*CFP* “MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON NARRATIVE AESTHETICS IN VIDEO GAMES”, CHAPTER BOOK

Each period creates its particular aesthetics. Developments in the scientific and technological fields affect art forms and accelerate their evolution. In time, the leading art movements of an era generate and exceed their own saturation of thresholds, transform their ‘deep-and-singular' selves into 'shallow-and-multiple' selves. An art form that evolves by its internal dynamics and statics reaches the threshold of saturation, and finally becomes a 'springboard' upon which another art form can take further steps. This is how art forms evolve in interaction. In this context, video games have rapidly covered the path that cinema has taken over a long period.

By advancing through its evolution, video games now represent many narrative systems that provide a semantic reserve of form and content for both their own medium and the other mediums. These narrative systems have been inevitably subjected to the effects of technological developments. Meanwhile, concepts such as Mimesis, Diegesis, and Katharsis, which have remained valid since Aristotle, have dominated the narrative channels throughout the history of art given the enigmatic attractiveness of their singularities. As in everything, the principle of dialectic antagonism, which carries and expands all the layers of meaning by adding new particles as time progresses, stood against these concepts by revealing alternative systems like Brechtian, Modern and Postmodern narratives, particularly in theater and cinema. On the one hand, it can be claimed that there has always been a single narrative idea and it embodied in various mediums; on the other hand, it can also be claimed that each media could have inevitably created its own narrative system. In both cases, it is certain that almost every piece of art which conveyed by many other mediums or branches formed their own ontologic “present,” while feeding on the unalterable knowledge of the past. Sometimes by standing alongside the things they show, sometimes by standing up against, or sometimes by being only neutral observers to them.

Evolutionary big leaps in the history of art have always taken place with a dimensional expansion and Every successful thing goes beyond its predecessor. As the predecessor of video games, cinema took the first big leap and replicated the unique features of many previous art forms and synthesized them. The dimensional expansion here manifested as (detection of) movement. Afterward, video games replicated mostly all the features of cinema and others and synthesized them. The dimensional expansion here manifested as interactivity. Since video games synthesize unique features of various art forms, they have the qualified characteristics of expressing many meanings, elements, contents and methods that convey and construct narrative systems in various ways.

Objective

In this project, our Editorial Advisory Board and we will endeavor to read video games as one of the most potent and evolutionary representatives of narrativity, from a narrativist perspective without missing valuable arguments of ludologist perspective. As a collection of critical and cultural studies, this book aims to provide valuable knowledge of relevant theoretical and conceptual frameworks in both game studies and the theory of video games. This book also aims to be a manuscript that reassesses and interprets intensive topics of the history of video games from a contemporary and multidisciplinary perspective. I’ll be written for scholars, researchers, practitioners, and professionals who want to enhance their understanding and imply the knowledge of the relationship and correlation of video games, narrativity, and aesthetics.

Target Audience

The target audience of this book will be composed of scholars, researchers, practitioners, and professionals studying and/or working in the fields of game studies, history of video games, art and other arts, media arts, social and communication sciences, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies, media studies, critical and cultural studies, narration arts like cinema, theater, literature, photography and music, and game design.

Recommended Topics

Welcomed Topics Include (but also a combination of) the following: 

• Analyzes through Narrative Discourse of Gerard Genette upon video games.
• Analyzes on video games with Erwin Panofsky’s Iconographic method.
• Linguistic Competence of Video Games: Emergence and maintenance of meaning codes, components, patterns, and systems.
• The appearance of Classic, Modern, and Postmodern narrative in video games.
• Exchange of narrative elements between art branches and video games.
• Analogical narrative design in video games.
• Relativist narrative design in video games.
• Perspectivist narrative design in video games.
• Structuralist narrative design in video games.
• Formalist narrative design in video games.
• Interpretivist narrative design in video games.
• Stylist narrative design in video games.
• Sophisticated content design in video games.
• Games that have complicated plots/superimpose narrative layers.
• Reading video games as a “representation system.”
• Games that replicate/transform cinematographic aesthetics.
• Games that replicate/transform photographic aesthetics.
• Games that replicate/transform literal aesthetics.
• Games that replicate/transform theatrical aesthetics.
• Games that replicate/transform musical aesthetics.
• The appearance of archetypes on video games/video game archetypes.
• The appearance of stereotypes on video games/video game stereotypes.
• The appearance of Kitsch, Pastiche, and Parody on video games.
• Mimetic, Diegetic, and Cathartic manifestations in video games.
• Epic, Poetic, and Didactic manifestations in video games.
• Theoretical analysis of narratology through video games.
• Historical analysis of narratology through video games.
• Sociological analysis of narratology through video games.
• Psychological analysis of narratology through video games.
• Anthropological analysis of narratology through video games.
• Dialogue, monologue & inner voice in the context of video game narrative.
• Narrative aesthetics through acting & dubbing in video games.
• The aesthetic function of the narrator in video games.

Submission Procedure

Scholars and researchers are invited to submit on or before Sept 18, 2019, a chapter proposal of 500 to 750 words (excluding bibliography) clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter and an author information 200 to 300 words. The authors will be notified by Oct 05, 2019 about the acceptance of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by Jan 16, 2020. All interested authors must consult the guidelines for manuscript submissions at this site. All manuscripts are accepted based on a double-blind peer review editorial process. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

Note: There are no submission or acceptance fees for manuscripts submitted to this book publication, Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative Aesthetics in Video Games.

All proposals should be submitted through the eEditorial Discovery®TM online submission manager.

Publisher

This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference), Medical Information Science Reference, Business Science Reference, and Engineering Science Reference imprints. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2020.

Important Dates

Oct 18, 2019: Proposal Submission Deadline

Jan 16, 2020: Full Chapter Submissions

Mar 15, 2020: Review Results Returned

Apr 12, 2020: Revised Chapter Submission

May 10, 2020: Final Chapter Submission

Editors

Deniz Denizel (deniz.denizel@comm.bau.edu.tr), Bahcesehir University

Deniz Eyüce Şansal (deniz.eyucesansal@comm.bau.edu.tr), Bahcesehir University