Events
Below you may find a compendium of the various events held during the IMMERSe network's 9 year run. These meetings brought researchers from across the country and from various institutions together to work towards research in the world of games. For a comprehensive list of IMMERSe events, please visit our Research page.
Medievalism and Video Games Symposium
We invite research and creative work exploring the intersections between medievalism, neo-medievalism, or other periods in premodern studies and digital gaming. Your primary disciplinary orientation--for example, medieval studies or game studies--is less important than a commitment to engage in cross-disciplinary conversations with other scholars. Innovative interdisciplinary perspectives and new approaches to scholarly production are particularly welcome.
The IMMERSe Medievalism and Video Games Symposium will be held in conjunction with the University of California Davis Humanities Institute Digital Premodern Conference, which will explore medieval studies and the digital humanities more broadly.
IMMERSe THATCamp
THATCamp IMMERSe is a three-day weekend of workshops, unconference sessions, game play and game design hosted by the Games Institute in partnership with the IMMERSe Research Network for Video Game Immersion, and inspired by THATCamp Games. The event will bring together theorists and practitioners of game studies and the digital humanities, game developers and designers, games enthusiasts and advocates, and humanities instructors and scholars interested in games, pedagogy, and player experience. Participants will discuss, debate, critique, create, and play games throughout the weekend's activities.
IMMERSe Meeting 2015
The theme of the meeting is “The Story of IMMERSe: Past and Future”. We had set this theme quite some time ago, but we were in Ottawa at SSHRC this past Monday addressing new Partnership Grant holders, and we learned that what SSHRC truly needs is a strong research-activities-growth story for the federal government. So it is now a perfect time to look at the substantial activity that has occurred, how we have made excellent use of the funds, and where we go for the second three years of the project. Furthermore, given that IMMERSe was very largely responsible for the existence of The Games Institute space at Waterloo, we wanted to showcase the space and its CFI-funded (via IMMERSe) immersive lab called WatGAME.
ZU-UK and TAG Lab
Immerse researchers from Concordia University were invited to ZU-UK, London, to participate in a week long workshop to collaborate on immersive theater games. ZU-UK is an established award winning independent theatre and digital arts company based in East London and Rio de Janeiro.
Building on a previous partnership with IMMERSe collaborator, Bart Simon, this games-focused workshop was created specifically for TAG Lab members from Concordia by the Artistic and Executive Directors of ZU-UK, Persis Jade Maravala & Jorge Lopes Ramos.
IMMERSe Student Presentation Day
On Friday, April 12, researchers from both The Games Institute and IMMERSe will be giving short presentations about the research they've been conducting. It will be a 3-hour session, the purpose of which is to show what the Games Institute and IMMERSe have been up to.
Make a Game or DIY Trying
On Friday, April 26, Kitchener City Hall witnessed a massive turnout of game designers, artists, and enthusiasts for the first annual "Make a Game or DIY Trying" game design workshop and tournament hosted by The Games Institute. Participants came from all walks of life; high school and university students, games industry professionals, and just about anyone with a passion for gaming, a thirst for knowledge, and a desire to prove themselves worthy as game designers. The event raised local awareness for The Games Institute, fostered growth within Waterloo's burgeoning video-game community, and allowed gaming-enthusiasts both young and old to showcase their knowledge and skills.
GI Jam
The University of Waterloo Game Jam, also commonly called the GI Jam, is a thrice-annual, multi-day event hosted by The Games Institute (GI). Each of these events are open to the public and are designed to appeal to a wide variety of playful people.
The Building Blocks of Life: A Minecraft Colloquium
This one-day colloquium is geared towards researchers studying the video game Minecraft (Mojang, 2009). Because of its open-ended format, multiple play styles, creative possibilities, and even its practical uses in education and architectural planning, Minecraft has attracted a huge and diverse audience. The game has also has proven to be an extremely rich source of scholarly engagement, and its possibilities for research are only in the first stages.
This colloquium seeks to bring together ideas for papers, presentations and panels as diverse as the possibilities within Minecraft itself. We invite proposals from a range of disciplines and perspectives, including game studies, research/creation, fine arts, education and pedagogy, computer science, and digital humanities, and encourage submissions that approach the game from uncommon and unexpected angles.
MetaFandom UnConference
The University of Waterloo’s Games Institute as well as the IMMERSe Research Network are proud to host a MetaFandom Unconference on Thursday, September 18th and Friday the 19th. Unconferences are gatherings of interested scholars and experts, where they have informed conversations on a particular topic fandom and fan studies, in this case! Attendees shouldn’t prepare papers or presentations; rather, they should come to the unconference prepared to speak briefly about a specific topic as a panelist, ask informed questions of other panelists, and, most importantly, get to know other scholars, experts, and interested fans. We invite fans of all kinds to apply whether you are a fan scholar or a fan yourself, we look forward to discussing all kinds of topics with you.