Is it me (Classics)? Am I the drama? (w/ Rick Castle, M.A.)

Join us this week as we discuss the slow changes of academia with Rick Castle, M.A. Rick Castle is an international PhD student at UC Santa Barbara. He received his BA in Classics in 2016 from Brock University in Ontario and an MA in Classical Studies in 2018 under the supervision of Dr. Allison Glazebrook. His work primarily looks at the reception of Greek myth in video games with a particular view to social justice and representation of marginalized peoples. His dissertation topic is focused on Supergiant’s Hades (2018), critically acclaimed for its adaptation of ancient myth for a modern audience, specifically to queer and POC communities. Rick believes that the act of storytelling, through any medium, is central to the human experience and that any work of reception closes the distance between the past and present – an effect that Hades accomplishes with nuanced adaptions of ancient texts for a contemporary audience. Millions of people are more likely to engage with Greek myth through works of reception rather than read the source material, and his research both acknowledges the importance of popular culture’s engagement with Greek myth, as well as tackles the question of how creators and artists can do so in the most responsible way in order to illuminate the past while honoring the people of the present and future.