“Learning and Researching Medieval Culture in an Immersive Environment: Recreating St Brendan’s Voyage through the Digital Humanities,” Associate Professor Lynn Ramey (Vanderbilt University)

Date: Wednesday 8 June, 2016
Time: 5:00-6:30pm
Venue: SOPHI Common Room, Brennan MacCallum Building (8th floor), The University of Sydney
RSVP: Please email your RSVP to sahar.amer@sydney.edu.au promptly should you wish to attend

The lecture will be followed by a small reception.

Study abroad is a time-tested and popular solution for learning language and culture. Unfortunately for those of us studying the past, immersion is no longer an option. Professor Ramey’s work looks at the precedents for and advantages of creating historical immersive environments using a video game engine. With the Anglo-Norman tale of St. Brendan’s Voyage as a setting, our game investigates the research question of representing time and space in way that may allow us to better understand the different perception of these concepts in the pre-Modern era. In addition, we look at the ways that Anglo-Norman can be learned more effectively in context in an immersive environment.

Lynn Ramey is Associate Professor of French at Vanderbilt University, USA. Her research centres on pre-modern cultural interactions between the Christian and Muslims worlds. Her most recent book is entitled Black Legacies: “Race” and the European Middle Ages (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014; paperback edt. 2016). She is currently working on a series of video games in Unity that will allow users to play through moments of cultural interaction as medieval travellers encountered other peoples for the first time.