Queer and Mad Readings in Video Game Studies

We’re delighted to announce the lecture “Queer and Mad Readings in Video Game Studies” by Cecilia Rodéhn and Marie Dalby! This event is the next in our series Transforming Games: Behavior, Identity, Culture, and Community (TAG), a research network funded by the Centre for Integrated Research on Culture and Society (CIRCUS) at Uppsala University. The network connects researchers from Game Design, Gender Studies, and Psychology in a joint research agenda focusing on the impacts of society on games and vice versa.

When: Tuesday, October 1, 7-8:30pm CEST

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/5f97chdz

RSVP here: https://tinyurl.com/bdz7wdks

Link will be provided to registrants on the day of the event. Make sure to sign in with the same name you used to register.

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Description:

In this talk, Cecilia Rodéhn will discuss mad reading: a mad studies centred method for analysing games. Mad studies is an interdisciplinary field that critically discusses how the social and medical systems create mental illness. Rodéhn will explore mad reading as (1) a situated reading, (2) challenging sanist representations, (3) reading the explicitly mad, (4) revealing where madness is not clearly visible, and (5) maddening games. As a method, it seeks to illuminate sanist representations, but it also has a more utopian and empowering agenda.

Marie Dalby will discuss Dark Souls (2011), a genre-defying video game that has achieved an almost mythical status and is synonymous for difficulty. For the uninitiated, Dark Souls might appear as an odd choice to put in conversation with queer theory. In this talk, Dalby will not investigate representations of queer subjects or queer modes of play; instead, she will employ a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective to explore what happens to queer readings of games when we abandon identification and look to desire.

Presenters bio:

Cecilia Rodéhn is an associate professor and a senior lecturer at the Centre for Gender Research and Department of Game Design, Uppsala University. Her research focuses on representations of madness and psychiatric hospitals.

Marie Dalby is a Ph.D. student at the Centre for Gender Research and Department of Game Design, Uppsala University. Her research explores the video game Dark Souls (2011) from a queer theory perspective.

This series is hosted by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The series explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.

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Learn more about the Games and Society Lab at Uppsala: https://www.speldesign.uu.se/research/games-and-society-lab/

Learn more about the Uppsala Child and Baby Lab: https://www.psyk.uu.se/uppsala-child-and-baby-lab/

Learn more about the Centre for Gender Research at Uppsala: https://www.gender.uu.se/?languageId=1

Learn more about Transformative Play at Uppsala and join the TPI mailing list: https://www.speldesign.uu.se/…/gam…/transformative-play/

Like Transformative Play Initiative on FB: https://www.facebook.com/transformativeplay

Subscribe to the Transformative Play Initiative YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/4hb5kpv3

Design by Kate Blomgren and Daria Shpak.

Tiny Nomads Win Big and Launch New Game Company

Fantastic to see more of our awesome alumni absolutely killing it out there! Best of luck to Jad Tawbi, Axel Sandstedt, and Leo Wognum on your business journey with Sweden Game Startup and Science Park Skövde / Sweden Game Arena!

In the Spring of 2023 the team won first price at the Lv. 99 game jam in Singapore, out of 350 submissions! The cash price has been invested in starting a company to develop and publish the game.

In the Spring of 2023 the team won first price at the Lv. 99 game jam in Singapore, out of 350 submissions! The cash price has been invested in starting a company to develop and publish the game. Their prototype is available on Steam for you to try – Nasal Nomad: Sniffer’s Delight

Read more about the team’s journey from students at campus Gotland, to Singapore, through GamesCom and becoming a startup at Sweden Game Arena: Game Jam to Startup: Tiny Nomads Win Big and Launch New Game Company

Schrödinger nominated for the Swedish Game Awards

As the academic year kicks off and we welcome a large batch of new students, we are immensely excited to also send our warmest congratulations and best wishes to some of our current students who are nominated at the Swedish Game Awards (SGA)!

Viktor Danielsson, Hammad Shahid Pervaiz, Erik Jansson, Gustav Törnlund, Douty Leonardo Widén, Nils Howland, and Jonathan Wennerlund make up Singularity Studios, one of the teams from last semester’s 2nd-year production course, who exhibited at the Gotland Game Conference 2024. In addition to winning the awards for Best in Show, and Students’ Choice, their game “Schrödinger” (https://lnkd.in/dr8xSptd) was nominated for Best Audio Design, Best Storytelling, and Best Innovation.

This week they are off to the Swedish Game Awards where they are nominated for Best Design, Best Technology, and Game of the Year(!). https://lnkd.in/dgXTepiK

Fingers are crossed and we wish them the very best of luck on September 6!