Streaming the Past is a Science Communciation Project by Leiden University and the VALUE Foundation. Funded by a Science Communication grant from the Dutch Science Organisation (NWO), a team of three students from Leiden University is streaming (historical) videogames, discussing their content and exploring the opportunities of Twitch as a platform for science communication. The students are supported by a group of Leiden University scholars and science communication experts, as well as members from the VALUE Foundation.

The team is streaming three times a week (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday), alongside one or two streams by the VALUE Foundation. In addition, there is a bi-weekly vodcast called ‘This Week’s Past’, where Angus ‘Doc Random’ Mol and Aris ‘Ymir’ Politopoulos are discussing news about the past, often joined by interesting guests. Follow our Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and join the Discord for weekly schedule updates!

Meet the team!

Three student-assistents from Leiden University will do the brunt of the streaming. Get to know them below!

Eva ‘evaporaptor’ Kruijt (24) (@evaporaptor) is a student of the ResMA Arts, Literature and Media at Leiden University. Her hobbies include sport climbing and all manner of board/video games, and her research focuses on cultural studies, game studies and feminist theory. Her streams will revolve around the historical tales that are most often told, to find out to what extent these are historically accurate and to discuss what is missing from them. Eva streams on Thursday, at 18:30 CET!

Sophie Paauw is currently studying Archaeology (BA) at Leiden University, working as an intern at VALUE, and writing a thesis on how we shape material, material(-ity) shapes the past and the past shapes us… and how D&D plays into that, chiefly. Amongst other things, Sophie is interested in the narrative aspect of archaeology, and fascinated by the way the past, present and future find each other in stories and legend (and games, be that classic TTRPGs like D&D or one of the many video games they stream over on the VALUE twitch channel)

Nina ‘shibby’ Beik (22) (@nina_beik) is a third-year Security Studies student at the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague. Her interests lie in the intersection between society, security, and the digital. Aside from that, she, of course, loves history and gaming. In Indie Histories, Nina will be looking at the indie gems of the gaming world to counter all that AAA show of force we see all the time. She streams each Wednesday, 18:30 CET!