Seton Hall University Hosts Internationally Attended Gaming Conference

The International Society for the Study of Medievalism held its annual conference at Seton Hall University from July 9-11, in collaboration with Montclair State University. Organized by Seton Hall Professor and Chairperson of the Department of English, Angela Weisl, Ph.D., as well as Montclair State’s World Languages and Cultures faculty Elizabeth Emery, Ph.D., the conference theme was "The Games of Medievalism." The theme was inspired by this year’s summer Olympic games, which were held in Paris, and centered around the various kinds of play found in medievalism as it transcends time periods, locations, and mediums of communication, from literature to video games. The conference was internationally attended by scholars from across Europe, Asia and the Americas, with both in-person and virtual sessions. The experience included local visits to neighboring museums including the Montclair Art Museum, the Cloisters Branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Yogi Berra Museum, where Seton Hall Lecturer Greg Iannarella recently curated an exhibit.

Weisl is an internationally-renowned scholar of medieval literature and culture and neo-medievalism. Her most recent publication, coedited with Robert Squillace, is Medievalisms in a Global Context (Boydell and Brewer, July 2024) and includes several chapters by contributors from Seton Hall and the conference. Among the attendees from the Seton Hall community and neighboring universities were scholars from prestigious institutions as diverse as the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, the University of Cantabria in Spain, Centre of Research and Publications of Albania, the University of Oxford and Columbia University. Presenters gave talks on topics ranging from "Medievalish Learning in a Digital Environment" to "The Politics of Medievalist Identities." During these talks, attendees had the opportunity to learn about the various ways medieval tropes, images, and themes have been deployed throughout history across different cultural contexts and in various forms of media to address personal, cultural, political and economic concerns. Seton Hall graduate students J.R. Rizzo and Abigail Chandler, who are enrolled in the English M.A. program, had the opportunity to present their scholarship to this distinguished global audience. Rizzo emphasized "the overwhelming influence of Medievalism within contemporary media. Society, via its various artistic expressions, cannot let go of its Medieval history. Instead, we are continuously reinformed of our humanity by identifying with the stories of our past."

"Games of Medievalism" invited lots of discussion about the integration of Medievalism in video games, and that was a natural fit for Seton Hall, which has championship-winning e-sports teams as well as a great interdisciplinary Minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Rizzo presented a paper on the 2015 RPG, "Bloodborne." Other panelists discussed "Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Oblivion," and many more games, and the three-day conference concluded with a keynote from Kevin Moberly, Ph.D., and Brent Moberly, Ph.D., from Indiana University and Old Dominion University, respectively. Their lecture, "A ‘Carnival of Architecture': Race, Place, and Play in Oblivion and the Elder Scrolls Franchise" demonstrated the political subtext of different architectural motifs in popular contemporary games—as Weisl put it, "the relationship between physical space and ideology in how these games are structured and played."

Seton Hall offers a robust Department of English with a wide range of faculty researching Irish Studies, Post Colonial Literature and other areas, in addition to the robust Minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. The Department of English offers both undergraduate degrees and a unique M.A. with generous scholarship funding, an innovative T.A. program, and special tracks in literature, creative and professional writing, along with an accelerated B.A./ M.A. dual-degree program that enables students to earn a B.A. and an M.A. in just five years. Students interested in learning more about the English Department’s undergraduate programs should contact Angela Weisl and students interested in English graduate programs should contact Russell Sbriglia.

Categories: Arts and Culture