Blair Apgar, PhD

“Thinking (and Feeling) in Virtual Reality: Prospective Uses in Medieval Studies” Speculum Centennial Issue, vol. 101, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.1086/738439

Authority and Resistance in the Vita Mathildis (Vat. Lat. 4922)" Religions 16, no. 3: 301. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16030301

“Visualizing the Reform: Examining Modena Cathedral’s Porta Dei Principi for Traces of the Gregorian Reform.” I Quaderni Del m.æ.S. - Journal of Mediæ Ætatis Sodalicium 22 (1):63-81. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2533-2325/19498.

“Illuminating the Other: Meaning-Making through Stylistic Rupture in Pentiment” The Early Modern Period in Games, eds. Lucas Haasis and Tobias Winnerling, DeGruyter, expected late 2026.

“From Dante to Pirandello: The Shifting Image of Matilda of Canossa in History and Literature,” Performing the Medieval, ed. Kleio Pethainou, Trivent Publishing, expected 2026.

“The Virtual Pilgrim: A Study of Mental Travel in Pentiment” The Routledge Companion to Video Games and History, eds. Kate Cook, Robert Houghton and Chris Kempshall, Routledge, expected 2026.

“Beyond the Physical: Tracing Imagined Journeys from Bologna to Jerusalem in Virtual Reality” for The Immersive Middle Ages: Theory and Praxis, ed. Courtney Luckhardt, expected 2026.

“Her Land is Our Land: Examining the Terra Mathildis and Urban VIII’s Historiographic Impact on the Story of Matilda of Canossa” in Between Freedom and Submission: The Role of Women in the History of the Church, eds. Filippo Forlani, Silvia Mas, Lukasz Zak; Potificia Università della Santa Croce, March 2024.

“Matilda di Canossa and Crusader Kings II: (Papal) Warrior Princess,” in Playing the Middle Ages, ed. Robert Houghton. Bloomsbury Academic, September 2023.

Publications – Reviews, Conference Proceedings & Misc

“Framing the Other Within: Sebhat of Sadai, Narrative Inversion, and Ethiopian Manuscript Aesthetics in Pentiment,” Conference Proceedings for Middle Ages in Modern Games, University of Winchester, 2025.

“Echoing the Past: Spoliation, Memory, and Power in the Witcher 3”. Historic Games Network, https://www.historicalgames.net/echoing-the-past/ 17 March 2025.

Editor, Middle Ages in Modern Gaming 2023, Conference Proceedings, Vol. 4. University of Winchester, 2023.

Review: Manarini, Struggles for Power in the Kingdom of Italy: The Hucpoldings, c. 850–c. 1100. Speculum, vol. 98, no. 4. October 2023, 1283-1285.

Review: “If I Were a Rich Man: Art and Class on Display at the Cloisters” in Aspectus: A Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 5. University of York. October 2023. https://doi.org/10.15124/yao-8056-m046

“Exploring the Intersections of Illness and Otherness in ‘A Plague Tale: Innocence,” Conference Proceedings for Middle Ages in Modern Games, 2022.

“Visiting the Unvisitable: Using Architectural Models in Video Games to Enhance Sense-Oriented Learning,” Conference Proceedings for Middle Ages in Modern Games, 2021.

"The Meeting House, Ben Foster." American Reflections: The Collection of Dr Timothy McLaughlin, New Britain Museum of American Art, 2010.

"Catskill Mountains Twilight, Thomas Worthington Whittredge." American Reflections: The "Collection of Dr Timothy McLaughlin, New Britain Museum of American Art, 2010.

Selected Conferences and Media Appearances

Invited Presentations

“Matilda of Canossa, Urban VIII, and Crusader Kings” on A History of Italy podcast, hosted by Mike Corradi, October 2024.
Roundtable, “Digital Humanities without a Budget,” International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 9-11 May 2024.
“A Digital Humanities Approach to Envisioning the Medieval Imagination,” Brown-bag Speaker Series, History & Geography Department, Elon University, 10 November 2023.
“Identity and Experience - An Exploration of Imagined Spaces,” Research Symposium, Elon University, 26 October 2023.
Roundtable, Middle Ages in Modern Games Strand, International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, 3-6 July 2023.
“Canossa 1077.” The Medieval Podcast, hosted by Danièle Cybulskie. 22 April 2021.

