Submitted and Accepted!...Sort of

I submitted my paper to the ScholarsArchive without problems.

I also submitted to the Rocky Mountain MLA, as I've reported earlier. I paid my membership fee (it was only $25) so that the panel chair could submit my name as a presenter. I'm in this weird limbo state, though, because I'm still not sure if it's actually happening because the panel might get cancelled due to lack of submissions. And there's the issue of funding, but I can't really work on that until it's confirmed that I'm actually going. Here's to hoping it all works out.

I submitted to the panel "Games, New Media and Virtual Spaces: At play in new media," found under "Special Topics" here.

Just to save the jump, here's my abstract I submitted:

"Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On": Shakespeare and the Cultural Legitimacy of Video Games

For years now, the debate has raged over "video games as art." While the medium has taken several steps forward and we now have many strong examples of artistic games, they still have not achieved the sense of legitimacy our culture gives to anything considered "art." In many ways, video games are fighting the same battle that English drama fought in Renaissance England, a battle chiefly won by William Shakespeare.  The video game industry is currently in much the same state that English drama was in when Shakespeare entered the scene, and game designers could learn much from his example, as he arguably innovated a new medium as much as he achieved anything else.

Part of Shakespeare’s success depended on looking backward to bring already culturally important stories to the stage in order to prove that this new medium could be a vehicle for powerful art. I will argue that in order for video games to win cultural legitimacy they must prove they can do the same, and this paper specifically includes ways in which a video game adaptation of The Tempest could help expand scholarship of Shakespeare's text and exploit some of the unique mechanics of the video game medium to create a new and excellent artistic experience. This is experience would be beneficial to both Shakespeare and video game scholars, but also to students, inviting naturally the kind of engagement that teachers so often struggle to produce. While video games may not yet have their “Shakespeare,” such a legitimizing influence can and will come soon to the video game medium, and, someday, sitting and playing through a video game can and will be seen as a cultural experience and not just a waste of time.

Here's hopin'!

From the Classroom to Germany

Hi there fellow Shakespearean Enthusiasts!

So, I am no longer in Dr. Burton's class, but he asked me if I would write a quick post about a really cool opportunity that has come my way as a result of the paper I wrote for his class last semester.

More than Fun: Where this Gaming Paper Has Gone

They want it.

Thanks to Dr. Burton, I found the RMMLA last week: the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. Their annual conference this year includes a panel called "Games, New Media and Virtual Spaces: At play in new media." Just to try, really, I sent the panel chair an email to ask if I could still submit. She responded very quickly, telling me she would love to see my paper and she's been trying really hard to get this panel off the ground but no one else had submitted yet. So, kind of freaking out, I found Dr. Burton and asked his advice on how to write an abstract. Within a few hours, I had my abstract typed up:

Logo for the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association

"Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On": Shakespeare and the Cultural Legitimacy of Video Games

For years now, the debate has raged over "video games as art." While the medium has taken several steps forward and we now have many strong examples of artistic games, they still have not achieved the sense of legitimacy our culture gives to anything considered "art." In many ways, video games are fighting the same battle that English drama fought in Renaissance England, a battle chiefly won by William Shakespeare.  The video game industry is currently in much the same state that English drama was in when Shakespeare entered the scene, and game designers could learn much from his example, as he arguably innovated a new medium as much as he achieved anything else. 

Part of Shakespeare’s success depended on looking backward to bring already culturally important stories to the stage in order to prove that this new medium could be a vehicle for powerful art. I will argue that in order for video games to win cultural legitimacy they must prove they can do the same, and this paper specifically includes ways in which a video game adaptation of The Tempest could help expand scholarship of Shakespeare's text and exploit some of the unique mechanics of the video game medium to create a new and excellent artistic experience. This is experience would be beneficial to both Shakespeare and video game scholars, but also to students, inviting naturally the kind of engagement that teachers so often struggle to produce. While video games may not yet have their “Shakespeare,” such a legitimizing influence can and will come soon to the video game medium, and, someday, sitting and playing through a video game can and will be seen as a cultural experience and not just a waste of time.

Today, she responded again and told me she loved the abstract and would submit my name to the conference as a presenter. She added, however, that they can't run with just one presenter on a panel, so there's still a chance that it could get cancelled, but as far as acceptance for my paper, it's there.

