Angela Schwarz

University of Siegen
 http://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/geschichte/mitarbeiter/schwarz/index.html.en?lang=en

Angela Schwarz is a historian with a wide range of research interests, including the representation of history in a number of media and formats. They range from illustrated magazines, universal expositions and trading  cards down to the world wide web and videogames as the most modern. She pioneered the study of history in videogames in Germany in the early 2000s and has been working in the field ever since. She is currently working on a book on videogames and historical learning.

Selected academic and media publications:

  • „Wollten Sie auch immer schon einmal pestverseuchte Kühe auf Ihre Gegner werfen?“ Eine fachwissenschaftliche Annäherung an Geschichte im Computerspiel, Münster 2010
  • Narration and Narrative: (Hi)story Telling in Computer Games, in: Florian Kerschbaumer, Tobias Winnerling (Hrsg.): Early Modernity and Video Games, Newcastle 2014, S. 140-161
  • Game Studies und Geschichtswissenschaft, in: Klaus Sachs-Hombach, Jan-Noël Thon (Hrsg.): Game Studies. Aktuelle Ansätze der Computerspielforschung, Cologne 2015, S. 398-447
  • Destination Past: Showcasing History and Historical Time as an Attraction at World Exhibitions, in: Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Florian Freitag, Sabrina Mittermeier, Ariane Schwarz (Hrsg.): Time and Temporality in Theme Parks, Hanover 2017, S. 43-62 [1]

All Sessions by Angela Schwarz

  • 20. Nov | Summit Day

    The Summit Day will feature talks, project presentations, panel discussions, and workshops.

  • 10:15  - 10:45
    Authenticity seems to be the new watchword. People seem to crave for the authentic, the authentic experience almost everywhere, especially on all levels of mediated reality and consumption, be it food, dress fashion or the latest TV-show with celebrities or those who wish to be one using various media-to let the public into their private homes and lives (actually what is staged as such). Expectations of authentic experiences are just as high when directed towards present-day lives as they are towards encounters with the past. Regardless of whether people stroll around an open-air museum or are chauffeured through 'historical parts' of the town, whether they watch a historical drama on TV or play a videogame with a historical setting: The expectation of authenticity, allowing for the highest degree of immersion, is always present. The talk is to discuss the meaning of authenticity of the past in videogames, seen against this background of a general craze for the authentic today. What does authenticity actually mean: for game-developers and within the game, for gamers, for the media in general? Does authenticity correspond with realism in a game? The talk will present categories or patterns of staging authenticity in videogames in order to show the variety of history(ies) they already provide and the needs they actually fulfill.
    20. Nov | History in Games Summit: Contingencies of an Authentic Past
    Where
    room 211

  • 12:00  - 13:00
    Panel discussion. Moderation: Felix Zimmermann
    20. Nov | History in Games Summit: Contingencies of an Authentic Past
    Where
    room 211

  • 21. Nov | Main Conference Day

    The main day of the Clash of Realities will feature renowned speakers from all around the globe.

  • 16:30  - 17:15
    Nearly from the earliest beginnings, videogames have toyed with history. They have done so for many reasons, with history being full of stories to be transferred into game plots, full of opportunities for players to enter into and interact with it as an attractive playground, and its potential to be turned into a recognizable feature allowing for the creation and marketing of games with historic settings as the key to branding. The past that is showcased today has become remarkably diverse, not only in the range of historic events, characters, epochs covered but in the ways that these are presented through a game's narration, visual, auditory and material features as well as its gameplay. However, history in videogames today still has its shortcomings. The history they present is popular history, much the same as that the audience encounters in other popular media. Nonetheless, videogames can achieve much more than film, omic or other bestselling media due to their interactive qualities. They can and hould be more adventurous in dealing with the past. The keynote is to highlight the evolution of the games' usage of history to the present state of the art in this and to sensitize for their potential in simulating history as a process and in so doing in moving with the general trend even further away from mere facts towards an image of much more diverse, open (less linear) and controversial past realities
    21. Nov | Keynotes on the Main Conference Day
    Where
    Cinema Lecture Hall




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Angela Schwarz