Liam McLeod is a Lecturer in Academic Skills at LTU, teaching across all subjects and levels. Liam received a first-class BA (Hons) degree in Ancient and Medieval History from the University of Birmingham in 2015, before pursuing a master's degree in Medieval Studies for which he received both the Distinguished Alumni and Birmingham Master's scholarships. Receiving a further scholarship to undertake doctoral study, Liam is currently completing a PhD in Early Medieval History with the University of Birmingham, focusing on a re-examination of Hugeburc of Heidenheim's Vita Willibaldi episcopi Eichstetensis. He has taught Academic Skills in a variety of subject areas since 2016, following his appointment as a Teaching Fellow at Birmingham, where he received Associate Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy for his teaching in both History and Academic Skills. He now contributes to Trinity's Curriculum For Social Justice initiative, liaising with colleagues across the university to enhance student experience and improve access and inclusion in LTU's educational offering.  

Liam has spoken internationally on both his primary research area and on secondary interests in modern video games and historical reception. This activity has also included writing for public and academic audiences on games and their relationship to the Middle Ages, colonialism, and white suppremacist terror. He has hosted international conferences on the reception of Ancient Egypt and on the correlation between ancient and medieval conceptions of space. 

Areas of Interest:

Pilgrimage
Early Medieval perceptions of Jerusalem
Hagiography (saints' lives)
Historical gender and sexuality
Reception theory and medievalisms
Video games and their relationship to the Middle Ages
Video game design and narrative

Academic Publications:

Liam McLeod, 'Subverting the Valiant Crusader: The Sarafan in the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver series' in Playing the Middle Ages: Pitfalls and Potential in Modern Games, ed. Robert Houghton (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). 

Liam McLeod and Catherine Watts, Medievalisms, ‘Magic, and Macula: Encountering the medieval and the modern in Asobo Studio's A Plague Tale: Innocence' in The Middle Ages in Modern Games (30 June - 3 July 2020): Conference Proceedings, ed. Robert Houghton (Winchester: The Public Medievalist, 2020). 

Sara Woodward & Liam McLeod eds., Journal of History and Cultures Special Issue: The Reception of Ancient Egypt: Myth Magic and Mysticism, 10 (Birmingham, 2019).

Research Networks:

VALUE Foundation Research Network for Archaeogaming (Member) (Based in the Netherlands, est: 2016).
Ancient Egyptian Reception Research Network (Founding Member) (Based in the UK, est: 2018).
Meaning, Memory, and Movement Research Network (Founding Member) (Based in the UK, est: 2019)

Select Conference Papers:

‘Lone Wolf or Heir to Divinity? Interrogating the Ludic Narrative of Larian Studios’ Ifan Ben-Mezd’, International Congress of Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI, May 2020) (Roundtable) (Invited)

‘Medievalisms, Magic, and Macula: Encountering the medieval and the modern in Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale: Innocence’, The Middle Ages in the Modern World (MAMO) (London, July 2020). 

‘Transcending Borders: Jerusalem as an imagined landscape in the Vita Willibaldi’, International Medieval Congress (Leeds, July 2020).

‘Navigating the imagined: a re-evaluation of Jerusalem in the Vita Willibaldi’, International Congress of Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI, May 2020).

‘Subverting the Valiant Crusader: The Sarafan in the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Videogame Series’, International Medieval Congress (Leeds, July 2019).

‘“Whether within Jerusalem or without”: Exploring Receptions of Jerusalem in Amalar of Metz’s Liber Officialis’, EMREM Symposium (Birmingham, May 2019).

‘The “Mighty Shaft of Istanbul”: Discerning the Place of the Theodosian Obelisk in Medieval Egyptian Reception’, Tea with the Sphinx (Birmingham, July 2018).

‘Women and Power in Safavid Iran: A Man’s World?’, Epicene (Birmingham, March 2016).

Select Outreach/Public Writing:

'Assassin's Creed Valhalla: A (mostly) Spoiler-Free Review (AC: Valhalla Review)', VALUE Foundation: Interactive Pasts, 25/1/2021. 

'Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Unpacking an Age', VALUE Foundation: Interactive Pasts, 3/07/2020

‘Episode 6: What is Byzantine Studies?’ Podcast Audio. Stories from Objects: the Teaching Collections of the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology. (University of Birmingham, 2020)