Dr. Milan Weber

• since 01/2026: Research assistant at the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Siegen (Prof. Dr. Angela Schwarz)

• 12/2025: Historian Award of the Dirlmeier Foundation

• 7/2025: Doctorate, University of Siegen

• 2021-2024: Research assistant in the DFG Collaborative Research Center 1472 "Transformations of the popular " at the University of Siegen, subproject B05: Popular history in digital games between mainstreaming and diversification

• 2020-2021: Research intern and freelancer at the Hadamar Memorial Site

• 2019-2020: Master's degree in History, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

• 2013-2018: Bachelor's degree in History, Political Science and Ethnology, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

Monograph

• Images of the past. Staging and popularizing history in digital games

  (expected to be published by Böhlau in mid-2026)

Essays

• 'Pray like a Viking! Popularizing Norse Mythology and Religion in Video Games with Historical Settings: The Case of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, in: Carolyne Larrington/Hans Rudolf Velten/Helen Young (eds.): Popularizing the Middle Ages in Modern Fantasy. Neomedievalism, Video Games, and Vikings, Cambridge 2026, pp. 143-163 (Peer Review)
• The Virtual Dance on the Volcano. Fortschrittsnarrative und der Abgrund des Anthropozäns in digitalen Spielen mit historischen Settings, in: Marko Pajević/Jaanus Sooväli (eds.): Der Abgrund in deutscher und baltischer Kultur/The Abyss in German and Baltic Culture
  (Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik/Transdisciplinary Approaches to German Studies, vol. 100), Leiden/Boston, MA 2025, pp. 260-296 (Peer Review)
• The Black Samurai Yasuke: Historical Authenticity, Social Diversity and the Public Reception of History in Digital Games, in: PAIDIA - Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung, 12.02.2025
• New Perspectives on old Pasts? Diversity in Popular Digital Games with Historical Settings, in: Arts
  12(2): 69, 2023 (Peer Review) (with Angela Schwarz)

• On (time) journeys through Bohemia's forests - On the memory of the popular Middle Ages in the digital game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, in: Diagonal, Issue 43: Memory, 2022, pp. 189-215 (with Tom Pinsker)

Small works and science communication (selection)

• A thousand pasts in one - digital games as historiographical sources, in: DigiTRiP: Digital Teaching & Research in Practice, 15.12.2025
• Review of: Lukas Dauer: Psychiatry and war. Supply-related and psychiatric effects of the First World War on the Haina State Hospital and its patients, in: Geschichtsblätter für Waldeck, vol. 113, 2025, pp. 275-278
• Knights, castles, ladies-in-waiting - canonization loops of the popular Middle Ages in digital games, in: Blog of the Collaborative Research Centre 1472: Transformations of the Popular, 2023 (with Tom Pinsker)
• History as a Resource - Historical Computer Games, in: Blog of the Collaborative Research Center 1472: Transformations of the Popular, 2023 (with Tom Pinsker)
• Q&A on the topic of gaming. Interview with the Executive Departments for Press, Communication and Marketing of the University of Siegen for the Instagram channel
  of the university, 23.08.2023
• History in digital games. Interview with the campus radio station Radius 92.1
  of the University of Siegen, 20.06.2022
• Publications, radio reports and films by Ernst Klee. Compiled on behalf of the Hadamar Memorial, in: Jörg Osterloh/Jan Erik Schulte/Sybille Steinbacher (eds.): "Euthanasia" crimes in occupied Europe. On the dimension of National Socialist mass murder, Göttingen 2022, pp. 365-373

History of therapeutic care in the first half of the 20th century (ongoing)

The type and scope of therapeutic care that mentally ill people received in the first half of the 20th century depended to a large extent on individual social affiliation and the degree of cultural, social and economic capital that patients were able to mobilize. The inequality of therapeutic care can be understood as an expression of the social distinction of middle-class groups from the rest of the population in times of fundamental historical change. The project explores these lines of tension within the framework of a systematic comparison of private clinics and public institutions.

The popularization of history in digital games (completed)

Digital games are one of the most important dissemination channels for popular historical ideas in the context of an increasingly globalized culture of history and remembrance. The historical content that digital games disseminate affects a process of transformation in how the past is popularized, negotiated in the mass media and given meaning from the perspective of the present. Digital games have such a transformative effect on history and historical culture because they stage history in a unique way as a broadly accessible, exciting and potentially limitless amalgam of images and narratives. The project examined the influence of the medium on our current understanding of history on the basis of a corpus of almost forty immensely popular digital games.

• Remembering digitally through play. Participation in a panel discussion at the conference 'Digital Horizons: The Transformation of the Culture of Remembrance' of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Berlin 13.01.2026
• Between Nation and Nationalism: Cultural narratives of remembrance of the Warsaw Uprising 1944 in digital games from Poland. Lecture at the conference 'Slavic Game Studies II: 'Echt jetzt?' - Authentisches Erinnern und Erzählen in Games zu und aus Mittelost- und Osteuropa' of the Universities of Bochum and Münster at the University of Münster, 06.11.2025
• Virtual pasts: Digital games as sources for historical studies. Lecture at the colloquium 'Zeitgeschichte und Public History' at the University of Cologne, 25.06.2024
• Historical concepts of allegiance in digital games. Lecture at the workshop 'Inszenierung politischer Ordnungsvorstellungen' of the Collaborative Research Center 1472: Transformations of the Popular at the University of Siegen, 18.04.2024 (with Angela Schwarz and Tom Pinsker)
• It's getting better ... or is it? Human Violence, the Resistance of Nature and the Anthropocene in Digital Games with Historical Settings. Lecture at the interdisciplinary conference 'Im Abgrund der Geschichte ist für alle Platz - Sprechen über Abgründe' of the Universities of Frankfurt am Main, Bamberg and Tübingen at the Freies Deutsches Hochstift Frankfurt am Main, 25.11.2023
• Popular Bodies in Intercation (introduction and moderation). Panel at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Society for Popular Music Research 'Rock your Body. Körper in Interaktion mit populärer Musik' at the University of Siegen, 15.09.2023 (with Tom Pinsker)
• Pray like a Viking! Norse Mythology and Religion in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Presentation at the workshop 'Game of Thrones as a Game Changer for Big Budget Fantasy?' of the Cooperative Research Group: Popularizing the Past at the University of Siegen, 24.06.2023
• "You won't find this story in the history books" - Current approaches to history in digital games using the example of diversity. Lecture at the conference 'Geschichte der Gegenwart - Gegenwart der Geschichte' of the Chair of Contemporary History at the University of Siegen, 18.11.2022
• "The very dark things" - Representation of National Socialism in selected history games. Lecture as part of the colloquium 'Wissens- und Kommunikationsgeschichte der Moderne/Neuere und Neueste Geschichte' at the University of Siegen, 17.11.2021
• The perpetrators of the Nazi killing center Hadamar 1941-1947. Crimes and criminal prosecution. Lecture at the colloquium 'Neuere Forschungen zur Geschichte und Wirkung des Holocaust' at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, 11.02.2020