Games and Korean History Webinar Series
Simulating Korea in Early Modern Diplomacy: On Eurocentrism, Agency, and Early Modern World History in Europa Universalis IV
A conversation with Dr. Álvaro Sanz from Paradox Tinto Studios
Co-sponsored by UCLA Center for Korean Studies and CMRS-Center for Early Global Studies
Webinar: March 2nd, 2023 @ 12:30 PM–2:30 PM
Dr. Álvaro Sanz from Paradox Tinto Studios, joined by Sixiang Wang (UCLA), will discuss how the award-winning computer game, Europa Universalis IV (2013–present), have approached the simulation of Korean history and East Asian diplomatic institutions during the game's development. They will discuss a range of topics including: how Paradox Studios conducts historical research, how the game tries to model historical agency through player choices in the game, how the game addresses the challenge of representing diplomatic institutions that fall outside of modern "nation-state" conventions. We will also address the ethics of simulation: what does it mean when a player can be a king, colonizer, or empire builder; the theoretical implications of "what if" histories; and how the game developers have managed the problem of Eurocentrism, especially in its representation of Korea and East Asia. The discussion between the panelists will be followed by an open Q&A period.
About the speakers
Dr. Álvaro Sanz
Dr. Álvaro Sanz has been Content Design Coordinator at Paradox Tinto since 2022, a video game studio that he joined as Content Designer in 2021. Since then he has been part of the team that manages the historical grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV, having been part of the development of the content packs Origins (focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, as Content Designer), and Lions of the North (focused on Scandinavia and the Baltic region, as Content Design Coordinator). Previously, he had developed an academic career as a scholar specializing in the Iberian Middle Ages. He completed a Ph.D. at the University of Valladolid, Spain, in 2020, his research topic being 'The royal towns and the territorial administration in Castile and Leon. Power and society in the reign of Alfonso X (1252-1284)'. During his Ph.D. he published 8 papers, read more than 20 presentations at different conferences in Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, visited the University of Cambridge, UK, as a doctoral student, and taught different courses and seminars at the University of Valladolid, his alma mater.'
Dr. Sixiang Wang
Sixiang Wang is an Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He is a historian of Chosŏn Korea and early modern East Asia. His research interests also include comparative perspectives on early modern empires, the history of science and knowledge, and issues of language and writing in Korea's cultural and political history. He teaches courses in Korea's pre-nineteenth-century history as well as the history of cultural and intellectual interactions in early modern East Asia.
His book, Boundless Winds of Empire: Rhetoric and Ritual in Early Chosŏn Diplomacy with Ming China (https://cup.columbia.edu/book/boundless-winds-of-empire/9780231556019) reconstructs the cultural strategies of Korean diplomacy with Ming empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It underscores how Korean ritual and literary practices inserted Chosŏn into the Ming empire’s legitimating strategies and established Korea as a stakeholder in a shared imperial tradition. He is also helping curate the UCLA Korean History and Culture Digital Museum with his students (https://koreanhistory.humspace.ucla.edu/)
Sixiang Wang received his PhD in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.
About Paradox Interactive
Paradox Interactive is a video game company founded in Sweden in 1999, best known for releasing historically themed strategy video games, especially of the grand strategy games genre. Paradox Tinto is one of its newest development studios, founded Barcelona, Spain in 2020 under the leadership of Johan Andersson, a 25-year veteran of Paradox Development Studio and original creator of the Europa Universalis video game franchise, Paradox’s iconic grand strategy game and one of its main IPs. Europa Universalis IV is the fourth game of this widely acclaimed saga, published in 2013, and under continuous development for more than 9 years. It is a strategy game where players can control a nation from the Late Middle Ages through the Early Modern period (1444–1821), conducting trade, administration, diplomacy, colonization, and warfare.
About the Games and Korean History webinar series
Hosted by the UCLA Center for Korean Studies, this webinar series brings together game creators, history teachers and scholars, and the gaming community through discussions over Korean history and its simulation. It views "gaming," whether as classroom simulations, board games, or digital media, as a form of historiography in its own right. Rather than approach history in games merely as "content," it considers the questions of position-taking, simulation, agency, and representation in games as powerful ways of engaging with Korea's past.