CFP: Postcolonialism, Orientalism, and Videogames
CyberOrient: Journal of the Virtual Middle East and Islamic World
Editor-in-Chief: Daniel M. Varisco
Guest Editors: Souvik Mukherjee and Zahra Rizvi
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2022 (Full Papers)
Aim
Video games have literally become a game-changing medium in global culture since the 1970s and yet the representation of gaming cultures still remains the preserve of the Global North. Although there are very few representations of Asia in games (see Hjorth and Chan 2009, Patterson 2020), South Asia is particularly notable in its absence in games studies’ discourses and the larger allied scholarship on digital culture. In video games, when South Asia is at all represented, it is mainly through the lenses of colonialism and orientalism, thereby often resorting to stereotypes or ‘cybertypes’ (Nakamura 2002) and also eliding the vast diversity of the region. This special issue of CyberOrient follows in the path of earlier research based on the very recent concept of ‘regional games studies’ (Liboriussen and Martin 2016; Phillip Penix-Tadsen 2019), bringing some of the major and critical issues in the gaming cultures of what is arguably one of the most diverse and populated parts of the globe. In doing so, it also plugs into the assemblage of the South-South discourse and the global challenges to colonialism and orientalism in understanding narrative cultures, play-cultures and code.
In the light of the above-mentioned interventions in games research, we welcome submissions on the following topics as well any other related topic connecting South Asia and games:
- Orientalism in and as videogames
- Oriental pleasures of play
- Play as Empire, Playing against the Empire
- Postcolonialism and videogames
- Imperial utopia/dystopia in games
- Navigating South Asia through gameworlds
- Debates around caricature vs representation
- Gamers, gaming cultures and fandoms in South Asia
- Mobile/indie games in South Asia
We welcome submissions from across disciplines and methodological approaches that are empirically and theoretically grounded.
About CyberOrient
CyberOrient (cyberorient.net) is a semi-annual interdisciplinary journal published by the American Anthropological Association, the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, and the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies and the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies of Lund University. CyberOrient presents original, peer-reviewed articles, comments and books reviews on the online representation of any aspect of Middle Eastern cultures, Islam, the imagined “Orient” and the use and impact of the internet and new media in the Middle East and Islamic countries.
Submissions:
Please email your articles directly to Zahra Rizvi (rs.zrizvisasuke@jmi.ac.in), Souvik Mukherjee (souvik@cssscal.org) and Vit Sisler (vit.sisler@ff.cuni.cz).
** Articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words (including references), and follow the current edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Upon acceptance, articles will be published online with free access in 2023.
Image credit: Dhruv Jani / Studio Oleomingus
Digital Games Research Association, India 