ASCS Keynote: Kate Cook "Women in Classical Video Games"

The video game industry is one of the largest and fastest growing in the world. As a result, many people gain some of their earliest experiences of the ancient world from video games. What is often presented, despite expectations of historical authenticity, is a one-sided male view of the ancient world. This talk will explore the issue of female representation with reference to some recent classical video games and their paratexts. It will consider questions of genre and developer priority, along with player attitudes, to examine the representation of women in recent key examples of classical video games, both historical and mythological. 

Kate Cook’s research focusses on the reception of women in ancient world and historical video games, with interest in the relationships between genre and gender in historical games. She is co-editor of the volume “Women in Classical Video Games” (2022), and has done work on women in the mobile game “Choices” and “Expeditions: Rome”.

NOTE: People registered for the full ASCS conference do not need to re-register for this keynote session.