Please join us for "E-Sports and Cyberathleticism: A HTGG Workshop" to be held at Stanford University (Stanford Humanities Lab space, Wallenberg Hall, Building 160, 4th Floor) from 9:30am to 4:30pm on Friday, 8 May, 2009.
Speakers include:
The growth of professional computer gaming and what is often dubbed "e-sports" has yet to receive the serious scholarly attention it warrants. Given the ways it asks us to consider what serious and high performance play is, what spectatorship means for computer games, and indeed if this growing genre of entertainment is viable as a new form of sport, we feel it is time to turn an academic eye on the emerging world of pro-gaming. We are organizing this workshop to bring together members of the community - players, coaches, team managers, broadcasters, website and community organizers - to present their histories within the scene, ideas about where things are headed and current challenges, and generate discussion on the subject of e-sports and pro-gaming. We will be approaching cyberathletics from the general aspects of players, teams & coaching, and communities & spectatorship (one panel each). We will collaboratively investigate these related topics by looking at digital game technologies, communities, and cultures. Topics will include team selection, game playing strategies, game hacking & cheating, open source ideas, technology studies, spectatorship and broadcasting, fan culture, and notions of competitive coaching and management. In short, we will look critically and historically at the notions of professional competitive play in digital games in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
The event is organized, coordinated, and moderated by T.L. Taylor, Henry Lowood, Matteo Bittanti, Henrik Bennetsen, Susan Rojo and Amanda Glasser.
We hope you will be able to join us for this in-depth workshop. Please let us know as soon as possible if you are able to attend, as we are holding a limited number of seats at the table.
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