{"593608":{"#nid":"593608","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Game of Thrones Is Even Changing How Scholars Study the Real Middle Ages","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOn\u0026nbsp;Sunday, July 16, HBO broadcast the first episode of season seven of the show,\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EGame of Thrones (GoT).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003ELast year at least 23 million Americans watched each episode of season six, and the program was seen in more than 170 countries.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ERichard Utz, a scholar of medieval studies and professor and chair in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication in Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College, was quoted in this article in \u003Cem\u003ETime\u003C\/em\u003E on the impact of the show in higher education. He specializes in the study of literature, film, media, and communication. His research also focuses on the reception of medieval culture in post-medieval times.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EExcerpt:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cblockquote\u003E\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen the next season of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones starts on Sunday, it will be a short one, with the last episode of this batch scheduled to air on Aug. 27. That fact may frustrate some eager to find out who will win the Iron Throne, but it\u0026rsquo;s good news for a particular subset of fans. After all, September is back to school season. As TIME\u0026nbsp; first reported, Harvard will offer an undergraduate medieval studies course inspired by Game of Thrones this fall and Boston College is offering a graduate-level one in spring 2018 \u0026mdash; just the latest examples of similarly themed courses offered at American schools ranging from the University of California, Berkeley to Virginia Tech, as well as universities overseas\u0026hellip; \u0026ldquo;Most [institutions] would say that they don\u0026rsquo;t have to pay you $120,000 a year to talk about Game of Thrones,\u0026rdquo; echoes Richard Utz (\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/strong\u003E), President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, who argued on Friday in an \u003Cem\u003EInside Higher Ed\u003C\/em\u003E op-ed that medieval studies departments should beware of relying too heavily on Game of Thrones (which is, after all, still just a work of fantasy) as a recruitment tool. Those within the field disagree over whether it\u0026rsquo;s proper to contextualize the original medieval texts within anything but their own original medieval world, and traditionally the answer has been that it is not.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/time.com\/4837351\/game-of-thrones-real-medieval-history\/\u0022\u003ERead the full article\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cdiv\u003E\u0026nbsp;\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\u003C\/div\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27167","created_gmt":"2017-07-19 21:25:43","changed_gmt":"2017-07-24 18:41:28","author":"Rebecca Keane","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"2023 U.S. News \u0026 World Report Best Colleges","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/time.com\/4837351\/game-of-thrones-real-medieval-history\/","dateline":{"date":"2017-07-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2017-07-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"404111":{"id":"404111","type":"image","title":"Richard Utz","body":null,"created":"1449252000","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:00:00","changed":"1539181964","gmt_changed":"2018-10-10 14:32:44","alt":"Portrait photo of School of Literature, Media, and Communication Chair Richard Utz","file":{"fid":"75989","name":"s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":29255,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/s200_richard_utz_oct_2014.jpg?itok=dSo1uzO5"}}},"media_ids":["404111"],"groups":[{"id":"1281","name":"Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts"},{"id":"1283","name":"School of Literature, Media, and Communication"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"33431","name":"Richard Utz"},{"id":"174958","name":"GoT"},{"id":"174939","name":"Game of Thrones"},{"id":"99541","name":"medieval"},{"id":"39781","name":"LMC"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}