Sabbatical leave during professorship in Disciplining games

A sabbatical leave has the objective to free a professor from any teaching and/or administrative duties in order to devote oneself exclusively to their scientific research. Each professor uses this time according to one’s own objectives.

A comparative study on controversial video games with a focus upon European systems of content regulation and on the public reception of extreme games:

The growing popularity of video gaming as a pastime has raised public controversy and a call for control over explicit content (violence, sexuality, drugs, language). This proposal focuses on the international practices of regulating video game content. Concentrating on a selection of European regulatory institutions (PEGI, USK/KJM and BBFC/VSC), the project first looks at the social contract (regulatory and legal framework) and the modalities in terms of rating categories (age, content descriptors, forms of interaction) since 2003. Next, the project zooms in on the regulatory practices in relation to contested games within the PEGI system, which is now used in most European countries and in Israel (the team is granted access to PEGI classification data, including internal reports). Finally, the project concentrates on the reception and debate surrounding three controversial games. Apart from analyzing the discourses coming from different international regulatory institutions, the case studies investigate how these games were discussed, controlled and in some cases banned.