Wednesday, 22 May 2019 at 4:00 pm – Wednesday, 22 May 2019 at 6:00 pm

Games and History

Date: Wednesday 22nd May 2019

Time: 16:00-18:00

Location: Room 231, Geoffrey Manton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University

Tickets: FREE - Just turn up!

2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins took the game franchise to the world of Egypt at the time of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. Not only does the game recreate the landscape of ancient Egypt, a standalone educational mode – Discovery Tour – allows players to roam the country, to learn about the history and archaeology of daily life at the time. But how useful is the game and the Tour to those interested in ancient Egypt?

In this seminar, Dr Jennifer Cromwell will explore how – and how successfully – the game unites the worlds of gaming, digital humanities, and Egyptology.

Dr Jennifer Cromwel is lecturer in Ancient History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her main research interests lie in the social and economic history of ancient Egypt, especially in late antiquity and the early Islamic period (broadly 4th to 9th centuries CE). She is especially interested in the use of Coptic (the last form of the indigenous Egyptian language) after the Islamic conquest of Egypt in 641 CE – her book Recording Village Life: A Coptic Scribe in Early Islamic Egypt explores the role of an Egyptian village administrator and scribe in the first half of the 8th century. Cromwell's current research projects focus on: the nature of Coptic education and professional scribal training; and the practice of donating children to local religious institutions, especially monasteries in Egypt.

The event is related to the work of the Manchester Game Studies Network . The Manchester Games Studies Network (MGSN), established at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2016 by Sam Illingworth and Paul Wake, is an interdisciplinary research group working on games and play. Our focus is on both analogue and digital games, and the MGSN team brings together academics and practitioners from a range of disciplines, including Computing, Education, English, History, Media Studies, Psychology, Science Communication, and Sociology. 

Manchester Metropolitan University is committed to disability equality. If you have any access requirements, please let us know via 0161 247 6740 or email us at lucy.simpson@mmu.ac.uk before you arrive to help us to make sure that your visit to the event is as enjoyable as possible.

For more information, please contact:

Paul Wake · p.wake@mmu.ac.uk

Book Tickets

RAH! - Research in Arts and Humanities