Tess Dunbar
Higher Degree by Research Candidate
School of Humanities
Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics
I am a PhD student working jointly in the Department of History and Department of Media. My research is on medievalism in video games and I work broadly in the fields of Historical Game Studies and Medieval History.
My PhD research is on the representation of the gendered figure of the witch in medievalist computer role-play games. My case studies focus on the mobilisation of cultural historical imagination around gendered magic and witchcraft in the construction of fantasy medievalist worlds in CPRGs. I am interested in the representation of witches in video games in historical context, compared to other strains of representation, such as film, and with broader cultural movements around the idea of witchcraft both historically and in the present. This is interdisciplinary research that contributes most significantly to historical game studies and medievalism, but intersects with a range of other fields of study.
My Masters of Research thesis presented a historical analysis of the 1991 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves video game, interpreting the differences between the game and film in the context of Gulf War America, largely regarding technology, gender, and race.
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Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2018 - 2019 Macquarie University Australia Master of Research 2015 - 2017 Macquarie University Australia Bachelor of Arts -
Research Interests
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Journals
Year Citation 2023 Watterson, T. (2023). ‘Now <i>you</i> are <i>Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves</i>™’: Intermedial Medievalism. Adaptation, 16(1), 50-62.
2022 Watterson, T. (2022). Medieval Stories and Storytelling: Multimedia and Multi-Temporal Perspectives ed. by S. C. Thomson. Parergon, 39(1), 269-271.
2022 Watterson, T., & Roberts, Z. (2022). Seeing the unseen: <i>INVISIBILITY</i> at MOD.. History Australia, 19(3), 1-4.
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Book Chapters
Year Citation 2022 Watterson, T. (2022). “Make him a woman:” Gender and witches in Darklands. In Women in Historical and Archaeological Video Games (pp. 243-268). De Gruyter.
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Conference Papers
Year Citation 2021 Middle Ages without borders: a conversation on medievalism (2021). Publications de l’École française de Rome.
2021 Watterson, T. (2021). "Everyone Knows Witches are Barren": Images of Fertility, Witchcraft and Womanhood in Medievalist Video Games. In R. Houghton (Ed.), The Middle Ages In Modern Games: Conference Proceedings, Vol. 2 (pp. 15). Twitter: The Public Medievalist; Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Research, University of Winchester.
Tutor for HIST3037: Early Modern Europe - Semester 2, 2021
Tutor for HIST2053: Medieval Europe: Crusades to the Black Death - Semester 1, 2021
Guest Lecturer for MDIA2221: Digital Games, Cultures and Technologies, Semester 1, 2020
At Macquarie University
Convenor and Tutor for MHIS2007 - From Charlemagne to Game of Thrones: The Middle Ages Then and Now at Macquarie University - Semester 2, 2020
Marker for MHIS/MHIX1001: Religion, Trade, and Empire in the Pre-Modern World, 1215-1788 - Semester 1, 2020
Marker for MHIS120: Making the Middle Ages: Faith, War and Romance, Semester 1, 2019
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Board Memberships
Date Role Board name Institution name Country 2020 - ongoing Representative Walter & Dorothy Duncan Trust Board Walter & Dorothy Duncan Trust, University of Adelaide Australia -
Committee Memberships
Date Role Committee Institution Country 2018 - 2020 Secretary Cerae Editorial Committee CERAE: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Australia
Connect With Me
External Profiles
