[game_edu] Ian Bogost Announced as Keynote Speaker at Meaningful Play 2008

[Brian Winn]

Ian Bogost Announced as Keynote Speaker at Meaningful Play 2008

The organizing committee is excited to announce that Ian Bogost will  
be a keynote speaker at Meaningful Play 2008 <http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu 
 >, taking place October 9-11, 2008 in East Lansing, MI.

Dr. Ian Bogost is a videogame designer, critic, and researcher. He is  
an Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and  
Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing  
considers videogames as an expressive medium, and his creative  
practice focuses on games about social and political issues. Bogost is  
author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism (MIT  
Press 2006), recently listed among “50 books for everyone in the game  
industry,” and of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames  
(MIT Press 2007), along with several other books and many other  
writings. Bogost has recently co-authored (with Nick Montfort) Video  
Computer System: A Platform Study of the Atari 2600, which will be  
published this year. Bogost’s videogames about social and political  
issues cover topics as varied as airport security, disaffected  
workers, the petroleum industry, suburban errands, and tort reform.  
His games have been played by millions of people and exhibited  
internationally.

About Meaningful Play:
Whether designed to entertain or for more "serious" purposes, games  
have the potential to impact players’ beliefs, knowledge, attitudes,  
emotions, cognitive abilities, and behavior. Meaningful Play 2008 is  
an interdisciplinary academic conference that explores the potential  
of games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful  
ways. The conference includes thought-provoking keynotes from leaders  
in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel  
sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative  
workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games.

Call for speaking submissions (papers, panels, etc) is due July 13,  
2008.
Call for game exhibition and competition is due August 15, 2008.

Complete details on the conference is available at: http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu