Following the success of last year's Medievalisms on the Screen conference (recordings here), organized by PhD students from the Department of Medieval Studies, the series is continuing this year: The Middle Ages as a Digital Experience conference will be held online on April 21–23, 2022.
If you would like to participate in the conference, please, fill out the registration form to receive the Zoom link (registration is free of charge). A detailed schedule of the panels is attached at the bottom of this page.
Digital media has become a key player in shaping our understanding of historical events. Videogames, series, films, among others, offer an ever-increasing repertoire of experiences of the Middle Ages. Part of the popularity of these productions relies on the fact that they offer a unique sensory experience to the spectator. They stun us through awe-inspiring visuals, immerse us with the reconstruction of daily-life sound, and engage us with compelling stories of people we can relate to. Digital productions invite us to be witnesses and protagonists in increasingly complex reconstructions of a long-lost medieval past. The pedagogical potential of these productions is difficult to deny.
However, the use of digital media also faces drawbacks and challenges. Although these productions may allow us to explore the streets of a medieval city, it is hardly the same as what a person of the past lived. The mind frame and social conventions that led people to experience it in a particular way have changed, and no technological advancement can bridge this temporal abyss. The experience offered by digital media should be best understood as a model of the Middle Ages that we superimpose on the past.
The purpose of our second Medievalisms on the Screen conference is to discuss the productions, potentials, drawbacks and challenges of inclusive and immersive experiences of the Middle Ages that digital media may entwine. By inclusive and immersive, we especially signify disability-friendliness from various forms of digital experiences in which all people can participate equally, independently, with choice and dignity.
Organizing team: Juan Manuel Rubio Arévalo, Karolina Anna Kotus, Vania Buso, Halil Evren Sünnetcioglu, Juan Bautista Juan-López