Institute for Medieval Studies

Session	1141
Title	Gaming the Medieval: Medievalism in Modern Board Game Culture
Date/Time	Wednesday 8 July 2015: 11.15-12.45
Organiser	Daisy Black, School of Humanities, University of Wolverhampton
Moderator/Chair	Stephen Gordon, Department of History, University of Nottingham
Paper 1141-a	Enchanted Board: Gender and Submerged Narratives in Arthurian Play (Language: English) James Howard, Department of English, Emory University, Atlanta Index Terms: Gender Studies; Language and Literature - Middle English; Medievalism and Antiquarianism; Performance Arts - General
Paper 1141-b	'Determine the destiny of a kingdom!': The Sweep of the First Millennium in Britannia the Board Game (Language: English) Simon Trafford, Institute of Historical Research, University of London Index Terms: Demography; Historiography - Modern Scholarship; Medievalism and Antiquarianism; Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1141-c	Huff, Bluff, and Blow the House Down: Deception and Internalized Destabilization in Shadows over Camelot and Resistance: Avalon (Language: English) Elizabeth Centanni, Department of English, Seton Hall University, New Jersey Index Terms: Language and Literature - Middle English; Medievalism and Antiquarianism; Performance Arts - General
Paper 1141-d	Why the Countess Can't be Trusted with the King: Performing Medieval Male and Female Hierarchies in Modern Board Game Culture (Language: English) Daisy Black, School of Humanities, University of Wolverhampton Index Terms: Gender Studies; Medievalism and Antiquarianism; Performance Arts - General; Women's Studies
Abstract	Since the 1980s, the medieval has been a fertile source of narrative concept, artwork, and structure in popular board and card game culture. While games frequently employ concepts of conquest and expansion, they also engage with medieval social and literary practices, including religious and secular hierarchies and chivalric narrative. Yet while games with medieval subject matter grace the board game award tables, they often overlooked by studies in medievalism. Engaging with approaches from history, literature, and gender studies, this session aims to expand medievalism debates by examining how board games produce new methods of intersecting with the medieval past.