Conference Presentations & Other

“Is That a Tentacle in Your Pants, or Are You Just Happy to See Me? Queer Chronologies and Alternative Timelines in Baldur’s Gate III” International Medieval Congress, 6-9 July 2026.
“Space, Experience & Embodiment: Using Virtual Reality to Reactivate the Medieval Imagination” International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, 7-10 July 2025.
“Matilda of Canossa and the Politics of Gender Transgressions,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, 1-4 July 2024.
“Beyond the Physical: Understanding Virtual Pilgrimage in Virtual Reality,” The Senses, Cognition, and The Body in Medieval Devotional Practices. Università degli Studi di Padova, Palazzo Bo, 5-7 June 2024.
“Returning to an Imagined Past: How Game Mods Reinforce Anachronistic Medieval Fantasy,” Middle Ages in Modern Games, 6-7 June 2024.
“Virtual Pilgrimage, Virtual Model: Exploring Santo Stefano in Bologna,” National Endowment for Humanities’ Institute for Immersive Global Middle Ages, 13-16 July 2023.
“Spread the Word! Examining Modena Cathedral’s ‘Porta dei Principi’ for Traces of the Gregorian Reform,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, 3-6 July 2023.
“The Folly of the ‘Great Man Theory’ in Modern Medieval Media: Crusader Kings III.” Mythical Pasts, Fantasy Futures: The Middle Ages in Modern Visual Culture. J. Paul Getty Museum and the Haggerty Museum of Art, 8-9 September 2022.
“Visualising Jus Bellum Justum: Contextualising the Pro-Reform Exegesis of the Matilda Gospels (New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, MS. M492).” International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, 4-7 July 2022.
“Exploring the Intersections of Illness and Otherness in ‘A Plague Tale: Innocence.’” Middle Ages in Modern Games, 7-9 June 2022.
“The Lord is a (wo)man of War: Examining Jus bellum justum in the Gospels of Matilda” Women and Warfare in the Medieval World, February 2022.
“She’s the Man? Examining the Varied Gendered Descriptions of Matilda of Canossa.” Gender & Medieval Studies 2022. The American University of Paris, 5-7 January 2022.
“Visualizing Jus Bellum Justum: Contextualizing the Pro-Reform Exegesis of the Matilda Gospels.” The Papacy and the Periphery, c.1050-c.1300. The University of St Andrews, 21-23 October 2021.
“Interactive Gameplay as an Accessible Pedagogical Tool in Teaching the Middle Ages,” for the Carmen Project Prize, CARMEN Worldwide Medieval Network, 3-5 September 2021.
“How do you solve a problem like gender?: Reconciling contemporary attitudes towards Matilda of Canossa’s Femininity.” Liminality: Crossing Borders, Crossing Boundaries, LAMPS Edinburgh, 25-26 June 2021.
“Part of the Boys’ Club? Determining Matilda of Canossa’s Agency Using the Vita Mathildis.” White Rose Medieval Conference, University of York, 17-18 June 2021.
“Visiting the Unvisitable: Using Architectural Models in Video Games to Enhance Sense-Oriented Learning.” The Middle Ages in Modern Games Asynchronous Conference, 25-28 May 2021.
“Not my King: Authority and Resistance in the Vita Mathildis (Vat. Lat. 4922).” Resilience, Resistance, and Renewal in the Medieval and Early Modern World, UCLA MEMSA, 27 May 2021.
“Matilda and the Lasting Power of Pope Urban VIII’s 17th Century Revival.” The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society, University of Edinburgh, 16 July 2020.
Chair, (Dis)Embodiment of Materials, University of York Post Graduate Conference: “(De)Constructing Embodiments,” University of York, 13 March 2020.
“Matilda di Canossa and Crusader Kings II: (Papal) Warrior Princess.” Playing the Middle Ages, II: Pop-Culture in Games / Pop-Culture and Games, International Medieval Congress, Leeds University, 1-4 July 2019.
“Family Ties: Legitimating Power through Inheritance in the Vita Mathildis.” Family Matters, The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society, University of Edinburgh, 15 June 2019.
“Papal Pals: The Use of Pallia as Tokens of Loyalty to the Papacy during the Investiture Controversy.” Spaces of Initiations: Objects, Images, and Rituals in the Middle Ages, Brno, 11-13 March 2019.
Chair, Transmission of the Social Body, University of York Post Graduate Conference: “Transmissions,” University of York, 2019.
“Urban VIII and the Cult of Matilda di Canossa, (Papal) Warrior Princess.” 2019 Historical Fictions Research Conference, Manchester, 22-23 February 2019.
“The Cult of Matilda, Urban VIII and the Myth of 100 Buildings,” Afterlives, University of York, 16 March 2018.
“Early Modern Research Seminar,” Convened by Professor Helen Hills, University of York, 22 January 2018.

