Games & Literary Theory
2026 Conference

Games at the Literary-Ludic Interface:
Theory, Pedagogy, Public Engagement
Sapienza University of Rome
4th and 5th June 2026

Games and Literary Theory (GamesLit) is an annual conference for scholars of literature interested in expanding the scope of literary theory, and game scholars concerned with adapting the methodological and theoretical approaches of literary theory for the study of games. Previous conferences were held in Malta (2013), Amsterdam (2014), New Orleans (2015), Kraków (2016), Montreal (2017), Copenhagen (2018), Kolkata (2019), Katowice (2023), Rouen (2024) and Mataró (2025).

Call for Papers

The 2026 edition of GamesLit will be hosted by the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies at Sapienza University of Rome, in partnership with the Italian Association of Polonists, and will focus on the educational and societal relevance of the dialogue between games and literary theory (see, e.g., Ensslin 2014; Mukherjee 2015; Hutton and Barr 2020; Burn 2022; Stone 2022; Magnuson 2023; Chang and Welsh 2025). In particular, GamesLit 2026 will revisit how games can be used to teach literature and literary theory in academic and school contexts, and how literary studies can, in turn, inform the teaching of games and game design. By foregrounding pedagogy and public engagement, the conference seeks to position games and literary theory as mutually enriching tools for education in a rapidly evolving media landscape.

Despite the growing recognition of video games as complex cultural texts, their potential as instruments of humanistic education remains unevenly acknowledged and exploited within schools, universities and cultural institutions such as libraries and museums. At the same time, literary studies is increasingly called upon to demonstrate its relevance beyond the classroom. GamesLit 2026 will address these challenges by framing literary theory as a critical toolkit capable of illuminating – and being transformed by – interactive media in a variety of contexts. In so doing, this year’s conference is thematically aligned with current debates on digital literacy and innovative pedagogy and resonates strongly with public engagement initiatives that seek to build bridges between academia, schools, cultural institutions and creative industries.

We invite paper proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Thinking through games as texts: close reading and critical play in the classroom;

• Using games to teach literature, literary theory, narratology, poetics, translation and/or history;

• Using games to teach digital literacy and engage in critical thinking on issues such as the climate crisis, cultural representation and dis/misinformation;

• Literary theory as a critical toolkit for teaching games and game design;

• Pedagogical models for integrating games into secondary and higher education;

• Teacher training, curriculum design and assessment in game-based literary education;

• Creative and practice-based approaches: designing games as a way of learning literary theory;

• Public humanities, outreach and the role of games in non-academic educational contexts (e.g., libraries, museums and other cultural institutions).

We welcome contributions from literary scholars, game scholars, educators, teacher trainers and practitioners working at the intersection of games, literature, pedagogy and public engagement. Analytical, theoretical and practice-oriented approaches are encouraged, including case studies, methodological reflections and reports on teaching experiences.

References

Barr, Matthew, and Margaret-Anne Hutton, eds. 2020. ‘Videogames and Literature’. Special issue of Games and Culture 15 (7).

Burn, Andrew. 2022. Literature, Videogames and Learning. Routledge.

Chang, Edmond Y., and Timothy J. Welsh. 2025. Video Games, Literature, and Close Playing: A Practical Guide. Routledge.

Ensslin, Astrid. 2014. Literary Gaming. MIT Press.

Magnuson, David. 2023. Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice. Amherst College Press.

Mukherjee, Souvik. 2015. Video Games and Storytelling: Reading Games and Playing Books. Palgrave Macmillan.

Stone, Jon. 2022. VDual Wield: The Interplay of Poetry and Video Games. De Gruyter.

Submission Guidelines

The conference language will be English. Abstracts of 300–700 words (references excluded from the word count but still required) should be submitted via Microsoft CMT at https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/GamesLit2026 by 28th February 2026. Submissions should clearly outline the research question, theoretical framework and/or methodology and relevance of the proposed paper to the conference theme.

All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Authors are, therefore, requested to remove identifying information both from the main text and from file metadata. Guidance on how to do so in Word documents can be found here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/remove-hidden-data-and-personal-information-by-inspecting-documents-presentations-or-workbooks-356b7b5d-77af-44fe-a07f-9aa4d085966f.

Notification of acceptance or rejection may be expected by 1st April 2026.

The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.

Important Dates

CFP publication: 30th January 2026

Submission deadline: 28th February 2026

Author notification: 1st April 2026

Registration deadline: 15th May 2026

Conference: 4th and 5th June 2026

Contact

If you have any questions, please write to gameslit2026@gmail.com.