Good times, and a fantastic audience!

#Medieval #football #Norway

Maria Danielsen, Knut Ørke og Holger Pötzsch har skrevet et opprop om KI i høyere utdanning som jeg nettopp har signert. Signér du også om du ønsker en mer faglig og kritisk diskusjon av innføring av KI på universiteter og høgskoler! Oppropet skal sendes til Khrono. nettskjema.no/a/602234#/pa...

The Tune ship gets moved this week www.vikingtidsmuseet.no/english/news... #viking #ships

Games and stories are imitations of life, ways of playing at life, sometimes ways of learning how to live. Some of the rules may appear both cruel and arbitrary. But if you want to play the game, or live the life, you have to follow them.

A rather beautiful view of the Ullandhaug tower upon returning to the office. Hopefully marking the beginning of a significantly better 2026!

Techbros seem to love Tolkien, so here's an analogy to help you understand what genAI is. GenAI is The One Ring. You think your use is justified, b/c you don't have evil in your heart. But it came from evil, it is intended for evil purpose, & anything you do with it will be twisted to that end.

I do find it interesting trying to explain to people that historians deal in arguments, not in facts. History isn’t a catalogue of dates and names, but what happened around those things, and how we now and those who were alive at the time perceived and responded to those events.

Another beer post for the evening: In 1241, Pope Gregory IX informed Archbishop Sigurd Eindridesson (r.1231-52) that children who are baptised in beer can not be considered to have been properly baptised.

He could not force himself to understand how banks functioned and so forth, because all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaborate, and as unnecessary.

Trick or treat? 😈 #Halloween BL Stowe MS 17, f.200r

The Greenhouse @unistavanger.bsky.social is launching an international Masters Program in Public Environmental Humanities from fall 2026! Taught in English. Please share with all your students, #envhist #envhum colleagues! Learn more about the program here: www.uis.no/en/studies/t...

What HE managers fail to understand is that in the context of the Humanities, ‘employability’ isn’t teaching coding or carpentry, but skills around writing, presenting, reasoning, evaluation, analysis, research etc. In an 80% service economy, these are the skills that fundamentally matter.

There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty.

📅 Save the date! The University of Stavanger, invites you to a symposium entitled: Freedom of Expression in Times of Genocide 🗓 Wed. Nov 12, 5–7:30 pm | Sølvberget, Stavanger & online Speakers include: Sindre Bangstad, Raz Segal, Zoé Samudzi, Maha Abdallah & Martin Shaw More details to follow.

Medieval techniques to preserve mental health? Sage advice here (and a wonderfully written post). "Tao seemed forever struggling with the dilemma between living freely but poorly and working in the government but unhappily. Besides resorting to alcohol, Tao dealt with such struggles with poetry."

The best slow TV ever. www.nrk.no/kultur/flytt...

At my good colleague @markusmindrebo.bsky.social’s book launch at the @unistavanger.bsky.social Library today. Women, Politics, and Social Networks in the Sagas of Norwegian Kings. Congratulations on the book, Markus!

Step into the heart of Medieval Baghdad—right from your phone. 📜 Uncover rich, immersive history 🦅 Explore 9th century Baghdad 📱 Experience it all for free, anytime, anywhere Launching today for free: the Discovery Tour App – Medieval Baghdad #AssassinsCreed

We have a cover for Ancient Egypt in Video Games! Out either late 2025 or early 2026 - will post a link with contents once it’s up on the DeGruyter website. I’m very excited that this is soon out in the world!

29th August is the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist. Here Salome is depicted doing a spectacular sword dance! ⚔️ Bodleian Library MS. Auct. D. 2. 6; 'The Littlemore Anselm'; f.166v @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

"This book is a must-read for both medievalists and gamers." - @medievalists.bsky.social The Middle Ages in Computer Games by @robehoughton.bsky.social offers the most comprehensive analysis and discussion of medievalist computer games to date. Learn more 👉 buff.ly/XnzZx0z #medievalsky

It’s an unimaginable amount of money. He could have bought two - maybe even three - Warhammer armies.

a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel

So does that mean it’ll develop crippling depression and a bunch of debt

There's another very kind review of The Middle Ages in Computer Games out on @gamevironments.bsky.social from @markusmindrebo.bsky.social. There's also a bunch of important articles on peripheral religions in games in this issue which are well worth a look. doi.org/10.48783/gam...

Look even *if* AI could do the job of a historian, I still wouldn’t trust it. My research is on how elites used the past as a political tool and tried to control historic narratives. I wouldn’t trust tech companies and their connections to right wing governments to not rewrite the past.

