Game studies is a very special research field with a veritable abundance of perspectives and outsets. Personally, I think that the wide variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives on games is a fantastic opportunity to create a truly multidisciplinary research field where we can all learn from each other and respect the validity of many different kinds of studies. I hope game studies will continue to be a curious research community producing all kinds of interesting knowledge about games and fruitful discussions on how to do scientific work in general.

I have just returned from the nice and interesting one-day conference “Under The Mask: Perspectives On The Gamer” at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton, UK. Again, many interesting studies from many perspectives, reflecting good work. The papers from the conference can be found here, including my own modest contribution.

Next week, I am off to a PhD seminar arranged by the newly established Nordic Game Research Network (NGRN) and hosted by Aalborg University. I have just been reading through the different position papers sent in, and I am once again impressed by the high quality and wise academic reflections that are displayed. We are a diverse group of people, coming from both humanistic, social science and natural science/engineering backgrounds, and I am looking forward to a good learning experience at the seminar.

I am going the Under the Mask: Perspectives on the Gamer conference soon, which looks to be a really interesting and fun event. The papers that are online at the website now look very good, and here is a link to my own contribution.

So, I have finally gotten around to putting up a description of my project here. Look and you will see!

I am also happy to announce that I am part of a great panel at the forthcoming Association of Internet Researchers (a.o.i.r.) conference “Internet Research 9.0: Rethinking Community, Rethinking Place” in Copenhagen in October. I will be in it together with Malene Charlotte Larsen, Thomas Ryberg, Anders Albrechtslund (all from Aalborg University) and Rikke Frank Jørgensen (Roskilde University and Danish Institute for Human Rights). More information about the conference should soon be available at the website.

I recently had an abstract accepted for the conference “Under the Mask: Perspectives on the Gamer” at the University of Bedfordshire in June. I am really looking forward to this event, and the themes described at the website fit very nicely with my interests. Judging from the list of members of the Facebook group, it looks like mostly Brits are going to participate - but hopefully I won’t end up being the only one there speaking funny English.

My paper for this conference will deal with some of the theoretical considerations of my PhD project. I want to discuss the benefits and limitations of adapting literary theory - especially Paul Ricoeur’s theories on mimesis, narrative and identity - in order to understand the nature of the creative process of gamers producing, exchanging and negotiating narratives around the game.

Today, I finally got to move into my new office. It’s bright and spacious, and I am happy to have a room of my own - and with a view as well (which, by the way, is pretty similar to Malene’s).

So, more than a month has already passed since I officially began my PhD studies. I have been occupied with reading, speculating, planning, and generally, finding my bearings in the academic landscape. Even though I still have three years to go (minus one month…), I suspect that all that time will fly more quickly than you’d think.

My next deadlines include some conference abstracts and a detailed PhD project plan, which has to be handed in before May 1st. In connection with this, I am also working on a more detailed description of my project to be posted here. So stay tuned

I finally got my PhD scholarship - from the Danish research council. I am very happy, of course, and cannot wait to get started. I will still be affiliated with Aalborg University and e-Learning Lab - Center for User Driven Innovation, Learning and Design, which is great. I have good friends and colleagues there and a dynamic interdisciplinary research environment to work within. Weeee!

Really looking forward to reading this… unfortunately it won’t be out until May 2008.

I am back from Canada, where I participated in two conferences: 4S Annual Meeting (Montréal) and Internet Research 8.0: Let’s Play (a.o.i.r) (Vancouver). It has been a very interesting experience, both academically and personally - I will focus on the academic highlights here.

At 4S, the best sessions I went to were ones on game studies, virtual ethnography and… food! To begin with the last, there was a great, entertaining session with presenters who had done (mostly) ethnographic fieldwork and studies on food practices and discourses around different foods such as foie gras and artisan cheese. We were offered tastings from an artisan cheesemaker in Vermont and were shown a wonderful video recording of an American-born woman (with a very Woody Allen-type old New York accent) who had lived on a small Greek island with her husband and mother for many years and was cooking dinner for the family. The presenters in this session were: Heather Paxson, Deborah Heath and Anne Meneley, Amy Trubek, Wendy Leynse and David Sutton.

The game studies session had presentations on conceptual blending in virtual worlds, military games, the game industry envisioned as a game, translation of games, feminism and gaming, and the institutional and architectural surroundings around the development of “America’s Army”. All very interesting stuff. I especially liked Shira Chess’ entertaining rant about women and games, and about reclaiming notions of play in feminism. The presenters were: Hector Postigo and Sean Lawson, Casey O’Donnell, Rebecca Carlson and Jonathan Corliss, Shira Chess and Robertson Allen.

Then there was a really interesting session on network ethnography with a very good discussion on how - but also if and why - to reconceptualize the field of ethnography in the digital age. The presenters were: Anne Beaulieu, Danah Boyd, T.L. Taylor, Sally Wyatt and Nina Wakeford, and Bart Simon was discussant. Conference program and abstracts can be found here.

All in all, it was a good conference with many brilliant people presenting, though not too much games stuff. And although I only got to see a little of Montréal, I liked what I did see - great atmosphere, shops and cafés. The neighbourhood we explored (Mont Royal, Plateau, I think they were) reminded me of Brooklyn - only with a French accent :-).

Anyway, next stop was Vancouver for the a.o.i.r. conference Internet Research 8.0: Let’s Play. Another big conference with many game studies sessions (and, by the way, good food and a nice venue at the Harbour Centre/Simon Fraser University). Highlights for me were the sessions on games, of course:

I attended an interesting session on language play and language norms in games and computer mediated discourse. The presentations were very detailed linguistic studies, and since I have a soft spot for linguistic analysis, I quite enjoyed the session. For example, Josh Iorio gave an interesting perspective on language attitudes and their influence on social practice in an online role playing game. The presenters were: Lauren Squires, Josh Iorio, Anupam Das and Kris Markman.

There was a really good session on game studies with topics such as race, sex and gender representation in EverQuest, game modding, MMO machinima and community regulation and status ranking in MMOs. I especially liked Cassandra van Buren’s presentation on machinima through the perspective of posthuman theory. She talked about the possibilities of machinima to push boundaries in both cinema and games. T.L. Taylor did a very interesting talk on how modding in WoW changes the game in a very deep way, and how mods act as tools for management and regulation for online game communities. The presenters were: Keith Massie, Casey O’Donnell, Hector Postigo, Cassandra van Buren and T.L. Taylor.

Ian Bogost was supposed to present at the “Serious games” session - but did not show up. However, the two remaining presentations were really good. Daniel Ashton gave a talk on the potentials of MMOs as “boundary objects” for learning, and Ingrid Hoofd gave a very interesting and critical presentation on the ethical issues in serious gaming, highly theoretical (Virilio, Derrida etc.) and well argued. There was really some food for thought to take home from this session, as well as from the two conferences in general.

And then, of course, I enjoyed and was impressed by the presentations of my (different kinds of) “associates”: Anders Albrechtslund, Malene Charlotte Larsen, Søren Mørk Petersen and Michael Zimmer on topics such as surveillance, youth and social networking and critical perspectives on web 2.0. And Vancouver is a lovely city - sort of like a mini-Manhattan with breathtaking natural surroundings.

Online version of program can be found here.