August 4, 2006
Contributions Sought for “Reading Games”
Dennis Jerz sent this CFP along to us – it certainly seems like it should interest a few of the Grand Text Auto crowd.
Computers & Composition: An International Journal invites contributions for a special issue, Reading Games: Composition, Literacy, and Video Gaming
While video gaming has been a strong cultural force since the advent of the popular coin-operated arcades of the 1970s, it is only within the last few years that video/computer gaming has been an academic focus: there is a lot of catch-up work to do. The average age of gamers has been steadily increasing, as has the number of dedicated players. Inevitably, this dedication to gaming will have — if it does not already — a profound impact on learning and literacy. Video/computer games are historically- and culturally-situated texts that operate in particular social contexts significant to composition theory and praxis. For this special issue of Computers & Composition (to be published in September 2008), we invite proposals that examine the intersections of video/computer gaming and composition studies. How do gamers play the roles of readers and writers? How can games function as educational tools? How are video/computer games currently used in the composition classroom and to what effect? The guest editors invite proposals that answer these questions and especially those that emphasize composition and literacy studies, narrative, and the teaching of writing.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
- Gamers as readers & writers
- Writing processes and textual production in gaming communities
- How video/computer games redefine literacy or create new “literacies”
- How video/computer games contribute to literacy development
- Video/computer games that inspire imagination and creativity
- How games function differently from other storytelling/narrative devices
- Relationships of video/computer games to other media
- Use of video/computer games in the composition classroom
- “Political” implications of gaming in the classroom (pedagogical legitimacy, etc.)
- Challenges of integrating games into the classroom (technological requirements, etc.)
- Gaming as productive pedagogy
- Collaborative writing opportunities in gaming environments
- Gaming projects as multimodal compositions
- Social, historical, cultural, political contexts of video/computer games
- Rhetorical approaches to video/computer games
- Sociopolitical markers and identity politics/formation and video/computer games
Proposals should be one page, single-spaced (approximately 600-650 words). Deadline for submission of proposals is 1 February 2007. Please send proposals via email to Matthew S. S. Johnson (matjohn atsign siue.edu) AND Pilar Lacasa (p.lacasa atsign uah.es). Queries are welcome (matjohn atsign siue.edu). (Final manuscripts will be 15-30 pages in length, double-spaced. Manuscript deadline for accepted abstracts is 1 September 2007.)
Matthew S. S. Johnson
Department of English
Box 1431
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Edwardsville, IL, 62026-1431
United States
Pilar Lacasa
Universidad de Alcalá
Facultdad de Documentación y Psicopedagogía
Aulario María de Guzmán, C/ San Cirilo SN
Alcalá de Henares 28801, Spain