Return to the Interactive Past

Csilla E. Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke completed her PhD as part of the ERC-Synergy project NEXUS1492 at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University. Her dissertation explores Caribbean museums and the practices and processes through which they engage with a diversity of communities. She is continuing as a researcher within the same project and faculty, now working to catalogue Caribbean collections in European museums. Krijn Hendrikus Johannes Boom completed his PhD as part of the European NEARCH Project at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University. Krijn works as a Project Manager Blended Learning at the Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam and is Co-Founder of the VALUE foundation. Angus Mol is a post-doctoral researcher. He works on the theory and methodology of past and present socio-material networks, ranging from entanglements at Çatalhöyük and cultural encounters in the Caribbean, to the materiality of online multiplayer games. His writings have appeared at Sidestone Press, in a number of international journals, and, as Dr. Random, on www.valueproject.nl. Bram van den Hout is a junior researcher at the International Institute of Social History and his fields of interest are Slavery, Piracy, and Violence in the Dutch East Indian Company. Through the VALUE Foundation he also explores the intersection between video games and history. He co-authored the book Testimonies of Enslavement: Sources on Slavery from the Indian Ocean World and three articles (set for publication in 2020) all on slavery and the slave trade within and around the city of Cochin on the Southwest Indian coast, at the time controlled by the Dutch East India Company. Aris is a PhD candidate at Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology. Aside from video games, he is passionate about the Near East and more specifically the Assyrian Empire and its capital cities. He investigates the reasons for the construction of new capitals, as well as their function within the imperial system. He is also interested in all forms of storytelling and narratives – from Dungeons and Dragons to history-telling.

1. Introduction

Angus A.A. Mol, Aris Politopoulos, Csilla E. Ariese, Bram van den Hout & Krijn H.J. Boom

 

Part I: Narratives in and of Video Games

 

2. The Role of Historical Research and ‘Historical Accuracy’ in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

Johnnemann Nordhagen

 

3. Their Memory: Exploring Veterans’ Voices

Iain Donald, Emma Houghton & Kenneth Scott-Brown

 

4. The Desolation of Vixens

John Aycock & Hayden Kroepfl

 

5. The Final Word? How Fans of The Elder Scrolls Record, Archive, and Interpret the Battle of Red Mountain

Dennis Jansen

 

Part II: Representations and Intersectionality in Video Games

 

6. Personal and Social Recent History in Fragments of Him: Defining and Exploring ‘Immersion’ in Video Games

Mata Haggis-Burridge

 

7. ‘Transcending History and the World’: Ancient Greece and Rome in Versus Fighting Video Games

Dunstan Lowe

 

8. Synthetic Spaces and Indigenous Identity: Decolonizing Video Games and Reclaiming Representation

Ashlee Bird

 

9. Fork in the Road: Consuming and Producing Video Game Cartographies

Florence Smith Nicholls

 

Part III: Historical Research and Learning through Video Games

 

10. Scholarly History through Digital Games: Pedagogical Practice as Research Method

Robert Houghton

 

11. Life Was Really Hard! Designing and Using Digital Games to Explore Medieval Life in Primary Schools

Juan Hiriart

 

12. Gaming the Past: Video Games and Historical Literacy in the College Classroom

Jeffrey Lawler & Sean Smith

 

13. Of Ecosystems and Landscapes: An Essay on Grasping Themes of Environmental History in Video Games

George L. Vlachos

 

14. Stories Around the Campfire

The Interactive Past Community (Curated by Csilla E. Ariese)