CANCELLED: Re-Rolling the Past: Representations and Reinterpretations of Antiquity in Analog and Digital Games

Note: This event has been CANCELLED. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Analog and digital games (e.g., video, role play, board, card, pedagogical, and alternative games) are platforms for modeling and experiencing events in fantastic, modern, or historical settings. When devising games based on ancient, historical, and archaeological contexts, an informed and critical approach is essential, lest games perpetuate problematic narratives or provide inaccurate representations of the past. "Rerolling the Past" builds off of the recent increase in academic studies of games to show how games can serve as a fruitful avenue for communicating information about the ancient world. This conference will bring together historians, archaeologists, scholars of gaming, and game designers to discuss three intersecting themes: archaeology in/of games; pedagogy and games; and critical approaches to game design. We hope to acknowledge and address common issues and challenges that cut across disciplinary divides and envisage how increased collaborative initiatives can be developed in the future.

Schedule:

SESSION I: ARCHAEOLOGY IN/OF GAMES

9:00am: Gabriel Mckee (ISAW)
Re-Rolling the Past: Representations and Reinterpretations of Antiquity in Analog and Digital Games

9:20am: Andrew Reinhard (American Numismatic Society)
Video Game Antiquity and the Immediacy of Digital Heritage

9:45am: Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Hounds and Jackals and its Variants in Modern Times

10:10am: Clara Fernandez-Vara (NYU Game Center)
Game Spaces and Indexical Storytelling

10:35am: Coffee Break

SESSION II: GAMES AND PEDAGOGY

10:55am: David Ratzan (ISAW)
New Strategies for Teaching Old Games: Playful Approaches to Teaching Ancient Economic and Institutional History

11:20am: Gina Konstantopoulos (University of Tsukuba)
Knowledge Checks: Representing (and Teaching) the Ancient Near East through Gaming

11:45am: Sebastian Heath (ISAW)
Gamifying Gamification at Pompeii

12:10pm: Mi Wang (ISAW)
Dwelling in Archaeology: Virtual Museum of Bamiyan in the Game Engine of PlayCanva

12:30pm: Lunch Break

SESSION III: CRITICAL APPROACHES TO GAME DESIGN

1:30pm: Hamish Cameron (Victoria University of Wellington)
The Painful Art of Abstraction: Representing the Ancient World in Modern Games

1:55pm: Alexander King (NYU Game Center)
Systems, Theming and Accuracy in Representations of the Past in Games

2:20pm: Daniela Wolin (ISAW)
Gender Across the Board: Representations in Ancient World-Themed Games

2:45pm: Christian Casey (ISAW)
Assassin's Creed Origins as Time Machine

3:10pm: Shawn Graham (Carleton University)
From Agent Based Model to Analogue Archaeogame: How We Made FORVM: Trade Empires of Rome

3:35pm: Coffee Break

4:00pm: Panel Discussion

Registration is required at isaw.nyu.edu/rsvp

Please check isaw.nyu.edu for event updates.

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