita Leirfall
------
Patrick J. Coppock
Adjunct Professor in Philosophy and Theory of Languages
The Game Philosophy Initiative
Department of Communication and Economics
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Reggio Emilia
Italy
phone: + 39 0522.523265 : fax. + 39 0522.523205
email: patrick...@unimore.it
work: http://coppock-violi.com/work/
facebook: http://facebook.com/patcop
fac/dep: http://www.sce.unimore.it
coremore: http://corunimore.blogspot.com
gamephil: http://game.unimore.it