International conference: Games & Literature. On the literaricity, research, collection, and archiving of computer games

DLA Marbach and Computer Games

In addition to collecting literature in its commonly understood forms, the German Literature Archive Marbach (DLA) also archives and collects computer games as a medial form of literature. The aim of the DLA in doing so is to engage with literature in all its mediality. The substantive reasons for this decision are numerous, but, fundamentally, computer games have long been part of our cultural memory, which must be archived appropriately and examined in relation to established cultural forms. The fact that computer games are discussed in the feature pages of the major daily newspapers, that the German Federal Government awards the German Computer Game Prize, and that computer games are officially recognized as a cultural asset by the Cultural Council is due, among other things, to the work of museums such as the New York Museum of Modern Arts, the Computer Game Museum Berlin, and the Karlsruhe Centre for Art and Media (ZKM).

As an archive for literature, the DLA has been dealing with hybrid forms of literature for some years now, for literature is not only created and produced between two book covers, but also on the computer, as “born-digital” literature. Within the framework of the “Netzliteratur” project (2013–2017), the DLA has done pioneering work on the systematic analysis and documentation of the creation, playback, performance and mirroring environment of games in line with defined standards. This work is being continued in various projects at the DLA, but a larger international, interdisciplinary conference is needed to further discuss and advance these endeavours with regard to questions of collection and archiving as well as research. To this end, we invite literary scholars, archivists, librarians, as well as researchers in Games Studies, Media and Communication Studies, and game designers to Marbach.

Application deadline: 31 January 2023