Closing Address

Robert Houghton, University of Winchester. @robehoughton

https://twitter.com/MidAgesModGames/status/1279083168998580224

1/22 (sorry) #MAMG20 – This has been great. We’ve had technical glitches, time zone issues, and challenging weather, but almost all our papers have run successfully. We’ve had speakers from 14 countries from China to Estonia to Brazil.

2 #MAMG20 - We’ve had a series of incredible papers addressing a vast range of research on games and the Middle Ages. If you’ve missed any of them, I strongly suggest you take a look at @MidAgesModGames and #MAMG20

3 #MAMG20 - It’s been a challenging format, to fit a cogent academic argument into 12 Tweets is as hard as I anticipated (and I’m breaking that rule in this thread). But we’ve seen a lot of impressive approaches to this restriction and I really appreciate everyone's efforts.

4 #MAMG20 - At least four themes have emerged over the last four days: Firstly: This is a young field. The majority of our speakers have been postgrad students or Early Career Researchers and we’ve seen a lot of engagement from undergrad and pre-uni students.

5 #MAMG20 - This makes the papers all the more impressive and underlines the future potential of the field. The contributions of more established academics highlights that the study of the Middle Ages in Modern Games is increasingly taken seriously in some parts of the academy.

6 #MAMG20 - Secondly: This is a diverse field. We’ve had contributions from historians, literary scholars, archaeologists, game designers, media scholars, sound engineers and more. We need to talk between institutions and between disciplines.

7 #MAMG20 – We also need to do more to ensure that voices from all parts of the world and all sections of society are heard. We’ve managed some important steps towards that in this conference, but need to do more.

8 #MAMG20 - Thirdly: some old bugbears are alive and well. The use and misuse of claims to accuracy and authenticity is present across genres and audiences. Gaming and medievalist tropes meet and exaggerate and distort each other.

9 #MAMG20 - These issues have rightly been addressed in many ways throughout the conference. It’s important to continue to highlight them and their causes, but also to consider ways in which they can be and have been overcome (as many of our speakers have done).

10 #MAMG20 - Finally: despite their many pitfalls, games can be incredibly useful tools for presenting the Middle Ages whether inside or outwith the academy. We just need to address their selection, use and creation critically.

11 #MAMG20 - In sum: I’m cautiously positive about the state of the field. We face many practical challenges, but our papers this week have demonstrated the vibrance and versatility of current study and huge potential for future development.

12 #MAMG20 – I need to thank @DrSyrin and @NiHuMedieval for all their help in organising this event, and our planned strands for @TheMamoConf and @IMC_Leeds. They’ve done a huge amount in very challenging circumstances and the result has been incredible.

13 #MAMG20 – We also owe a debt of gratitude to @stuffofwar and @laurasharrison in particular for their advice on creating a Twitter conference. If you’ve not done so already, you should definitely have a look at their work: https://t.co/cwEUESuPyu?amp=1

14 #MAMG20 – I personally need to thank @polymorph_games for letting us use images from the beautiful and excellent @Foundationgame. You can find the game here:

15 #MAMG20 - I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read any/all of our papers and to engage with them. We’ve seen some very useful discussion and over 1,200 people have engaged with at least some element of the event.

16 #MAMG20 – Most of all, I need to thank all of our speakers. I’ve been overwhelmed by the depth and quality of these papers. We’ll be posting a list of their Twitter handles through the @MidAgesModGames account shortly and I suggest you follow all of them.

17 #MAMG20 – The conference is sponsored by @PublicMedieval. You can find their games column here: https://publicmedievalist.com/category/games/. I strongly encourage all of our speakers to consider pitching any of their ideas to the editors.

18 #MAMG20 – We’re also sponsored by @CMRR_Winchester in @WinchesterHist. It’s a great place to study history – especially the Middle Ages - and it's not too late to apply for our BA courses this year: https://winchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/ba-hons-history/ https://winchester.ac.uk/study/undergra

19 #MAMG20 We also run an excellent Masters in history: https://winchester.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/courses/ma-history/. Contact Robert.Gray@Winchester.ac.uk for Undergraduate, Xavier.Guegan@winchester.ac.uk for Masters. Find us @WinchesterHist and Facebook @uowhistorydept.

20 #MAMG20 - As to next steps, the papers will be collated and posted to the @_UoW website for ease of reference. We’ll post links from the @MidAgesModGames account when the document goes up. Copyright remains with individual authors.

21 #MAMG20 - Many of our speakers are presenting at #IMC2020 - @DrSyrin has put together an excellent guide: https://twitter.com/DrSyrin/status/1278709659956916226. The conference is free this year and it’s well worth registering.

22 #MAMG20 – Beyond that, thank you all again for making this work so much better than I ever could have hoped. Oh, and keep an eye out for our upcoming Calls for Papers for #MAMG21, #MAMO2021 and #IMC2021. Next year will be even bigger and better.