A very current Middle Ages, at the URJC

Raul Garcia Hemonnet

The medieval is very present in the culture of our days. It is enough to take a look at series such as 'Vikings' or 'Game of Thrones' or some installments of the video game 'Assasin's Creed', among many other examples to verify this statement.

In order to analyze these relationships between the Middle Ages and contemporary culture, the URJC has organized the virtual international conference 'Middle Ages, Multimedia Ages' which is held virtually from November 21 to 25.

“We want to open a space for meeting and exchanging views on an unquestionable reality such as the fact that the Middle Ages are in fashion in current cultural production”, explains Raquel Crespo-Vila, Margarita Salas post-doctoral researcher (USAL- URJC) and organizer of the congress.

In this sense, a program with a great variety of topics has been built that includes analyzes related to literature, cinema, comics, television series, video games, children's books, or heavy metal music, among other fields.

The fascination and interest in the Middle Ages is very present today, as Crespo-Vila points out, quoting Umberto Eco, “it is a wide space with very contradictory visions that allows it to be filled with many things. In it there are visions such as the Fantastic or Barbaric Middle Ages, different points of view in a space that is being redefined”

To decipher all this and “thanks to the virtual format, we have experts from countries such as Argentina, Portugal, Brazil or specialists from American universities. We combine people who have been researching in this field for some time with young researchers who are entering it”, as Antonio Huertas Morales, contracted doctoral professor at the URJC and also organizer of the congress, points out.

The symposium will offer “reflections and approaches to cultural products and elements of popular culture. Something that we all consume and know, but with an academic and theoretical approach”, indicates Huertas.

An opportunity to learn about the communicating vessels between the Middle Ages and the present through current cultural products and at the hands of experts and academics from various countries around the world.