NERD ALERT – A new intern has entered the building!

When I tell people I study history, I’m often met with a look of confusion and judgement. Many of them think history is a stuffy old subject with not a lot of excitement. But when I tell those people that they interact with history on a daily basis in the forms of media and entertainment, their interest is usually peaked. Through movies, tv-shows, video-games, and music, history becomes not only more accessible, but also playful, fun, and more memorable. 

Hi, my name is Amy, and I’m the new intern of the VALUE Foundation! I’m about to finish my bachelors degree in Language- and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, during which I’ve not only studied topics such as multilinguality, the English-, and the Welsh language, but I’ve also taken a particular interest in Ancient Greek and Roman history and culture, as well as Celtic history and culture. During my time at Utrecht University, I’ve gathered an extensive amount of historical knowledge with a small base in the understanding of how history is translated into modern day media. I hope to further this understanding during my internship and future studies by focussing on how the different representations of history affect our understanding and perception of it, and what makes certain parts of history fit for entertainment/education vs. what doesn’t. 

The aims and goals of the VALUE Foundation and the Interactive Pasts team seem to closely match my own, which is why I was ecstatic when I got hired for the internship. Not only does it give me an opportunity to learn more about game studies and the way the entertainment business interconnects with academia, but it also gives me the opportunity to network and meet people from my future workfield. It truly sounds like this internship only has plussides!

As for the work I will be doing for VALUE and Interactive Pasts, you’ll be seeing biweekly bulletins about the latest news in gaming, alternating with blog posts about my own research. Picking which topics and games to focus on proved quite difficult. I personally love immersing myself in dark, spooky games, story-based RPG’s, and games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and the Uncharted series, but for this internship I ultimately decided to focus on what I like to call the “granddaddy of the fantasy genre”: Celtic history and mythology. 

Obviously, I have to keep you, my fellow gaming enthusiasts, in the dark for a bit, to keep you hooked for future blog posts, but I suppose a little sneak peek is in order. The first game I’ll be discussing in my blog posts is the 1984 8-bit Tír Na Nòg!

See you soon!