GRAND Highlights at Congress 2012

More than 70 Canadian humanities and social science associations meet under the annual Congress conference umbrella. Every year, GRAND has a large presence, with this year being no exception.

Posted by GRAND NCE, June 18, 2012

Every year, more than 70 Canadian humanities and social science associations meet under the Congress conference umbrella. From theatre, literature and education to history, sociology and international development, Congress represents a unique showcase of scholarly excellence, creativity, and leadership.

At Congress, the intensive two-week-long exploration of topics ranges from “Democratizing knowledge: The key to progress” presented by His Excellency, the Right Honourable David Johnston to "Bedtime Stories" by Canadian icon Margaret Atwood.

Held this year May 16 to June 2, the conference was jointly hosted by Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo, two of GRAND’s 25 member universities. As with Siggraph and CHI, GRAND has a large presence at Congress, with this year being no exception.

GRAND Highlights at Congress:

The Canadian Game Studies Association (CGSA) hosted a number of presentations of GRAND-related work.
- Jason Nolan presented on a panel entitled "Gaming the Methods: Forging Transdisciplinarity through Purposive Paneling".
- Brian Greenspan presented a GRAND mobile gaming project entitled "Cross Road, Occupy Square: Collective Believe Systems in Locative Games."
- Graduate student presentations included:
  - William Robinson's "Creative Labour and the Performance of Play".
  - Salvador Garcia and Carolyn Jong's "Exploring the State of Research on the Potential of Motion-based Gaming for Learning".
- Congratulations to Brian Greenspan and William Robinson whose work tied for CGSA Best Paper Award 2012. Both will be invited to speak in Plenary Sessions at CGSA 2013.

The Society for Digital Humanities (SDH/SEMI) hosted a joint session with CGSA by a GRAND team from the University of Alberta.
- Graduate students, Shane Riczu, David Holmes, Michael Burden, Shannon Lucky, Joyce Yu, and Matt Bouchard, presented on "Iterative Design, Testing and Assessment Practices for Serious Games."
- The panel addressed games research around designing and assessing games.
- Read Geoffrey Rockwell's thorough SDH-SEMI conference report at http://www.philosophi.ca/pmwiki.php/SDH/SEMI2012.

GRAND together with The Canadian Association for Information Science, the Canadian Games Studies Association, the Canadian Communication Association, the Society for Digital Humanities and the Canadian Film Studies Association hosted a one-of-a-kind, sold out reception on May 30.

The evening featured an incredible line-up of music, interactive visuals (thanks to Nick Taylor and VJ Skot), 3-screen DDR and a games showcase which came out of two projects aimed at increasing female involvement in the game production scene in Toronto: Difference Engine Initiative and the Dames Making Games project.