Katherine J. Lewis – författare

This book aims to further a debate about aspects of "playing" and "gaming" in connection with history. Reaching out to academics, professionals and students alike, it pursues a dedicated interdisciplinary approach. Rather than only focusing on how professionals could learn from academics in history, the book also ponders the question of what academics can learn from gaming and playing for their own practice, such as gamification for teaching, or using "play" as a paradigm for novel approaches into historical scholarship. "Playing" and "gaming" are thus understood as a broad cultural phenomenon that cross-pollinates the theory and practice of history and gaming alike.

This book aims to further a debate about aspects of "playing" and "gaming" in connection with history. Reaching out to academics, professionals and students alike, it pursues a dedicated interdisciplinary approach. Rather than only focusing on how professionals could learn from academics in history, the book also ponders the question of what academics can learn from gaming and playing for their own practice, such as gamification for teaching, or using "play" as a paradigm for novel approaches into historical scholarship. "Playing" and "gaming" are thus understood as a broad cultural phenomenon that cross-pollinates the theory and practice of history and gaming alike.

This volume presents the first substantial exploration of crusading and masculinity, focusing on the varied ways in which the symbiotic relationship between the two was made manifest in a range of medieval settings and sources, and to what ends. Ideas about masculinity formed an inherent part of the mindset of societies in which crusading happened, and of the conceptual framework informing both those who recorded the events and those who participated. Examination and interrogation of these ideas enables a better contextualised analysis of how those events were experienced, comprehended and portrayed. The collection is structured around five themes: sources and models; contrasting masculinities; emasculation and transgression; masculinity and religiosity and kingship and chivalry. By incorporating masculinity within their analysis of the crusades and of crusaders the contributors demonstrate how such approaches greatly enhance our understanding of crusading as an ideal, an institution and an experience. Individual essays consider western campaigns to the Middle East and Islamic responses; events and sources from the Iberian peninsula and Prussia are also interrogated and re-examined, thus enabling cross-cultural comparison of the meanings attached to medieval manhood. The collection also highlights the value of employing gender as a vital means of assessing relationships between different groups of men, whose values and standards of behaviour were socially and culturally constructed in distinct ways.

This volume presents the first substantial exploration of crusading and masculinity, focusing on the varied ways in which the symbiotic relationship between the two was made manifest in a range of medieval settings and sources, and to what ends. Ideas about masculinity formed an inherent part of the mindset of societies in which crusading happened, and of the conceptual framework informing both those who recorded the events and those who participated. Examination and interrogation of these ideas enables a better contextualised analysis of how those events were experienced, comprehended and portrayed. The collection is structured around five themes: sources and models; contrasting masculinities; emasculation and transgression; masculinity and religiosity and kingship and chivalry. By incorporating masculinity within their analysis of the crusades and of crusaders the contributors demonstrate how such approaches greatly enhance our understanding of crusading as an ideal, an institution and an experience. Individual essays consider western campaigns to the Middle East and Islamic responses; events and sources from the Iberian peninsula and Prussia are also interrogated and re-examined, thus enabling cross-cultural comparison of the meanings attached to medieval manhood. The collection also highlights the value of employing gender as a vital means of assessing relationships between different groups of men, whose values and standards of behaviour were socially and culturally constructed in distinct ways.