Gaming Intermediality 2026

In the last three decades, the study of games has spread across a range of academic fields, with research often produced by scholars trained in other disciplines, working alone or in small groups within departments dedicated to other media. The Gaming Intermediality Network (GIN) aims to bring together scholars from a range of fields (literature, film studies, rhetoric, musicology and so on) who study games in relation to "their" medium, as well as game scholars ”proper” who approach games from intermedial or multimodal points of view. Game studies remains a decentralised, atomised field. By building a rhizomatic network of communication between its nodes, we aim to realise its transdisciplinary potential, exploring what our fields can bring to game studies and what studying games can bring to our fields.

To foster an in-depth scholarly discussion on analytical approaches to studying games, with a particular emphasis on intermedial and multimodal (methodological) strategies, we now welcome contributions to our second international symposium “Gaming Intermediality II: A Case for Method”, organized at Lund University, on 16–18 March 2026, from noon to noon.

As intermedial dynamics continue to influence the evolution of game studies, we invite scholars from a range of different disciplines to share insights into the analytical challenges of studying games in relation to, within, and intertwined with other media. The workshop will provide an ideal setting for examining cross-media interactions, conceptual intersections, and innovative methodologies across academic fields.

The workshop’s format is designed to foster an active collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas. Each participant will contribute a working paper (max. 3,000 words) where they present a case that they are working on and then reflect upon the challenges and affordances of their chosen methodology. The idea is to make methodological reflections tangible through concrete cases, in order to facilitate discussion across disciplinary boundaries about the methodological issues that each presenter grapples with.

We encourage cases that invite reflection on questions including, but not limited to:

• How/what existing intermedial tools might be lacking for the study of games, and the potential development of such tools to overcome those limitations?

• How do we deal with encountering empirical objects that are relevant to our study but that require tools of analysis that our field does not yet provide?

• Whether and how transdisciplinary collaboration might lead the way out of the conundrum of dealing with objects/aspects that our discipline cannot yet handle on its own?

Each working paper is assigned two dedicated readers/commentators, but all participants of the workshop are invited to read every submission and contribute to the discussions following the presentations. This shared engagement will allow us to collectively refine our intermedial and multimodal approaches to studying games, ensuring an inspiring academic dialogue.

We anticipate that the papers presented will form the foundation of a special issue in a specialist game studies journal and/or an edited collection with a respected academic publisher. This format will extend the workshop's insights to the wider academic community, enriching ongoing discourse in game studies, intermediality, multimodality, and related fields.

Please send your proposal for a working paper, including an abstract (max. 300 words) and short bio note (max. 100) to the organizing committee infogamingintermedialityorg by 31 December 2025.

Submissions are not anonymously reviewed. Program decisions will be made by the program committee: Jonathan Rozenkrantz (Lund University), Juha-Pekka Alarauhio (University of Oulu), Hanna-Riikka Roine (University of Bergen) and Andreas Rovio (Uppsala University).

We will inform the accepted presenters by 19 January 2026. The deadline for full working papers is 2 March 2026.

For further details, please contact infogamingintermedialityorg