Opening Statement

Robert Houghton, University of Winchester. @robehoughton https://twitter.com/MidAgesModGames/status/1277916213180497920 1 #MAMG20 - Welcome to The Middle Ages in Modern Games Twitter conference! We’ve got 33 speakers over the next four days addressing topics as diverse as the crusades in sci-fi, ludic theory, and medieval sound design across games including Skyrim, @reignsgame and D&D. 2 #MAMG20 - We’re sponsored by @CMRR_Winchester and @PublicMedieval. You can see all the great work they’re doing on the Middle Ages and Medievalism here: http://shorturl.at/txBIX; and here: https://t.co/uuSLJ8BCPD?amp=1 3 #MAMG20 - We need to talk about games. Games can engage their audience with history. They are used for teaching and research. They have huge potential, but carry significant problems in how they represent the past and how this influences the present. 4 #MAMG20 - Modern games which address the Middle Ages are even more important. They hold particular influence over their players. They are subject not only to gaming tropes but also to all the issues of modern medievalism.

5 #MAMG20 - Many of our papers engage with gender, race, and religious identities in games – places where the confluence of gaming and medievalism often has most effect. Others explore the conflict over ‘accuracy’ and the socio-political purposes behind it. 6 #MAMG20 - We have sessions on the practical issues of creating the Middle Ages through games; games for teaching and research; and numerous deep dives into explorations of this period within specific games. We hope there is something to interest you. 7 #MAMG20 - This conference is the child of two strands scheduled for @TheMamoConf and @IMC_Leeds this year. For eminently sensible reasons, these conferences were cancelled – although Leeds has a substantial timetable of online papers next week (including four from our strand). 8 #MAMG20 - We will return to @TheMamoConf and @IMC_Leeds next year, but wanted to get as many papers as possible delivered in some format. This is a young and fast-moving field and we’ve got a lot of really innovative and important contributions. 9 #MAMG20 - We’ve followed the model set out by @stuffofwar to organise a Twitter conference. Special thanks go to @laurasharrison for her help and advice in setting this up. You can check out the War Through Other Stuff website here: https://t.co/kSfaWNq093?amp=1 10 #MAMG20 - The conference consists of 11 sessions of three papers each. Each paper takes the form of a Twitter thread of up to 12 Tweets delivered from the accounts of the speaker over 20 minutes. The start of each thread will be retweeted from @MidAgesModGames. 11 #MAMG20 - In each session, we have 30 minutes dedicated to Q&A. please feel free to address questions to our speakers after this point, but be aware there may be a delayed response. After the conference, the papers will be posted on the University of Winchester website. 12 #MAMG20 - Our first session ‘Medieval Source Material for Games’ starts at 12 noon with papers from @markusmindrebo, @sagathain, and @thiliel. We hope to see you there and hope you enjoy the conference!