Date of workshop: November 28–29, 2022 (online)
Deadline for proposals: June 30, 2022
Website: https://ceehgc.eu
The workshop aims at bringing together scholars from Central and Eastern Europe interested in history in games, history of games, history studied through games, and the relation between games and historical education. The goal of the workshop is to introduce the variety of existing research around historical games in Central and Eastern Europe. We would like to compare and learn about the similarities and differences between scholarly traditions and approaches from different countries and to bring together game historians from Central and Eastern Europe for future international collaboration. We welcome an interdisciplinary approach. The conference is not limited to historians or archaeologists as we also invite colleagues from other disciplines, e.g., gender, film, literary, music or media studies as well as art historians, anthropologists, sociologists and others.
With more than sixty percent of Europeans regularly playing games and the average player being over thirty years old, digital games have become one of the most influential mass media shaping historical culture. They are crucial artefacts not only for public history but also for museology, pedagogy, etc. Games can be used by a wide variety of historical disciplines as a new historical form, subject of study or even a research tool or output. Despite all this potential and significance, they remain a relatively undervalued phenomenon. The scholarly community we aim to establish in Central and Eastern Europe can help in tackling these challenges.
Critical analysis of historical games gains relevance due to the rise of autocratic regimes and extremist ideas across Central and Eastern Europe. There are also attempts to use games for nationalistic and xenophobic ideologies. Our goal is both to promote free independent research and to support scholars displaced from their homes and forced to abandon their work. We may come from different countries, but we want to live and work in an open and peaceful Europe. Our workshop as a steppingstone of future cooperation in historical game studies contributes to exactly these goals.
The workshop is focused primarily on scholars from Central and Eastern Europe or based here but is not limited to a specific theme.
Potential topics may focus (not exclusively) on:
● Games as representations of the past
● Theory and methodology of historical game studies
● History of games and gaming culture
● History and evolution of game development
● Games and education
● Use of games in museums, historical monuments, or exhibitions
● Games and gender, diversity, and inclusivity
● Transmedial connections of historical games with other media
● Gaming communities and culture around historical games
● Games as a form of historying
● Historical games, politics, and propaganda
Organizing committee: Juan Manuel Rubio Arevalo (CEU, Vienna), Olga Kalashnikova (CEU, Vienna), Jan Kremer (FLÚ AV ČR & CEFRES, Prague), Jakub Šindelář (FSV UK, Prague).
