The department of Game Design at Uppsala University, campus Gotland
Category: Guest Lectures
We use our ever-growing network to lure speakers from the game- & movie industry, academia and independent scene to the island. Unfortunately we’re very poor with keeping this category up to date; including the Gotland Game Conference we average 1 guest lecture every 14th day! Some of these are recorded – check the youtube channel. If you wish to speak with Sweden’s strongest game design students (or their staff), contact Ulf!
Join us at Gotland Game Hub (GGH) this Wednesday for a talk by Mikael Wendschlag, Researcher at the Department of Economic History, Uppsala University.
🗓 When: Wednesday, 13:00–17:00 📍 Where: H-Building, Campus Gotland (Strandgatan 7, the Old Residence)
15:00 – Short Talk: “From Playfulness to Preparedness: Playable Interactive Simulations for Financial Crisis Resilience”
Mikael’s talk is part of the seminar series at the Focus Area of Games and Creativity, Gotland Research Forum. It explores how an online financial crisis game is being developed to be fun to play while also:
· Training financial system stakeholders in crisis management
· Testing regulatory frameworks
· Serving as a learning tool in higher education
This talk highlights a new collaboration between Mikael and researchers Eliel Camargo-Molina and Lina Sörs Emilsson at the Game Design Department, combining financial research, digital interactive design, and playfulness to explore crisis preparedness through playable simulations.
Program Highlights – Nov 19 at GGH:
· 13:00 – Doors open: Coffee, snacks, networking, and game demos
· 15:00 – Mikael Wendschlag’s talk
· 15:30 – Open Mic: Share your projects, ideas, and experiments
· 17:00 – Wrap-up: Leave inspired and energized
Posted on - Comments Off on Gotland Game Hub: “Why Making is the New Playing” CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures
We are pleased to invite you to Gotland Game Hub, featuring a talk at 15:00, organized in collaboration with the Seminar Series at the Focus Area of Games and Creativity, Gotland Research Forum.
📅 When: Wednesdays, 13:00–17:00 📍 Where: H-Building, Campus Gotland (Strandgatan 7, the Old Residence)
This week’s program at GGH:
· 13:00 – Doors Open: Enjoy coffee, snacks, and cookies while networking, playing games, or exploring new ideas.
· 15:00 – Short Talk:Patrick Prax, Associate Professor, Department of Game Design, Uppsala University – “Why Making is the New Playing”
· 15:30 – Open Mic: Share your own game-related projects, events, or collaboration ideas.
· 17:00 – Wrap-Up: Conclude the session inspired and energized.
About the Talk: Games have long been recognized as a way for players to understand societal systems through rules and experiences. In this talk, Patrick Prax argues that play is only the first step. To deepen understanding, designers should create games that invite players into the designer’s role themselves, enabling a richer, hands-on engagement with systems and their complexities.
About the Speaker: Patrick Prax is a researcher specializing in the co-creation of game design, focusing on how societal values shape video game design and their broader social impacts. His research explores players’ game literacy and the opportunities and challenges of digital games, including their potential for learning and promoting sustainable policies, as well as risks such as addiction and radicalization.
We look forward to welcoming you for an afternoon of games, ideas, and inspiration!
Posted on - Comments Off on Register for Games, Conflict, and Education CategoriesGuest Lectures Tagsoutreach
The programme and registration for the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar 2025: Games, Conflict, and Education is now available!
This hybrid outreach event is co-funded by the Erasmus+ ROCKET project; the Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice; and the Department of Game Design.
Dates: June 12-13, 2025, 8-16 CEST
Location: Hybrid online and in person in Visby, Sweden
Registration is free. In-person spaces are limited to 60 spots including presenters, so register ASAP here
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.
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.
