CFP - Video and Computer Game Studies

Video and Computer Game Studies
Computer Culture Area
The 29th Annual Meeting of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association
Albuquerque, New Mexico
February 13-16, 2008

The Computer Culture Area of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association welcomes paper, panel, and other proposals in video and computer game studies. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

Alternative reality games
Archiving and artifactual preservation
Economic and industrial histories
Educational game design and development
Foreign language games and culture
Game advertising (both in-game and out)
Haptics and interface studies
Localization
Luddology and other theories of play
Machinima
MOGs, MMOGs, and other forms of online/networked gaming
Narratology
Performance
Pornographic games
Religion and games
Representations of race and gender
Representations of space and place
The rhetoric of games and game systems
Serious games
Table-top game design and theory
Technological, aesthetic, economic, and ideological convergence
Wireless and mobile gaming

For Paper Proposals:

Please submit 250 word abstract embedded in the body of an email. Include contact information (e.g., postal and preferred email address, phone and fax numbers, etc.) and a biographical note about your connection to the topic.

For Panel and Other Proposals:

Feel free to query first. Panel and other proposals should include all of the information requested for individual paper proposals, as well as a 100-word statement of the panel's raison d'etre and any noteworthy organizational features.

As always, proposals are welcome from any and all scholars, including graduate students, independent scholars, and tenured, tenure-track, and emeritus faculty. Also, unusual formats, technologies, and the like are encouraged.

Send proposals by November 15, 2007 to:

Judd Ruggill
School of Media Arts
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
jruggill@email.arizona.edu

Posted by prolurkr at 06:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thoughts on writing

All of my thoughts today have been stolen...of course that makes them no less accurate to my feels at the moment. I want to write, I need to write, and for once there is something else I must do before I can write.

The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.
(William Goldman)

Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.
(Paul Rudnick)

We can't be as good as we'd want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?
(Nick Hornby)

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining--researching--talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
(E L Doctorow)

And my final thoughts of the day:

Don't get it right, just get it written.
(James Thurber)

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
(E L Doctorow)

Well I guess attribution means they aren't stolen thoughts rather it means I'm an academic. LOL A double social schizophrenic is ever there were such a career path.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Publish or Perish...the software

Thanks to Elijah for helping me kill one of those useless hours I have laying around.  LOL  I want to spread the joy and let all of you kill time - passing out knives - and maybe give you a useful tool for your research as well.

If you haven't checked out Harzing's Publish or Perish I strongly recommend you do so now...if not sooner.  This is one of the coolest search tools I've seen, ever.  In essence take Web of Science and make it publicly accessible and let it bump up against Google Scholar and you have Publish or Perish.

Like most folks I started out my play time with a vanity search and then a variety of keyword searches, and was rewarded for my efforts.  I will sleep better tonight knowing that Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs (pdf) is the most cited "blog" paper listed.

Even my solo and first author works are getting pretty good citation.  What can I say it's cool to see numbers to actually know someone is using the work.  Qualitative has it's place because it's always nice to hear that someone likes the work, but it's very cool to see those citation numbers...hard and cold and quantitative.  LOL  One of the few places I really really like numbers.

Posted by prolurkr at 12:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Comments from all non-spammers welcome

Comments are back on for prolurkr, but only for the last three months of available posts.  If you want to comment on anything older than April 2007 you will need to email me and I will add the comment...once I figure out how to do that.  LOL

Posted by prolurkr at 03:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reworking toward a goal

Part of the additions to the prolurkrverse are up and running.  Check out CommonplaceBook. CommonplaceBook is an open site, and will eventually be indexed as well.  Comments and trackbacks are welcome.

Resingled.info is also up and running, though I am waiting for feedback on a registration check. I will be sending out invitations to people who might be interested...no obligation just information. If you want an invitation and don't get one in the next 48 hours or so, let me know.  Resingled allows for comments but not trackbacks, and it won't be indexed...it's a locked down site...or at least that is the plan.

Posted by prolurkr at 03:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Upcoming changes to the prolurkrverse

I am beginning the process of spiffing things up around here. Professional-Lurker has taken a beating, a quiet beating to be sure, over the last year. Now that I am working my way back to regular posting, I have a few ideas to add to the site's online presence.

Once I get the software bugs worked out I will be adding four new sites. First, is a personal chronicle at resingled.info.  The site will be password protected...and if I know you, and you want to be included please let me know.

Second, is commonplacebook.info, as the name implies this site will be my online commonplacebook for collecting quoted sections from readings...things I find interesting.

Third and fourth, are two subdomains that will hold the Adolescents and Teens Online Bibliography and Weblog and Blog Bibliography both of which are currently woefully out of date.  I'm trying to figure out if I can set-up various sorts in MediaWiki - if you know how to manipulate this program I would love to talk to you - or if I will have to use blogging software to get the output I want.  I know a Wiki would be easiest to use but I hate the output I see from most of them...if it can't be sorted so it looks like a bibliography I don't want to use it.  Once a decision is made and the software is installed, and working then I will upload, update, and announce the availability of the new bibliographies.

Last but certainly not least, once a stable version of Movable Type's new release (4.01) is available I will be updating my software on this site and on loisscheidt.com.  When that upgrade is completed, and working, I plan to again allow comments and trackbacks on this site.  We shall see how it goes.

Obviously this work will be done in between writing...which has to be my first priority.  Watch for updates on both the site and my writing.

Posted by prolurkr at 01:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack