Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 393.
            Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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        Date: 2019-11-13 03:48:53+00:00
        From: Geoffrey Rockwell 
        Subject: CFP for Replaying Japan

Replaying Japan 2020: The 8th International Japan Game Studies Conference

Conference theme: “Ludolympics 2020”

Date: August 10-12, 2020

Location: University of Liège (7 Place du 20-Août, 4000 Liège, Belgium)

Proposals in Japanese are most welcome! 日本語での発表要旨も受け付けます。


Call for Papers

Since 2012, the Replaying Japan conference has hosted researchers from various
fields conducting research on Japanese game culture. The eighth conference is
being organized by the Liège Game Lab (a research group specialized in the study
of video games as a cultural objects in French-speaking Belgium) in
collaboration with the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, the University of
Alberta, the University of Delaware, Bath Spa University, Seijoh University and
DiGRA Japan.

This year’s conference theme will be “Ludolympics 2020”. Particular attention
will therefore be paid to the relationship between games and sport in Japan, to
the Japanese esport scene and its cultural specificities (see Goto-Jones, 2016;
Harper, 2014) and to competitive video game practices (Taylor, 2012 ; Hamari &
Sjöblom, 2017 ; Witkowski, 2012 ; Besombes, 2016), but also, more generally, to
the notion of video game performance and to the mediatization or
spectacularization of this performance.

Through the prism of this theme, fundamental aspects of games and play will be
questioned: the physicality of the playing practices, the place of competition
in Japanese game culture, the role of rules and conventions in games and play
(Salen and Zimmerman, 2004), as well as the possibilities of bypassing these
rules (through cheating, for instance; Consalvo, 2009) or the spaces of
appropriation that they allow (visible in the amateur practices, fan creations
or doujin circles, among others).

Furthermore, esports are a common and robust entry point into the study of
Japanese video games, their surrounding industry, their history, structuring,
cultural variants (through the multiplicity of competitive game scenes, for
example), and their surrounding economy. Competitive gaming has been an
important vector for players’ professionalization and has led to the emergence
of new figures in game culture: pro-players, commentators, streamers, video
makers, speedrunners, specialized journalists, etc.

Beyond video game practices in the strict sense, the conference will thus focus
on the different forms of mediatization of these practices inside and outside
Japan. How are game performances commented, represented, transformed into
spectacles? What media formats and discourses are being invented to promote
them? What “paraludic” cultural practices are developing around these scenes and
communities?

Lastly, the inclusion of (competitive) play in society and the many societal
issues it raises must be questioned: the issue of the (in)accessibility of games
(especially in the competitive field), the minority representation in this
domain or the political tensions it harbors are topics that also deserve further
attention.

Proposals that address these different issues are thus welcome, but these should
not be understood in a restrictive sense. This conference focuses broadly on
Japanese game culture, education, and industry. It aims to bring together a wide
range of researchers and creators from many different countries to present and
exchange their work. We therefore also invite papers on other topics relating to
games, game culture, video games and education, and the Japanese game industry
from the perspectives of humanities, social sciences, business, or education. We
encourage poster/demonstration proposals of games or interactive projects
related to these themes.



Submission Guidelines

Abstracts must be submitted through the platform EasyChair, following this link:
(https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rj2020)

Abstract registration deadline: February 3, 2020

Notification of Acceptance: April, 2020

All papers must be original. The following paper categories are welcome:

        • Full papers, posters/demos and short papers: please send anonymized
abstracts (pdf) of no more than 500 words in English or Japanese
        • Panels: panel proposals should have a maximum length of 1500 words,
including a description of each presentation and a short biography of each
participant; they can be submitted in English or Japanese
Figures, tables and references do not count toward the word limit.

Proposals in Japanese are most welcome!
日本語の発表要旨はrcgs[a]st.ritsumei.ac.jpにご送付ください。詳しくはRCGSのウェブサイトをご覧ください。



Contact Information

Fanny Barnabé (fanny.barnabe@uliege.be)

@LiegeGameLab

#replayingjapan



Works cited

Besombes N. (2016), Sport électronique, agressivité motrice et sociabilités,
Doctoral thesis in Sports Sciences, Sorbonne Paris-Cité-University, France

Consalvo M. (2009), Cheating. Gaining Advantage in Videogames, Cambridge, MIT
Press

Goto-Jones C. (2016), The Virtual Ninja Manifesto: Fighting Games, Martial Arts,
and Gamic Orientalism, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield

Hamari J. and Sjöblom M. (2017), “What is eSports and why do people watch it?”,
Internet research, vol. 27, n° 2, pp. 211-232

Harper T. (2014), The Culture of Digital Fighting Games: Performance and
Practice, New York, Routledge

Salen K. and Zimmerman E. (2004), Rules of Play. Game Design Fundamentals,
Cambridge, MIT Press

Taylor T.L. (2012), Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of
Computer Gaming. Cambridge, The MIT Press

Witkowski E. (2012), “On the Digital Playing Field How We ‘Do Sport’ with
Networked Computer Games”, Games and Culture, vol. 7, n° 5, pp. 349-374



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