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Nora Fernandez Fernandez
On April 25 and 28, the Fuenlabrada campus will host the second DiGRASpain 2023 International Video Game Congress.
The event, organized by the URJC, the University of Alcalá and the Spanish chapter of DIGRA (Digital Games Research Association), continues in the wake of the first congress, held at the Pompeu Fabra University in 2021.
This first meeting focused on analyzing Game Studies in Spain, within the international video game association DIGRA. This initiative has been founded by several professors from various Spanish universities who teach video games.
The Congress is directed by Alfonso Cuadrado and Marçcal Mora Cantallops, both founders of DIGRA Spain. For his part, Cuadrado is Vice Dean of Technological Infrastructures of the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the URJC and professor of the Degree in Design and Development of Videogames and Mora Cantallops is deputy technical director of the Support Center for Teaching Innovation and On-Line Studies of the UAH.
In this sense, Cuadrado points out that this Spanish section of DIGRA materialized in Congress "claims the local, often hidden, forgotten and even overwhelmed by the global nature of the medium and its industry." Under this principle, the event "addresses new fields of the video game in Spain, from its history, identity and culture, seeking to delve into the particular perspective of what has happened, what has been done and what the video game represents in our country" , concrete Square.
The Congress, which will be inaugurated by the dean of the URJC FCCOM, Rafael Gómez Alonso, will take place over four days, with the support of the Office of the Vice President for Campus Community, Culture and Sports, as well as the Faculty of Communication Sciences. . The main objective of the meeting “is to bring together all researchers in the field of video games, whether they are teachers, undergraduate or postgraduate students or doctoral students. The monograph that presides over the congress will deal with how Spanish culture is represented in video games”, explains the congress coordinator.
In terms of figures, the congress has the participation of 40 URJC students, 42 communications and 12 speakers, organized in thematic tables with 3/4 people each.
Among them, will be present María Jesús Morillo, Assistant Technical Deputy Director of the National Library of Spain, who will talk about the Library's video game conservation project; Teresa de la Hera, from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, who will address the social impact of video games in Spain or Daniel Escandell and Miriam Borham Puyal, from the University of Salamanca, who will comment on the figure of Don Quixote in various video games. In addition, as Cuadrado has pointed out, the Congress has "a conference for doctoral students where the researchers themselves, 8 people, will talk about their projects on videogames."