Please consider submitting a proposal to my roundtable at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies titled "Playing the Past: Race, Gender, and Heroism in Gaming." This year's ICMS will be held on May 9-12, 2019 on the campus of Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. I attach my Call for Papers below.

Thank you so much, and I look forward to receiving your proposals.

Best,

Ali Frauman

PhD Candidate, the Department of Comparative Literature

Indiana University, Bloomington

  Playing the Past: Race, Gender, and Heroism in Gaming (A Roundtable)

Video and PC gaming have come to play a substantial role in popular consciousness in the 21^st century and the medium itself offers a uniquely immersive experience unfathomable in other facets of popular culture. In virtual “medieval” and fantasy worlds, a player gets the chance to live the story rather than being a passive observer, and in MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, he or she can even relate to other players as that character, experiencing the world as priest or paladin existing in an expansive virtual space. However, the interactive nature of these games also raises important questions about how we conceptualize and create the past and the impact these imagined worlds can have on notions of the “medieval” for a non-academic audience.

 Often these games leave women behind in the role of damsels in distress, drawing from modern conceptions of “medieval” chivalric codes that do not make space for female adventurers and heroes. Moreover, race often refers to various humanoid creatures like trolls and goblins, and these fantasy “races” are often included in lieu of real racial and ethnic diversity on the grounds that fantasy creatures are somehow “more medieval.” When a developer chooses to include women or people of color in their “medieval” video game, alt-right gamer movements like Gamergate have resisted, claiming the game has become “ahistorical” by allowing anyone but white men into their pseudo-medieval fantasy. This roundtable will raise questions about how the past has been used in gaming to alienate non-white, non-male players, and the extent to which gaming developers have managed to resist medievalist tropes as held in popular consciousness.

 Each participant will give a 7-10-minute presentation, which will be followed by a roundtable discussion. Possible topics can include but are not limited to constructions of the past in video game medievalisms, problematic uses of race and gender in fantasy gaming, and the mobilization of faux medievalism against inclusivity by online movements like Gamergate. Please submit a 200 word abstract to Ali Frauman at afrauman@indiana.edu by September 15^th, 2018 and direct any questions to the same address. Thank you!