The Call for Papers for our strand on the Middle Ages in Modern Games for next year's @imc-leeds.bsky.social is now open with the conference theme of 'Temporalities'. Please circulate to any interested parties. Deadline 17 September. Text here: middleagesinmoderngames.net/announcement...

Universities messed up by not getting rid of student evaluations after the wave of peer reviewed scholarship about their issues and before evals became a culture war item. This could have been done a decade or more ago and betrays a stunning lack of imagination in capitalist ed sector

Indeed, there is evidence from randomized controlled trials of large introductory classes, that student course evaluations are negatively correlated with how well students learned the material. maa.org/math-values/...

If the marketing team is struggling to understand what universities do and are for, they can read this by a former Warwick professor, HoD, research centre founder/director and PVC. 3/3

5. ‘We earnestly forbid all heathen practices. Namely the worship of idols, heathen gods, & the sun or the moon, fire or water, springs or stones or any kind of forest trees, or indulgence in witchcraft …’ #law #medieval Can’t help but think did we lose something when we stopped worshipping nature?

The fascinating secular Laws of Cnut were issued after seizing the throne of England. They intended to cement his power and reassure his subjects, largely repeating laws of earlier kings. Full of insights into medieval life. To share with you, I aim to post a law a day in sequence #medievalsky 1/2

It is really really sinking in for me the degree to which LLMs are the ultimate expression of right wing anti-intellectualism. Its proponents are literally mocking the idea that anyone would ever want to learn anything, know anything, develop any actual skill, or have a thought of their own.

Roderick and I are "speaking" together on Norse medievalism in games!

The third and final day of #MAMG25 is about to begin! Head over to our website to check out the programme, and read two days of great papers, and our first panel for today, Fantasy Medievalism in The Witcher, will start in just 10 minutes at 10am (UTC+1)! middleagesinmoderngames.net/announcement...

Our Asynchronous Conference is starting in less than an hour! Come and join us for three days of papers about all aspects of the Middle Ages and Medievalism in games of all sorts!

The sixth Middle Ages in Modern Games Asynchronous Conference on the themes Globalities and Regionalities will take place from 4 to 6 June. The papers (written and video format) will be accessible on our website middleagesinmoderngames.net We hope you can join us!

"After more than 100 years in storage, the original serpent's head from the Oseberg Ship will be displayed to the public for the very first time." New upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Cultural History: www.khm.uio.no/english/news...

It's been released! And it's shiny! It happens in academia every day, but it's a bit surreal to suddenly have published a whole book. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Today’s trip: Raby mere #Wirral. Raby is recorded in the Domesday book. From Old Norse rá and býr = ‘settlement at a boundary’. Ancient boundaries often followed the line of waterways. It is suggested that the lake marked the southern limit of viking territory in the Wirral. #medievalsky #cheshire

It can't be all doom and gloom. There have to be rays of sunshine sprinkling down on these trying times. Don't stop fighting Just take breaks Somebody somewhere Needs flowers tonight

We can't save the world with games, but we can be part of why it is worth saving. We can't save the world with art, but we can brighten it. We can't save the world with play, but we can be a reminder of our humanity. We can't save the world with joy, but we can be a reprieve before the fight.

I believe Tolkien said it best

Heart-patterned Viking Age weight for #Valentine’s Day. From Mere, #Cheshire. It is lead with gilded copper alloy decoration on top. It bears an Irish style design with opposing scroll patterns. It is 22.07g used for weighing goods for #trade #medievalsky #viking

We're delighted to open the Call for Papers for the sixth Middle Ages in Modern Games Asynchronous Conference: Globalities and Regionalities (3-6 June 2025). The themes are 'Globalities' and 'Regionalities' with deadline 3 May. Details below and here: middleagesinmoderngames.net/announcement...

Just out: I'm interviewed here by Metal Hammer alongside Einar Selvik from Wardruna and JB Christofferson from Grand Magus about heavy metal's love affair with the Vikings. This was great fun to do! www.loudersound.com/features/why...

Todays vikingism: a somewhat disgruntled tabby cat dressed up - in armour and winged helmet - and photographed as the shieldmaiden Brünnhilde, seemingly in the style of Wagner's opera cycle 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'. Photos by Adolph Weidhaas, 1936. Library of Congress, ppmsca.51533/ppmsca-83927

Cover ✔ Publication date ✔ Webpage ✔ Pretty thrilled about this. The result of 7 years of academic blood, sweat and tears at this point.