The world's first academic conference dedicated to all things Warhammer
In the grimdark world of Warhammer 40,000, Space Marines are the very pinnacle of human military might. However, they are also deeply tragic figures as they are taken from their homes never to return. Building on Ryder’s (2026) claim that Space Marines are both more than and less than human, this presentation draws on Kurt …
The Warhammer: 40,000 universe evokes imagery of human remains nearly everywhere one looks. Skulls alone can figuratively adorn ceramite armor as emblems, or literally find themselves impaled atop spikes as trophies, amassed as part of Khorne’s Skull Throne, or used as robotic skull-servos. Human remains are so ubiquitous that it inverts the question of “what …
This talk explores death, undeath, and afterlife across the Imperium of Man, the galaxy’s civilizations, and the Warp. The Imperium’s citizens lack political enfranchisement; power is predicated on death and sacrifice, which serve as the civilization’s organizing principles. Undeath is a recurring theme in Warhammer, and special attention will be paid to the Necrons, the …
In 1987, Games Workshop needed a backstory to sell miniature wargames. By 2024, that commercial necessity had produced one of the most institutionally coherent fictional polities in science fiction. This paper asks why the Imperium of Man often feels more ‘realistic’ than many science-fiction polities despite deliberate grimdark exaggeration.
In the hypermasculinized, asexual world of 40k, the feminine seems to lack a place except as a mode of masculinity that adds a pair of breasts. Human factions such as the Sisters of Battle are exceptions that prove the rule. The presence of the feminine, however, can act as a defining thematic trait for inhumanity. …
Metaphysics is an analysis of fundamental principles or of the absolute. Such lines of questioning might be directed at any worldview, whether it concerns our own actual world or fictional worlds. In my talk I want to inquire into the absolute of the Warhammer 40K universe, as the different factions see it.In the first part …
This talk by Dr Thomas Arnold is based on an article he wrote for Blackwell’s ‘And philosophy’ website, posted 11th January 2023.
Jaques Derrida is quoted as saying, “The end approaches, but the apocalypse is long lived.” The lore of Warhammer 40K is an apocalyptic myth created explicitly in the image of the Roman Empire. But the obvious connections to Imperium Romanum are only part of the picture. WH40K portrays an extension of the cycle of apocalypse …
The concept of death, as expressed in games and other fictions, is not necessarily negative. It does not play the same role, or pose the same threat, as death for us, in the physical world. But few intellectual properties revel in the exploration of death in the way that the Warhammer 40k setting does. Whether …
Abstract Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40K (WH40K) is widely regarded as the progenitor of the Grimdark genre: a simple tagline in a magazine advertisement that read ‘In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war’ spawned a universe of hopeless, superstitious and terrifying visions of mankind’s future. It was a black mirror that …
The humans that inhabit the grim future of the 42nd Millennium live under oppression so dire it borders the comical. Indeed, the level of ‘grim dark’ terror and repression that Imperial citizens are subjected to is commonly understood to be satire of existing repressive ideologies. It follows then, that the Imperium is in a nigh …
The Warhammer 40´000 setting is characterised by its proverbial “grim darkness”. Its take on the far future is a highly dystopian one. The most important polity in the setting, the galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man, is described as the worst possible regime. It is a militaristic, xenophobic, highly repressive dictatorship. By contrast, the T’au Empire is …
For many fans of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, John Blanche needs no introduction. He simply is Warhammer. His work has inspired thousands, if not millions of hobbyists across the globe in a career that spanned decades, and has literally shaped a whole genre of art and literature, known as Grimdark. In this keynote John joins …