However, that means I've gotta actually get this thing done and awesome enough to prove why an undergrad is speaking at this professional conference. And as so many posts have proven this week, I've got work to do.

Mostly, I know I need to pin down my organization. I'm making so many points that it's hard to build them right. Also, I need to keep a scholarly tone--but still make sure my point comes across clearly and powerfully. I need to bring my thesis in sooner and make the connection to Shakespeare make more sense as well. I'm confident I can make it. It's very possible I've received more feedback on this paper than any paper I've ever written, which gives me all the more hope that it can hold its own at an actual academic conference.

Thanks again to everyone for their feedback and support. Best of luck to us all and all our great ideas and efforts!

Islands to Crash Land On: Publishing Venues

Thanks to a lot of help and recommendations from other classmates, Dr. Burton, and hours of internet scrounging, I've found a few outlets for my paper that I think are a great fit:

Academic Conference: The Wooden O Symposium at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. The Wooden O "is a cross-disciplinary conference exploring Medieval through Early Modern Studies, through the text and performance of Shakespeare’s plays" held annually as part of the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Selected papers are presented on SUU's campus and from those selected, a few are published in the Journal of the Wooden O. They accept submissions from literally anyone, and, while they don't update their site very well, I was able to find that in 2006 they published an undergraduate paper. This combined with the fact that they're specifically looking for papers on The Tempest this year gives me a lot of hope.

Logo for the online academic journal Game Studies

Academic Journal: Game Studies is an online-only peer-reviewed journal "to provide an academic channel for the ongoing discussions on games and gaming." They publish multiple times a year online and are open to submissions from anyone, though they are very strict about what they publish and have an extensive checklist to fill before you submit. However, articles such as "The Algorithmic Experience: Portal as Art"

Academic Blogging: Gameology is "a scholarly community dedicated to the study of video games," though it isn't a typical blog. However, they do keep a running bibliography of essays and blog posts on their site, and accept submissions openly, so it's a place I could potentially get published. Such articles as "Notes from Form, Culture, and Video Game Criticism" show that my paper would be a good fit here, though from looking around the site, it doesn't seem like there's been much activity on it in around a year, so maybe it's not the best fit.

Bonus: Big Leagues: Dr. Burton found out that last year, they had a panel at MLA totally dedicated to video games last year, and said MLA might not be a bad place to try out. The 2014 Calls for Papers didn't yield any promising results from the Shakespeare or the video game angles, but this might be an outlet later on when I get this idea fully developed.

All in all, I'm excited to get this project wrapped up and out there. I want to see what the world does with this.

Midsummer Venues

Teaching Global Shakespeares -- SAMLA 2013 Special Session

But is this only for College Educators and not high school educators?

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/50665

CFP: [Theatre] Renderings: Shakespeare across Continents

This would be okay because I will include performance in the plans, although their focus might be on cross-continental study of Shakespeare. I don’t care, though, my paper applies to all teachers of high school Shakespeare classes!

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/25267

[Reminder] Teaching Medieval and Renaissance Literature

I could publish here because I am advocating teaching MND and that is a less-taught high school text. (The advertisement calls for “short essays that encourage faculty to try overlooked, non-traditional texts inside the classroom and book reviews.” Is our paper considered a “short essay” ?

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/50981

I found an article on the website for this journal about teaching King Lear. It recognizes that King Lear maybe isn’t a non-traditional text but the way the author plans to teach it is non-traditional. Sounds like my approach! Again, this article is about teaching at a college level. Do you think they would accept an essay about teaching high school?

Stage Mom Musings

art is everything & everything is art

http://stagemommusings.com/tag/teaching-shakespeare

Blog posts from high school teachers and high school teachers about Shakespeare. This would be a cool place to post because maybe I could get feedback from high school students on my ideas!

Conclusion: I'm thinking the Mom Musings and the 

Teaching Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Do you agree?

Outlets for Student Research

While blogging is an informal outlet for student research, there are more formal ways to present or publish such writing. Consider these categories:

1. Academic Archives
2. Academic Conferences
3. Academic Journals
4. Academic Blogging

A midsummer night's audience

My audience is 

high school teachers

and

people studying to be high school teachers 

(like me).

