History is popular. We encounter it time and again in many different media and formats. The numerous entertainment industries draw on material from the past to tell exciting stories. Popular themes resurface repeatedly; previously little-known aspects are explored and, if well-received, further developed. The focus is on entertainment and marketing, not on truly conveying history, as would be the aim of school instruction or even scholarly research.

Nevertheless, it is precisely these popular contexts—ranging from historical nonfiction to digital games—that continually reinterpret and reimagine images and conceptions of history, of specific historical places, people, actions, events, and contexts. These forms of representation are the subject of this research. The research examines the origins and historical contexts of these various forms of popular history, as well as their subsequent developments and their impact on past and present societies. In the context of an increasingly globalized (media) world, it may even be possible to identify trends toward a parallel globalization of historical culture.

The primary focus of the research is the analysis of digital games, one of the newer media among those that popularize history. Computer and video games are particularly well-suited for this purpose precisely because they already combine multiple media within themselves and represent a global medium. Digital distribution channels enable even the smallest companies to market their products worldwide. This, in turn, requires that games with historical content present a narrative that can be understood everywhere. Another advantage lies in the interactivity of games, which thus offer more opportunities to present and engage with history. Finally, digital gaming has now become a significant economic force, attracting more and more people every year. In the field of research on popular history in computer and video games, the department has carried out some foundational work over the past ten years:

• Angela Schwarz: History in Digital Games. An “Interactive History Book” for Playing, Storytelling, and Learning?, in: Vadim Oswalt, Hans-Jürgen Pandel (eds.): Handbook of Historical Culture in the Classroom, Frankfurt/M. 2021, pp. 565–612
• Angela Schwarz: “Quarry – Playground – Brand: Popular History in Videogames,” in Martin Lorber and Felix Zimmermann (eds.), *History in Games. Contingencies of an Authentic Past (Studies of Digital Media Culture, Vol. 12), Bielefeld 2020, pp. 25–45
• Angela Schwarz: Game Studies and Historical Scholarship, in: Klaus Sachs-Hombach and Jan-Noël Thon (eds.): Game Studies. Current Approaches in Video Game Research, Cologne 2015, pp. 398–447
• Angela Schwarz: Video Games—A Topic for Historical Studies?, in: ibid. (eds.): “Have You Always Wanted to Throw Plague-Infected Cows at Your Enemies?” A Disciplinary Approach to History in Computer Games, Münster 2010, pp. 7–28
• Angela Schwarz: “Don’t You Really Want to Keep Trying to Dominate This World?” History in Video Games, in: Barbara Korte/Sylvia Paletschek (eds.): History Goes Pop. On the Representation of History in Popular Media and Genres, Bielefeld 2009, pp. 313–340

At the same time, the focus was placed on individual aspects of popular history in the games, whether specific people, images, plot options, narratives, or cultures of remembrance:

• Tom Pinsler/Milan Weber: Traveling Through Bohemia’s Forests (Through Time)—On the Representation of the Popular Middle Ages in the Digital Game *Kingdom Come: Deliverance*, in: *Diagonal*, No. 43: On the Topic of Memory, 2022, pp. 189–214
• Angela Schwarz/Jan Pasternak: Playing for the Pot? Images of the Ruhr Region in 21st-Century Digital Games, in: Forum Geschichtskultur Ruhr, No. 2, 2019, pp. 44–46
• Angela Schwarz: How His Majesty’s Secret Agent on the Titanic Prevented the Outbreak of World War I. Counterfactual Thought Experiments in Video Games, in: Isabel Kranz (ed.): What If? Alternative Presents and Projections of the Future Around 1914, Munich 2017, pp. 181–204
• Angela Schwarz: Narrating World War I—Remembering in Video Games? Narrative Elements in Valiant Hearts, in: Thomas Schleper (ed.): Remembering the Destruction of Europe. A Retrospective on the Great War in Exhibitions and Other Media, Essen 2016, pp. 95–102
• Angela Schwarz: Colorful Images—Images of History? On the Visualization of History in the Medium of Computer Games, in: Benjamin Beil/Marc Bonner/Thomas Hensel (eds.): Computer | Game | Images, Glückstadt 2014, pp. 219–253
• Angela Schwarz: Narration and Narrative: (Hi-)Story Telling in Computer Games, in: Florian Kerschbaumer/Tobias Winnerling (eds.): Early Modernity and Video Games, Newcastle 2014, pp. 140–161
• Jan Pasternak: “Just do it.” Concepts of Historical Action in Computer Games, in: Martina Padberg/Martin Schmidt (eds.): The Magic of History. Historical Culture and Museums (Publications of the Federal Association of Freelance Cultural Scientists, Vol. 3), Bielefeld 2010, pp. 101–120
• Angela Schwarz: New Media—Old Images? Female Characters and Portrayals of Women in Recent Computer Games with Historical Content, in: Bettina Alavi (ed.): Learning History in Virtual Media (Publications of the Heidelberg University of Education, Vol. 54), Heidelberg 2010, pp. 31–53

A concise overview of the main trends in research on popular history in digital games, as conducted at the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History over the past 15 years or so, is provided by a monograph by Angela Schwarz, published in early 2023, which also addresses two further aspects of the subject area: the transmission of knowledge and the role of female characters in historical contexts.

