Dr. Frans Mäyrä is the Professor of Information Studies and Interactive Media, with specialization in digital culture and game studies, in Tampere University, Finland. He is the founder and co-director of Tampere University Game Research Lab. Frans Mäyrä has studied the relationship of culture and technology from the early nineties, with specialisation in the cultural analysis of technology, particularly on the ambiguous, conflicting and heterogeneous elements in this relationship. Professor Mäyrä has published on topics that range from information technologies, science fiction, and fantasy to the demonic tradition, the concept of identity, and role-playing games. He is currently teaching, researching, and heading numerous research projects in the study and development of games, interactive media, and digital culture. He has also served as the founding President of Digital Games Research Association, DiGRA.

Frans is currently the director of the Academy of Finland funded Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies (CoE-GameCult, 2018-2025). He had led also several other large consortium research projects, such as Ludification of Culture and Society (2014-2018). The author of An Introduction to Game Studies (2008), one of the leading textbooks in the field, he has over 180 scientific publications, including the work published e.g. in Journal of Communication, Video Game Policy, The Video Game Debate, and The Dark Side of Game Play.

For more information, see Frans’ personal website.

We are excited to announce that we have now released the preliminary seminar programme with schedule and session titles! We have a total of eight themed sessions, focusing on diverse topics ranging from monsters in folklore to toxic gamer cultures, as well as three keynotes from our expert commentators. You can find more information on the programme page.

Priority registration for authors who submitted (regardless of acceptance) opens tomorrow, March 2.

After expert reviews and comprehensive discussion, we have now selected the papers to be presented at Monstrosity. We received 60 submissions and were able to accept 28. The submissions presented high-quality research with many interesting perspectives into the theme of Monstrosity. During the review process, we considered the overall quality of the submitted abstract and its topic and approach to the theme – also in relation to other submissions to facilitate discussion and synergy between all the presentations, so that the authors will benefit from the seminar in developing their work further. Once more, we wish to thank everyone who submitted their work!

We are currently in the process of building the seminar programme, and will be publishing more information in the upcoming weeks. Registration for the seminar will open in March.

The submission deadline for Monstrosity was on January 15, and we received exactly 60 extended abstracts – an unprecedented amount in the history of the seminar. We are honored by this interest and wish to extend our warmest thanks to everyone that submitted. The review process has now started, and we will send out notifications of acceptance or rejection Friday, 29 January.

Jaroslav Švelch is an assistant professor of media studies at Charles University, Prague. His monograph Gaming the Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2018) explores the do-it-yourself computer game culture of Communist-era Czechoslovakia. In 2017-2019, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen, studying the theory, history, and reception of video game monsters within the Games and Transgressive Aesthetics project.

Besides game history and monsters, his research interests also include comedy and humour in games and video game voice acting. He is a co-founder of the Central and Eastern European Game Studies conference (CEEGS).

For more information, see Jaroslav’s website.

Sarah Stang is a PhD candidate in the Communication & Culture program at York University in Toronto, Canada. She is the editor-in-chief of the student-run journal Press Start and the former essays editor for the academic middle-state publication First Person Scholar.

Her published work has focused primarily on gender representation in digital games and has been featured in journals such as Games & Culture, Game Studies, Nordlit, Human Technology, and Loading. Her current research explores the ways that marginalized and minoritized identities are symbolically incorporated into science fiction and fantasy media through the figure of the monstrous other. Her doctoral work specifically analyses female monstrosity in digital and tabletop science fiction and fantasy games, focusing on the ways that sexuality, reproduction, and old age, as well as non-normative bodies and transgressive behaviours, are framed as monstrous and horrific.

Aino-Kaisa Koistinen (PhD, Contemporary Culture Studies, JYU; Adjunct Professor, Media Culture, University of Turku) is a postdoctoral reserarcher at the Research Centre for Contemporary Culture. She has worked in several projects such as Abusive Sexuality and Sexual Violence in Contemporary Culture, Transmedia Literacy, Uses of Fantasy (Finnish sub-project of the Global Hobbit Project) and Dialogue and Argumentation for Cultural Literacy in Schools. She is also part of the project Caring Futures; developing care ethics for technology-mediated care practices (University of Stavanger, 2020-2024).

Koistinen has spent time as a visiting researcher at the University of Linköping (April 2014) and as a visiting teacher in San Diego State University (February 2018). During 2020-2021 she is affiliated with Posthumanities Hub at the University of Linköping. Moreover, Koistinen is part of the international Monster Network and the chair of FINFAR – Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research.

You can find more information on her university profile page.

The call for papers for next year’s spring seminar has now been published. Monstrosity will be the 17th annual spring seminar hosted by Tampere University Game Research Lab and the Center of Excellence in Game Culture Studies. The seminar follows our traditional work-in-progress format; all papers are distributed to all participants ahead of the seminar. This means that we can have a lively and informed discussion at the seminar.

Notice that this year the seminar takes place online.

Monstrosity, the 2021 Tampere Game Research Lab Spring Seminar will take place online on 20-22 April 2021. Details on the event will be published on this site as they become available.