COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 23 you get to eat different meals, and talk to everyone in the town” and interact as if you are part of their world, she said. Peasant revolts were common and frequent during the time period. Mathers’s broad interest in this period encourages her exploration of different interests and depictions of the Middle Ages. “While the peasants barely had money for bread you work [in the game] as an artist in a scriptorium [and experience episodes of] book burning. It’s a really transitional period where printing is coming into play, and religious changes and gender norms are challenged,” she said. “My work with the video game is an exploration,” she said. Mathers’s passion for medieval imagery extends far beyond the realm of gaming. She’s eager to delve into new academic explorations, including a recent call for papers on adapting the medieval period for animation. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees already under her belt—along with a secondary education certification in English—she’s charting a path toward a future in academia. Her ultimate goal? To research, write, and inspire the next generation of scholars. “I want to teach,” Mathers said, her enthusiasm unmistakable. ● “Medieval saint types had to fit into that canon but obviously she had a hard time fitting into that.” While Kempe lived in more than a millennium ago, Mathers said the literature illustrates similar ideologies to what “we are experiencing today.” “People have always been diverse and interesting and different. The human race has a history of being different and weird,” Mathers said. “By doing research about Kempe I’m interested in female authorship and the way women were able to define themselves [in that time],” she explained. She said a call for papers to adapt the medieval period to animation media is another interest area she plans to pursue. “Pentiment” (2022) is an historical roleplaying game set during the Middle Ages. “The game is set in the fictional medieval town of Tassing, in which the player character uncovers a murder mystery plot,” Mathers said. “It was one of the only [video game] pieces I’ve consumed that I found to be accurate in terms of representing the Middle Ages,” Mathers explained. The animation looks like medieval manuscripts, and the game explores literate and illiterate characters—for example which person learns to read and write versus those who do not, based on their status, and the norms and customs of the time, she said. The medieval era is also known as the Middle Ages and the Dark Ages. It spans the period between the fall of the Roman Empire [about 476 A.D.] and the rise of the Ottoman Empire [1450]. It lasted roughly 1,500 years. “Pentiment” has a time element based on canonical hours from the Roman Catholic Church’s daily prayer schedule during the Middle Ages. Towns are ruled either by a monastery or an abbey. “That’s part of what is displayed in this video game. As the main character CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO Pentiment, a role playing game for X Box, follows Andreas Maler, an artist working as an illuminator at an Abbey. When one of the abbey’s major benefactors is murdered during a visit, Andreas launches an investigation to prove that his friend did not commit the crime (left). The Book of Margery Kempe circa 1440 (below). Olivia Mathers
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