The following is a guest post from Ron Morris, Professor of History at Ball State University. This is a draft of a position paper he is developing for a panel discussion on games as tools for public history presentation and interpretation. He also served as the history consultant on Morgan’s Raid, a game aboutContinue Reading
The following is a position paper I developed for a panel discussion on games as tools for public history presentation and interpretation. I thought I would share it here for further discussion and comment. Panelists were asked to consider a series of questions, I’ve picked these two to serve as prompts for reflectingContinue Reading
I promised in my last post to discuss here three aspects of the humanism of the moment of potential ethical reflection embodied in what I have called the “Death-Disarm Sequence” of BioShock: 1) how the scholarly ruleset is merely a codification of the reflection enacted in these moments, when theirContinue Reading
The following post is a short paper I wrote for a panel discussion on creating game experiences at Civil War historic sites. Our moderator suggested that we share our papers for further discussion and comment before the panel. Please join in the discussion, all comments and concerns are greatly appreciated!Continue Reading
One of the most obvious forms of prestige is that of armor. Even in Homer from where I am drawing inspiration for this series, armor is an important visual component linked to an individual. For example, nearly an entire book of the Iliad is dedicated to describing the shield thatContinue Reading
This is a guest article by Namir Ahmed, a Masters Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Western University, London ON. He’s also the Project Coordinator for the Sustainable Archaeolgy Animation Unit, where he does really fun stuff related to the digitization and visualization of cultural heritage. He doesn’t have a blog butContinue Reading
Like the previous years, 2012 has been good to us. We’re now a smidge over 2 years old. 2012 has seen some wonderful articles and equally great conversations. With the holiday season upon us, Play the Past is going on its annual publishing hiatus. As with previous years, this is just aContinue Reading
Well, it seems we’ve reached that time of year again. The semester is winding down (or has wound down), final exams have been taken (or given), grades (or assignments) have been turned in, and many of us are kicking back with our favorite adult beverage in hand. Thats right, folks. The gloriousContinue Reading
One of the most interesting aspects of MMO culture is that of prestige, and we can find a parallel in the ancient Homeric world of Achilles and the Trojan War. In this series, I will look at how prestige factors into the value system of both cultures and consider theContinue Reading
What separates someone who’s just playing HALO or BioShock to fill a few hours of his or her time from someone who’s “doing humanities” by performing within a ruleset that goes back to homeric epic or Platonic philosophy? On one extremely important level, nothing. As I’ve demonstrated in previous postsContinue Reading