Marc Saurette

As a member of the Department of History, the Digital Humanities graduate program and the Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) program at Carleton, my teaching seeks to demystify the medieval world and bring its study into the 21st century. I currently teach courses and supervise graduate students exploring the religious and cultural history of the Middle Ages or the field of Historical Game Studies (or both!).

Over the past decade, my teaching has explored and embraced game-based learning. Since co-developing a classroom-based pedagogical role-playing game based on the early-medieval chronicle History of the Franks, I have incorporated games into several courses focussing on medieval aristocratic and religious life. I also teach methodologically focussed courses on Historical Game Studies, encouraging students to analyze representations of the past in videogames, to consider games’ pedagogical value and also to engage in History game design. My interest in games is born from the interest of our students to reflect on the historical value of games as today’s newly dominant cultural medium. I am particularly intrigued by how games (both analog and digital) function as medievalisms (modern representations of the medieval past) which communicate truths and myths. My goal in teaching with and about games is to provide students the tools for critical study of the game they play.

It has also opened up new areas of research collaboration. At the 2024 Canadian Society of Medievalists, I organized two sessions on using games in the Medieval Studies classroom, which has initiated a new group focussed on game-based pedagogy. I am also helping organize a new community of practice at Carleton with Teaching and Learning Services devoted to game-based learning. And last year I began the Carleton University Game Studies workshop as a collaborative space to playtest games in development by students and faculty, both at Carleton and beyond.

My research interests tend to be more temporally distant. Inspired by the digital transformation of knowledge in our own lifetime, I have become intrigued by how changes in communication can transform society. My research focuses on the lives and literary production of twelfth-century monks of Cluny in the midst of their own communication revolution. Their lives revolved around the cultivation of virtue and spiritual prestige through an unparalleled program of prayers, liturgical celebration and ritualized bodily comportment, but began to be transformed as written forms of memory transformed their experiences. I have focused my research on three authors writing within the Cluniac miler: the twelfth-century abbot of Cluny –Peter the Venerable– and two of his monks –Peter of Poitiers and Richard of Poitiers (also known as Richard of Cluny). Through the writing of these three monks, I seek to explore the world view, the power relationships and the forms of emotion disseminated from Cluny. In order to make these writings more accessible, I have begun the Petrus Project to make these writings available in English to modern student and scholarly audiences.

Please contact me if you are interested in pursuing graduate research in Historical Game Studies or medieval studies at the Department of History. 

Teaching and Research Interests

• Historical Game Studies
• Medieval cultures, politics, and religions
• History of Christianity, especially ascetic and monastic communities
• The History of Affectivity/ Emotions
• Digital Manuscript Studies
• The Middle Ages in Pop Culture/ Medievalisms

Honours and Awards

• 2022 FASS Teaching Development Award
• 2022 Teaching and Learning Services – Teaching Development Grant
• 2018 Carleton University – Provost’s Teaching Achievement Award
• 2009-16 SSHRC Standard Research Grant: An Edition and Study of the Opera Omnia of Richard of Poitiers
• 2008-09 SSHRC Institutional Grant
• 2005-06 Postdoctoral Fellowship, SSHRCC
• 2004-05 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Groupe de recherche sur les pouvoirs et les sociétés de l’Occident médiéval et moderne (GREPSOMM)
• 2004 Student Development Award, Erindale Part-time Undergraduate Students (EPUS), University of Toronto at Mississauga

Select Publications

“The Challenges of the Twelfth-Century” in A Companion to the Abbey of Cluny in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2022)

“Finding Spaces for Learning at Twelfth-Century Cluny” in Horizontal Learning in Twelfth-Century Monastic Culture, eds. Steven Vanderputten, Micol Long and Tjamke Snijders (2020).

“Scholaris ludens: Developing Games in Teaching History.” Epoiesen: A Journal For Creative Engagement In History And Archaeology. (March, 2018), http://dx.doi.org/10.22215/epoiesen/2018.6

Peter the Venerable and Secular Friendships.” Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age: Explorations of a Fundamental Ethical Discourse. Eds. Albrecht Classen and Sandidge, Marilyn. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2011, 281–308.

Thoughts on Friendship in the Letters of Peter the Venerable.” Revue Bénédictine 120 (December, 2010).

“Tracing the Twelfth-Century Chronica of Richard of Poitiers, monk of Cluny.” Memini: travaux et documents 8 (2004/05). Submitted and published in 2007.

Current Graduate Students

• Jihad Bayoun, Phd PH student, (begun September, 2024) – Historical Game Studies (co-supervised by Shawn Graham)
• Corey Safinuk, Phd PH student, (begun September, 2024) – Historical Game Studies (co-supervised by Shawn Graham)
• Emma Perreault, MA PH student (begun September, 2024) – Historical Game Studies/ Medieval Studies

Past Graduate Supervisions

• Jonah Ellens (co-supervised with Shawn Graham), Modelling the First World War on the Table, Public History MRE, (Completed May 2023)
• Max Cronkite, Divided Kingdom, 561: A Case Study. Communicating Historical Narratives Through Board Games (Completed May 2021)
• Kaitlyn Brasseur,: A digital description, edition and facsimile of ARC, manuscript no. 1. MA thesis. (Completed May 2020)
• Edith Liz Cherrett, Emotional Rhetoric associated with Anglo-Saxon Monastic Reform circa 1000 CE (Completed January 2019).
• Evan Jones, “Order and Emotion: The Rhetoric of Disgust in Peter the Venerable’s Adversus Iudaeos,” M.A. Thesis (completed, September 2016)
• Abraham Plunkett-Latimer, “The Cistercian Lay Brother in Burchard of Bellevaux’s Apologia de barbis,” (completed August, 2010).
• Corinna Prior, “Crossing out of the Carolingian Cloister: An Examination of Interaction during the Monastic Reforms of 816-817,” (completed September, 2009).

Honour’s Thesis Supervisions

• Savannah Ranger, “Medieval Fragments: A project proposal for a medieval manuscript exhibition for MacOdrum Library,” (Defended April, 2024)
• Bryce Greer, “White Supremacy and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla” (Defended April 2022).
• Matthew Wells, “Rediscovering the Lost Homines of Eleventh-Century Aragon: A Re-Examination of a Medieval Social and Political Community.” (Completed April, 2008).
• Kaitlyn Brasseur, B.A. Honour’s Thesis; defended April 2018. Manuscripts Ottawa: A Catalogue of Medieval Materials in Canada’s Capital. https://manuscriptsottawa.wordpress.com
• Maximillian Cronkite, B.A. Honour’s Thesis; defended April, 2018. Divided Kingdoms, 561. Gamifying the Sixth-Century World of Gregory of Tours.
• Shamus McCoy, B.A. Honour’s Thesis; defended April 2018. Merovingian Marseilles: An Introduction, Translation and Critical Commentary on Selections from the Works of Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours.

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