posted on Sept. 29:McMaster launches Web site and six-part television series

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BY Mary-Lou Shagena

September 29, 2000

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/medieval.jpg”]It's new, it's Canadian and it's coming to a computer screen near you, then to the television screen of Vision TV.

The Medieval Women Web site (http://mw.mcmaster.ca) was officially
launched on Friday, Sept. 29 in conjunction with an upcoming six-part television series co-produced by Redcanoe Productions and McMaster University's Faculty of Humanities. It is the University's first foray into television production.

“There is a huge interest in medieval times as we explore the new
millennium,” says Kathy Garay, member of McMaster's Working Group on the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Employing sophisticated, state-of-the-art technology the animated Web
site incorporates virtual reality, video and audio. It presents a
thoroughly modern recreation of a medieval world, with women's lives as its focus. It is designed for the curious and the scholarly alike.
With just a click of a mouse, visitors can experience life in a nunnery, play authentic medieval games or set off on a pilgrimage.

The Web site will serve as a “women-centred” cyberspace location and an international resource centre. Besides complementing the forthcoming television series, it will also serve to enhance McMaster courses and act as a prototype for distance education.

The Web site was researched and developed by McMaster's Kathy Garay and Madeleine Jeay with the technical assistance of Muriel McKay of
McMaster's Computing & Information Services.

Half of the funding for the development of the $330,000 Web site was
provided by the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, the first such award given to a university-based project. The fund also provided funding for the television series Mystic Women of the Middle Ages.

The six-part television series begins airing Wednesday, Oct. 4 on Vision TV. It was produced by Hamilton's Redcanoe Productions in association with Vision TV, the Women's Television Network and the Faculty of Humanities. CBC's Avril Benoit narrates each of the television programs in the series which provides insights into another world and time, and also reveals much about our own.