• History in Digital Games: Popular Images and Historical Learning, Stuttgart 2023

Looking ahead, other areas will become of interest, including the question of national elements within a multinational medium and the analysis of how players actually engage with the historical content in the games.

The second important medium that the chair is examining more closely in terms of its role in conveying “historical knowledge” is the illustrated magazine. As one of the first visually oriented modern mass media, newspapers in the 19th century fulfilled a function very similar to that of digital games (alongside other media) today. Even 150 years ago, globalization had already advanced to such an extent that, above all, the images in magazines were already being used transnationally, even though the respective readership at that time was still significantly more nationally homogeneous than one must assume is the case for the target audiences of today’s media productions. Thus, even in the early stages of the modern mass media’s existence, networks of production and distribution were able to establish themselves—networks that play a particularly important role in the research conducted at this department, especially regarding the connections between Great Britain and Germany:

• Angela Schwarz: “Intersecting Anglo-German Networks in Popular Science and Their Functions in the Late Nineteenth Century,” in: Heather Ellis/Ulrike Kirchberger (eds.): Anglo-German Scholarly Networks in the Long Nineteenth Century (History of Science and Medicine Library, Vol. 43), Leiden/Boston, MA 2014, pp. 65–83

The historical subjects covered in the journals of the nineteenth century were just as diverse as the range of “history” we still encounter today in all forms of media. At a time when, according to some contemporaries, history was made by great men, it stood to reason that these very men would be popularized as heroic figures for a broad audience:

• Tobias Scheidt: “Inventor Heroes in Cultural Transfer: Transnational Constructions in Popular British Magazines of the 19th Century,” in: Heike Bormuth, Sebastian Demel, and Daniel Franz (eds.): “Heroes Across Borders: Transfer and Appropriation Processes of Heroic Images (Mannheimer Historische Forschungen, Vol. 36), St. Ingbert 2016, pp. 95–116

Similarly, however, the growing desire—particularly among the middle classes—for historical tourism experiences was addressed and presented as a kind of “reading journey” in illustrated articles and reports:

• Tobias Scheidt: “Spots in which the past is most at home.” Popular Magazines as Media of Historical Tourism in the Mid-19th Century, in: Angela Schwarz/Daniela Mysliwietz-Fleiß (eds.): Journeys into the Past. Historical Tourism in the 19th and 20th Centuries (TransKult. Studies in Transnational Cultural History, Vol. 1), Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 2019, pp. 99–136

The intensive examination of illustrated magazines as historical sources led to further studies beyond the popularization of history-related content. For these magazines provide eloquent testimony to which topics were popular at specific times and what moved and interested people. For example, based on reports in illustrated magazines from the 1920s, conclusions can be drawn about how at least a portion of society at that time began to discover and embrace the weekend as an important element of personal leisure culture:

• Angela Schwarz: “The Invention of the Weekend in the Press of the Weimar Republic,” in: Katja Leiskau/Patrick Rössler/Susann Trabert (eds.): German Illustrated Press. Journalism and Visual Culture in the Weimar Republic (Media History, Vol. 1), Baden-Baden 2016, pp. 275–304

Similarly, magazines played an important role as sources of information in class-specific processes of differentiation, through which 19th-century bourgeois society, in particular, sought to evade the emerging pressure from an emancipating working class. In major British cities in particular, a veritable form of “slum tourism” emerged, intended to degrade members of the lower social classes into objects of observation for the higher classes. Media outlets such as the *Illustrated London News* catered to this curiosity about the “strange” right on one’s “own doorstep” with numerous illustrated articles. In this way, they played a significant role in reinforcing a certain image of these people and their living conditions:

• Angela Schwarz: “EastEnders”: On the Construction of the Curious Gaze Toward the Urban Underclass in the Illustrated London News, in: Natalia Igl/Julia Menzel (eds.): Illustrated Magazines around 1900. Media-Specific Logic, Multimodality, and Metaisation, Bielefeld 2016, pp. 281–307

In addition to digital games and illustrated magazines, research at the chair also focuses on other media and forms of popularizing history. These include “cheap pictures” such as the advertising collectible pictures that emerged around 1860, as well as events like the World’s Fairs, which remained among the largest mass events of all well into the 20th century. In recent years, historical tourism has emerged as a new form of popularizing historical material, which is currently developing into another central pillar of research on the popularization of history at the chair:

• Angela Schwarz: “Pastness in the Making: On the Touristification of Spatialized Time in the Past,” in: Angela Schwarz/Daniela Mysliwietz-Fleiß (eds.): “Journeys into the Past. Historical Tourism in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Cologne/Vienna/Weimar 2019, pp. 25–44
• Daniela Mysliwietz-Fleiß: “Cemetery Tourism in the 19th Century as a Journey into the Past,” in: Angela Schwarz/Daniela Mysliwietz-Fleiß (eds.): Journeys into the Past. Historical Tourism in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Cologne/Vienna/Weimar 2019, pp. 233–261

Future research will focus on an in-depth examination of popular historical tourism constructs and their personal appropriation by people in the 19th century, using illustrated magazines and world’s fairs as examples. At the same time, digital games will be examined as vehicles for elements of historical tourism; in the 21st century, they thus assume precisely the same function that illustrated magazines had fulfilled two centuries earlier.