Thursday, December 09, 2010




















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 submissions@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

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Jacques GENINASCA

















Prière de transmettre cette information :

L'Association Française de Sémiotique s'associe à la tristesse de sa  famille et de ses amis pour annoncer le décès, à Neuchâtel (Suisse) le 22 mai 2010, dans sa 80ème année de

Jacques GENINASCA

Professeur de littérature à Zurich

J. Geninasca est l'un des initiateurs de la recherche sémiotique en Europe, avec le soin d'inscrire la sémiotique dans l'horizon du poétique et de l'esthétique, où se manifeste l'émergence du sens, et
où s'articule notre rapport au langage et au monde. Praticien passionné de la lecture et de l'interprétation des ouvres littéraires et de la poésie contemporaine, J. Geninasca fut aussi un peintre, et un analyste et théoricien de la peinture.
___________________________________

Louis PANIER
Professeur de Sémiotique
Président de l'Association Française de Sémiotique
Université Lumière-Lyon 2
LESLA - Sciences du Langage
UMR 5191 ICAR (CNRS/Lyon 2)
Interactions, Corpus, apprentissages, Représentations

louis.panier@univ-lyon2.fr
tel : 06 84 80 98 03

--


Dal Sito AISS: 


Scomparsa di Jacques Geninasca


Con grande tristezza annunciamo la scomparsa di Jacques Geninasca, avvenuta il 22 maggio 2010 a Neuchatel. Vogliamo ricordarlo con questa intervista realizzata a Urbino, sui temi a lui più cari.

Vedi l'intervista

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

[semioticians-ar] Juan Magariños - Un Grande Semiologo Argentino è scomparso


Juan Magariños murió en Jujuy el 12 de abril a las 7 am, de un shock cardíaco después de una intensa jornada de clases. El 25 de marzo había sido trasladado al Hospital Pablo Soria de Jujuy, por una ambulancia, desde el hotel donde se hospedaba.

Luchó por su vida por más de dos semanas. Estuvo permanentemente acompañado por mí, por sus colaboradores de las distintas cátedras de la Facultad de Humanidades de Jujuy, por amigos y colegas que viajaron especialmente de distintas provincias del interior del país.

Siempre hubo en nosotros la esperanza de mejoría. Su muerte fue un golpe.

Agradezco a los miembros de esta lista las cálidas comunicaciones por correo privado y los mensajes en la lista.

Por ahora, la lista seguirá funcionando.

Afectuosamente

Giovanna Winchkler de Magariños

Tel: 54 011 15 6650 5006 y 54 011 15 5731 7469



El grupo está dirigido a los ESTUDIOSOS DE LA SEMIOTICA que quieren jerarquizar esta disciplina, desarrollando todas sus posibilidades y también a los INVESTIGADORES EN CIENCIAS SOCIALES que desean encontrar una metodología efectivamente eficaz.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Jeff Bernard r.i.p. 24.02.2010

Liebe FreundInnen und KollegInnen,
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

Ich trauere um unser aller Freund und Kollegen, meinen Lebensgefährten Jeff Bernard.
Jeff ist am Mittwoch, dem 24. Februar 2010 völlig unerwartet an den Folgen eines schweren Herzinfarkts verstorben.
Beiliegend findest Du/finden Sie die Parte mit Angaben zu Ort und Zeit des Begräbnisses.
Ich habe Trauerfeier und Begräbnis sehr spät angesetzt, um vielen FreundInnen und KollegInnen die Möglichkeit zu geben, von Jeff Abschied zu nehmen. Ich würde mich freuen, wenn ich Dich/Sie bei der Feier begrüßen darf.
Ich ersuche auch, die traurige Nachricht weiterzugeben, da ich sicher nicht von allen Personen, die ihn gekannt haben, gültige email-Adressen in meinen files habe.
Ich füge dem mail auch eine kurze biografische Notiz bei. Im Laufe der nächsten Woche werde ich versuchen im Rahmen meiner eigenen Website einige Informationen zu und Bilder von Jeff zur Nutzung für mögliche Nachrichten/Nachrufe online zu stellen:


Falls eine Möglichkeit einer kurzen oder längeren Nachricht in einer Zeitschrift oder einem Newsletter besteht, wäre ich für diese Form der Würdigung dankbar. Ich würde mich auch freuen, wenn ich Fotos erhalten könnte, die bei einer der vielen Veranstaltungen entstanden sind, an denen Jeff über die Jahrzehnte teilgenommen hat - wir hatten sicher nicht von allen Kopien.

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with deepest sorrow that I announce the death of our friend and colleague, my partner Jeff Bernard.
Jeff passed away entirely unexpectedly after suffering a severe heart attack on Wednesday, February 24, 2010.
Please find attached the death notice giving details concerning the date and place of the burial service. I have scheduled the funeral at this date to give as many friends and colleagues as possible the chance to bid a last farewell to Jeff. I would appreciate to welcome you at the service.
You are kindly asked to distribute the sad news and the death notice in your own circles since I'm not sure to have valid email addresses of everybody who knew him.
Enclosed you will also find a very brief biographical note. By the end of next week I will try to open a small site on Jeff within my own website:


offering information on and pictures of Jeff for possible memorial notes and obituaries. In case you find a possibility to include a short or even longer commemorative text in your journal or newsletter, I would be deeply grateful for this kind of appreciation. Moreover, I would like to ask you to send any pictures of Jeff taken at one of the many semiotic congresses and events he attended over the decades - we certainly don't have copies of all of them.
Mit herzlichen Grüßen
Kind regards,

Gloria Withalm
.............................................................................................................
Mag.a Gloria Withalm

Abteilung Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte
IKK.K Institut fuer Kunstwissenschaften, Kunstpaedagogik und Kunst-vermittlung
Universitaet fuer angewandte Kunst Wien
[mail] Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz 2
A-1010 Vienna, Austria
[visitors] Franz-Josefs-Kai 5
A-1010 Vienna, Austria
phone uni-ak +43-1-71133-6503
fax uni-ak: +43-1-71133-6509

Schoenburgstrasse 25/27
A-1040 Wien
Austria
phone home +43-1-5036509
phone mobile +43-699-11592650
email: gloria.withalm@uni-ak.ac.at
Gloria.Withalm@gmx.at