Playing Dead will bring together academics from across the UK to discuss and analyse the intersections that exist between death, play and culture. Play, in the context of this symposium, is used broadly to speak of leisure and recreational activities more generally and, as such, not only encapsulates the playing of (non-)digital games, but also the consumption of cinema, literature, theatre, etc.

Alongside a keynote address from Professor Christopher Partridge (Lancaster University) we will delve into cultures, practices, narratives and technologies. We will be provided a playful posthuman lesson in death from Poppy Wilde (Coventry University); negotiate death positivity within video games under the aegis of Solveiga Zabaite (University of Glasgow); discuss the crowdfunding of memorialisation with Matt Coward (University of York); convene with the monstrous Slender Man aided by Vivian Asimos (Durham University); analyse the pleasures of survival within zombie narratives guided by Chloé Germaine Buckley (Manchester Metropolitan University); view the playful deceased in ancient Greek iconography alongside Barbara Caré (Universities of Turin and Nottingham); abreast to Benjamin Poore (University of York) we confront those characters from theatre who won’t stay buried in the earth; we will encounter the poetic Gothic nature of videogame tutorials with Jon Garrad (Independent Scholar); we will negotiate permadeath in the city of the Damned guided by Jonathan Stubbs (Nazarene Theological College, University of Manchester); before finally delving into the violent virtual city of Los Santos with Jack Denham and Matthew Spokes (York St John University).

The alphabetical abstract booklet can be viewed here.