Fictional Practices of Spirituality I: Interactive Media

Fictional Practices of Spirituality provides critical insight into the implementation of belief, mysticism, religion, and spirituality into worlds of fiction, be it interactive or non-interactive. This first volume focuses on interactive, virtual worlds - may that be the digital realms of video games and VR applications or the imaginary spaces of life action role-playing and soul-searching practices. It features analyses of spirituality as gameplay facilitator, sacred spaces and architecture in video game geography, religion in video games and spiritual acts and their dramaturgic function in video games, tabletop, or LARP, among other topics. The contributors offer a first-time ever comprehensive overview of play-rites as spiritual incentives and playful spirituality in various medial incarnations.

Leonardo Marcato is a lecturer of philosophy of computer games at Universität Klagenfurt, Austria, and is honorary research fellow at Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, Italy. He has a Master degree in religious studies from Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy, and a Ph.D in Philosophy from Ca’ Foscari University. His research focuses on intercultural religion, practical philosophy, and digital philosophy. He is also localization project manager at Keywords Studios, where he supervises the multilingual localization process of high-profile titles in the videogaming industry.
Felix Schniz is the co-founder and programme director of the master’s programme Game Studies and Engineering at Universität Klagenfurt, Austria. His research focuses on experiences in virtual worlds, promenadology, genre theory, and the subjective quality of the medium videogame.