CFP Science Fiction and Fantasy Gaming Conference (1/20/2023; Online 2/27-28/2023)

Cross-posted from the SFRA list. Note the impending deadline.

Call for Papers: Science Fiction and Fantasy Gaming Conference

Please see information below about MultiPlay Gaming Network's upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy Gaming Conference on the 27th and 28th February 2023.

MultiPlay is excited to host a two-day online conference on science fiction and fantasy in games! The conference intends to cover a broad range of anything regarding science fiction, fantasy, or speculative fiction in gaming.

Day One will thematically focus on Science Fiction and Day Two will thematically focus on Fantasy. Both days will be online conferences hosted via Windows Teams. Presentations will last twenty minutes, with a ten-minute Q&A at the end of each session.

We are currently seeking abstracts related to anything regarding science fiction or fantasy in video games of no more than 300 words, including references using the Harvard reference style guide, to be accompanied with a 100 word author biography.

We will also accept abstracts dealing with games that blur the two genres, or any sort of speculative fiction element in games, and they will be given a slot on either of the two days if accepted. We will also consider abstracts that deal with analog gaming instead of digital

Please send all abstracts to networkmultiplay@gmail.com with the heading ‘SFF Conference’ by January 20th. This week is the final week that we are accepting abstracts for this conference!

If you have any further questions, please email networkmultiplay@gmail.com

Out Now: Playing the Crusades

New from Routledge:

Playing the Crusades

Engaging the Crusades, Volume Five

Edited By Robert Houghton

Copyright Year 2021

Full details and ordering information available at this link. 

Paperback
$18.36

Hardback

$47.96
eBook
$18.36


ISBN 9780367716356 (pb)
Published September 26, 2022 by Routledge
122 Pages

Book Description

Engaging the Crusades is a series of volumes which offer windows into a newly emerging field of historical study: the memory and legacy of the crusades. Together these volumes examine the reasons behind the enduring resonance of the crusades and present the memory of crusading in the modern period as a productive, exciting, and much needed area of investigation.

This volume considers the appearance and use of the crusades in modern games; demonstrating that popular memory of the crusades is intrinsically and mutually linked with the design and play of these games. The essays engage with uses of crusading rhetoric and imagery within a range of genres – including roleplaying, action, strategy, and casual games – and from a variety of theoretical perspectives drawing on gender and race studies, game design and theory, and broader discussions on medievalism. Cumulatively, the authors reveal the complex position of the crusades within digital games, highlight the impact of these games on popular understanding of the crusades, and underline the connection between the portrayal of the crusades in digital games and academic crusade historiography.

Playing the Crusades is invaluable for scholars and students interested in the crusades, popular representations of the crusades, historical games, and collective memory.

Table of Contents

Introduction: crusades and crusading in modern games

Robert Houghton



A sacred task, no cross required: the image of crusading in computer gaming-related non-Christian science fiction universes

Roland Wenskus



‘I’m not responsible for the man you are!’: crusading and masculinities in Dante’s Inferno

Katherine J. Lewis



‘Show this fool knight what it is to have no fear’: freedom and oppression in Assassin’s Creed (2007)

Oana-Alexandra Chirilă



Crusader kings too? (Mis)Representations of the crusades in strategy games

Robert Houghton



Learning to think historically: some theoretical challenges when playing the crusades



Andreas Körber, Johannes Meyer-Hamme, and Robert Houghton

Editor(s)

Biography



Robert Houghton is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester. His research focuses on religious and political relationship networks in the central Middle Ages and on representations of the medieval world in modern games. Recent publications include ‘Italian Bishops and Warfare during the Investiture Contest: The Case of Parma’ (2018) and ‘World, Structure and Play: Digital Games as Historical Research Tools’ (2018).