I hope

this is not 

too much of a cop out. 

(Just, why would I try to look for a deep, complex idea for an audience when this is so obvious?)

(Or is it supposed to be more specific - like "Ninth grade literature teachers" or "Ninth grade literature teachers who don't know which text to teach" or something like that?)

VENUES FOR PUBLICATION:

I don't know. 

David O. McKay School of Education ScholarsArchive. 

This Shakespeare Blog: http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/guest-blog-post/

What is Centurion? 

Hold the Applause: Possible Audiences

While it's not hard to find good writing about video games, really, it's very difficult to find good conversations on video games because someone will say something intelligent, one intelligent person might respond, and then everyone else will post comments that generally look like this:

ArE u %^#ing crazy?!!?!?!!?? I totally played [insert 90s game title here] my HOLE LIFE and THERE4 I no EVERY-%^#$-ING-THING!!!! I KNOW ALL THE THINGS!!!

This is most people who comment on video game articles

That being said, there do exist actual scholarly venues for video game studies, including Eludamos, a peer-reviewed "journal for computer game culture" and Game Studies, "the international journal of computer game research." I'm not entirely sure how likely I could get published by either of these venues because they do seem to be rather scholarly, but Game Studies publishes multiple times a year online, so that might be a more viable option.

Coming from the Shakespeare side, I tried looking at blogs like Transmedial Shakespeare to see if they allowed guest posts, but I haven't found anything yet. However, I could just post something on Reddit in either /r/Shakespeare or /r/Games to get exposure--but that might be better to get ideas than to publish a final product.

The Final Villainous Installment

Shakespeare Term Paper Click Here

This paper has been a real treat to write! I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and am excited to prep it for further publication possibilities!

I am interested in Criterion. I have been reading some of their articles and have noticed that each section of their essay has its own header to set it apart. I would probably want to add something like that too mine. I also noticed the articles tended to use less outside resources. I feel like my paper has a good balance at the moment, but to fit in, I might add more to my own observations. The articles aren't afraid of using "I" so I might want to add a little more of a personal touch to everything.

I found an AWESOME online journal published by UGA called Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation.  They like authors to include sound bits, pictures, and videos into their essays to make them more interactive. I could use clips from Kenneth Branaugh's Othello and The Dark Knight! I wonder if I would need to get permission to do that. They require a short 150-200 word paper proposal that gets the point of your paper across. They also want a short author's bio. So, my biggest chore would be to compact my paper into a single tiny paragraph. I emailed their editor to see if a BYU undergrad was eligible to submit to his journal. I haven't heard back yet, but I just found this journal yesterday. Plus, this journal looks at how Shakespeare influences modern culture! That is perfect for my paper! http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/about

The third possible venue is the Shakespeare symposium at BYU. Their guidelines are the following:

1. A 200- to 250-word abstract (including paper title)
2. 5 key terms from your paper (for purposes of indexing)
3. Contact information (your name, phone number, and email)

, Once again I would need to condense my paper into a tiny proposal. Once that is done I would need to develop a verbal way of presenting my ideas and convert my written prose into a presentation. Perhaps a power-point would be a good start.

Anyhow, on to the main even! My paper is finished and it was a doozy to write!

Troilus and Cressida: "Public"ations

In my last post, I talked about The Shakespeare Institute Review. I contacted the journal to find out if they accept undergraduate work (on their website they only mentioned that they accept postgraduate work). I told them about our class and told them we were looking for places to submit our work. I also asked them what topics they prefer to publish. I haven't heard back from them yet, but I'm hoping to hear back soon! One caveat of the journal is that they publish works in British English, which may make submitting to them somewhat difficult, but I'm sure there are only a few items that would need to be tweaked in order to conform to those standards. 

They also accept submissions between 1500 and 3000 words. They just had a submission deadline for the journal, and from what I could gather, they seem to be interested in a specific theme for each journal, but they seem to want a multi-faceted view on that topic. They like seeing historical views, views connected to modern-day interpretations, views on how Shakespeare relates to psychology, politics, religion, and so forth. So if their target theme is something that connects with what you are writing, I am sure they would be interested in it. As I read through one of the older journals, I found that the submissions were very textual. Just another reason to work on our close analysis of a text as we work on our drafts.