WAR/GAME: Charting an Agenda

Preliminary Programme:

09:00 - 09:45 Welcome & Introduction to WARGAME-project (Holger Pötzsch, UiT)

09:45 - 10:00 Coffee

Panel 1: Games and the Senses

10:00 - 10:30: James Ash (Newcastle University)
“Resolution: Understanding Affective Design in Military FPS Games”

10:30 - 11:00: Kevin McSorley (University of Portsmouth)
“Somatic War: Militarized Sensation, Gameplay and Embodied Experience“

11:00 – 11:30: Siobhan Thomas (London South Bank University)
"Transgressing the Boundaries of Embodied Habitus: Intersomatic Connoisseurship in War Game Design"

11:30 - 12:00 Coffee

Panel 2: Games and Reality

12:00 – 12:30: Holger Pötzsch (UiT Tromsø)
“Selective Transgressions: Gendering the Experience of War in Military-Themed Computer Games”

12:30 – 13:00: Philip Hammond (London South Bank University)
“Reality Check: Military Videogames and the Problem of Authenticity”

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

Panel 3: Transgressive Games

14:00 – 14:30: Kristine Jørgensen (University of Bergen)
“Transgressive Content and Meaning-Making Processes in War Games”

14:30 – 15:00: Tilo Hartmann (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
“Moral Disengagement: How Video Games Frame Physical Violence an ‘Okay’ Action”

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee

Panel 4: Games, History, and Memory

15:30 – 16:00: Emil Lundedal Hammar (UiT)
“Appropriative Memorial Play”

16:00 - 16:30: Vit Sisler (Charles University Prague)

"Contested Memories of War in the Serious Game 'Czechoslovakia 38-89 - Assassination'"

16:30 – 17:00: Christine Smith-Simonsen (UiT) and Holger Pötzsch (UiT)

"Playing Cultural Memory: War, Violence, and Enemies in History-Based First-Person Shooters"

More info on the event here.

The WARGAME-symposium is an initiative of the ENCODE-research group at UiT Tromsø.