Academic Workshops & Institutes

Coding Medieval Worlds 6: Manuscripts and Mechanics (Austrian Academy of Sciences and Exilian), 20-22 February 2026.

Medievalists Design Games (Weston Game Lab, Franke Institute, University of Chicago) 5-7 December 2025.

Coding Medieval Worlds 5: Power and Institutions (Austrian Academy of Sciences and Exilian), 22-23 February 2025.

Workshop on the Public Medieval (Virgina Tech, University of Virgina, Medieval Academy of America), 3-5 October 2024.

Coding Medieval Worlds 4: Outcasts and Monsters (Austrian Academy of Sciences and Exilian), 17-18 February 2024.

National Endowment for the Humanities, Immersive Global Middle Ages (The University of Colorado – Colorado Springs and Vanderbilt University). January 2022 – December 2023.

Fellowships, Grants, & Honors

Travel Grant, Stonemaier Games, 2025, $250.

VPA Faculty Development Grant, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2025 $450.

Public Medieval Workshop, Virgina Tech, the University of Virginia and the Medieval Academy of America, 2024, $750.

York Open Research Award 2022 for Aspectus: A Journal for Visual Culture, £200.

National Endowment for the Humanities, Immersive Global Middle Ages (The University of Colorado – Colorado Springs and Vanderbilt University), 2022-2024, $10000.

Finalist for the 2021 Carmen Project Prize, CARMEN Worldwide Medieval Network.

Accueil, Rencontre, Communauté Fellowship, United Kingdom, Florence, Summer 2018, £2500.

Shortlisted for the Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year, University of York, 2018.

A New Inquiry into the ‘Hows’ and ‘Whys’ of Van Eyck Travel Grant to Ghent, New York University, 2013, $1750

White-Levy Travel Grant, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2013, $2500.

Melvin Goldstein English Scholarship, 2010-2011, $500.

University of Hartford Humanities Center Seminar & Fellowship: Pain, 2008-09; Framing War, 2009-10, $500.

Professional Experience

Medieval Art Research » September 2021 - 2024

Research Editor

Aspectus: A Peer-Reviewed Journal of Visual Culture, University of York » York, UK January 2019 – Present

Co-editor in Chief; As of Jan 2021, Consulting

Metropolitan Museum of Art » New York, NY September 2013 – May 2014

Medieval Department Graduate Intern

Oxford University Press » New York, NY August 2012 – December 2012

Grove Art Online (OAO) Editorial Intern

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art » Hartford, CT January 2011 – May 2011

American Painting and Sculpture Curatorial Intern

Aerie Literary Magazine, University of Hartford, » West Hartford, CT August 2010 – May 2011

President / Editor

Yale University Press » New Haven, CT June 2010 – August 2010

Intern, Contracts and Intellectual Properties

New Britain Museum of American Art » New Britain, CT September 2009 – April 2010

Curatorial Intern

Professional Affiliations & Memberships

Associazione Matildica Internazionale (AMI-MIA)

The Middle Ages in Modern Games (MAMG)

The Medieval Academy of America (MAA)

Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC)

Updated January 2026

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