The Oakeshott Institute and Arms and Armor have two virtual public presentations this week. On Friday Dale Utt, founder of True Edge Archive LLC, Director of Digital Imaging Management and 3D Animation at the Cleveland Museum, and Oakeshott Institute Fellow will lead a streaming adventure on Skyrim featuring in-game usable 3D models of swords from the Oakeshott Institute and the Cleveland Museum.
You know you've always wanted to slay a dragon with 3500 year old Bronze Age sword collected by Ewart Oakeshott. Dale will be joined by Dr. Nathan Clough, Vice President of Arms and Armor, and maybe a couple of other awesome sword folks like Doctors Amanda Taylor and H. Parker Cook of the Oakeshott Institute. While playing Skyrim we will be discussing the use of copyright-free digital models of historical objects in video games and entertainment as a way to increase the reach of historical scholarship to new communities. This will be available on the Oakeshott Institute Youtube channel.
Bronze Age Sword by The Oakeshott Institute on Sketchfab
On Saturday, Dec. 16th 2023 from 3-5pm the Oakeshott Institute will be hosting a series of 5 minute virtual talks about selected pieces from our collection. Each of the Oakeshott fellows and board members will select their favorite historical sword from the collection and give a brief description of the piece, how it fits into the context of history and the archaeological record, and why they think that particular piece is so exceptional. This will be live streamed at our YouTube channel.
Grab yourself a beverage and tune in!
Nathan Clough, Ph.D. is Vice President of Arms and Armor and a member of the governing board of The Oakeshott Institute. He is a historical martial artist and a former university professor of cultural geography. He has given presentations on historical arms at events including Longpoint and Combatcon, and presented scholarly papers at, among others, The International Congress on Medieval Studies.
Craig Johnson is the Production Manager of Arms and Armor and Secretary of The Oakeshott Institute. He has taught and published on the history of arms, armor and western martial arts for over 30 years. He has lectured at several schools and Universities, WMAW, HEMAC, 4W, and ICMS at Kalamazoo. His experiences include iron smelting, jousting, theatrical combat instruction and choreography, historical research, European martial arts and crafting weapons and armor since 1985.