Classics Gaming Collaborative

Ethan Divon, Student Coordinator

[email protected]

As a third-year classical studies major at UNCG, Ethan Divon cares about storytelling. As a gamer, he knows that video games have an unique way of approaching narrative.

Alexis M. Christensen, Associate Professor/Lecturer of Classics, University of Utah

My archaeological research focuses on the creation of identity through the design and decoration of domestic space among the cultures of ancient Italy. I teach courses on Greek and Roman culture, the ancient Greek and Latin languages, and classical reception – including a course on video games and antiquity. As an archaeogamer, I am interested in both the built environments within games and how games adapt ancient Mediterranean culture for a modern audience.

Dr Richard Cole, Lecturer in Digital Classics at the University of Bristol (UK)

Richard’s research focuses on how the history and culture of antiquity intersects with new media, in particular video games, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. From 2020-2023, he worked on the multidisciplinary Virtual Reality Oracle project, which created a ground-breaking VR experience of ancient divination that aims to improve educational outcomes in schools. He has published widely on video games set in the ancient world, from his article in Games and Culture (2022) on how Assassin’s Creed Odyssey mashups up history and heritage to chapters on how the past is framed in games for the edited volumes Women in Classical Video Games (Bloomsbury 2022) and Paratextualising Games (Transcript Verlag 2021). His forthcoming work includes a special issue for the journal Rethinking History on Virtual Realities as Time Travel, chapters on immersion in Classical Antiquity games and modding historical games, and an experimental piece for the Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature on how questions around the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey can help us better understand AI generated texts today. Richard also co-directs the Bristol Digital Game Lab at the University of Bristol, a research group dedicated to exploring the nature and impact of games.

Kate Cook, Associate Lecturer in Classics, University of St Andrews           

My research interests are the Reception of the ancient world in modern video games, with a particular focus on gender and the representation of women. I co-edited the volume Women in Classical Video Games (Bloomsbury 2022) and contributed a chapter on gender and agency in the mobile game Choices: A Courtesan of Rome. I have forthcoming chapters on the representation of women in the game Expeditions: Rome, and Persephone in video games, and am co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Video Games and History. I have also published on Gender and Language in Greek Tragedy.

Jane Draycott, Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Glasgow

Jane Draycott is a Roman historian and archaeologist. She investigates science, technology, and medicine in the ancient world, and is particularly interested in the history and archaeology of medicine; impairment, disability, and prostheses; and botany and horticulture. Recently, she has begun exploring the use (and abuse) of history and archaeology in video games, particularly those set in classical antiquity. She has also long had a special interest in Graeco-Roman Egypt and the Roman client kingdom of Mauretania.

Andrew Gardner, UCL Institute of Archaeology

Andrew Gardner has research interests in Roman archaeology and archaeological theory, particularly issues of power, identity, and social change. He is also interested in the many intersections of past and present in politics and popular culture, and this has fueled recent research in the archaeology of frontiers and borders, and in the representation of past societies in computer and videogames.

Robyn Le Blanc, Assistant Professor in Classical Studies, University of North Carolina Greensboro

Robyn Le Blanc is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies and a member of the Archaeology Program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. As an archaeologist specializing in the provinces of the Roman empire, she has done research and engaged in fieldwork across the Roman world, from England to Israel. Her work focuses on the material aspect of stories that Roman communities told about where they came from and who they were, particularly through ancient coinages. She frequently uses gaming—both video and in-person role playing games—in her teaching to explore the past in dynamic ways.

Dunstan Lowe, Senior Lecturer in Latin Literature, University of Kent

Dunstan Lowe’s research includes Ancient worlds in digital gaming, the Ancient Mediterranean in Japanese digital games, Retrogaming, Popular reception studies, Latin literature, Ancient folklore and pseudo-science.

Suzanne Lye, Assistant Professor of Classics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Suzanne Lye is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work focuses on Homer and Homeric Reception, Greek literature and culture, mythology, ancient religion and magic, ancient representations of gender and ethnicity, rhetoric, pedagogy, and classical reception in film. Her first book is on Underworld scenes and the afterlife in ancient Greek and Roman literature. Her current project examines women’s anger and the use of magic. She frequently uses games and gaming—both video and board games—in her teaching as a way to visualize, encounter, and imagine different aspects of the ancient world, such as religion, gender, ethnicity, geography, and daily life.

C. W. (Toph) Marshall, FRSC, Professor of Greek, University of British Columbia

Toph’s research focuses on ancient theater and performance culture, with a particular interest in issues of stagecraft, metatheatre, genre, and audience experience. He has books on Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Euripides’ Helen, Aristophanes’ Frogs, and the stagecraft of Roman Comedy. He has also written on the literary representation of slavery and wetnursing, and co-edited volumes on Sex and Slavery, the reception of Greek drama in the Roman empire, and Ennius. His work in classical reception studies has focused on elements of popular culture, including comics, television, and roleplaying games. He is interested in the rules and mechanics of ancient board games and in the representation of the ancient world in modern tabletop board games and rpgs. 

Neville Morley, Professor of Classics & Ancient History, University of Exeter, UK

Neville Morley’s research encompases historiography and historical methodology, reception of classical antiquity, ancient economic and social history, pedagogy including games. 

Amy Norgard, Associate Professor of Classics, Truman State University 

Amy Norgard studies and teaches classes on the classical reception in film, television, and digital and tabletop games. Her scholarship focuses on the physical body and bodily sensations in ancient literature, women in video games set in/around antiquity, and resonances of tragedy in film and television. She is currently working on a project that analyzes how the Star Trek franchise incorporates and reevaluates the myths, literature, and history of the ancient Mediterranean past. Amy’s work embraces how interdisciplinary perspectives can enhance our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean, such as through gaming studies and game design, film studies, codicology, and museum studies. 

Christian Rollinger, Reader for Ancient History, University of Trier

Christian Rollinger is Reader for Ancient History at the University of Trier, where he completed his PhD on Roman elite society and amicitia, and his Habilitation on late antique court ceremonial. He has published on the social, economic and cultural history of the late Roman republic and early imperial period, on Hellenistic and Roman monarchic power and courts, as well as pop culture receptions of the ancient world, especially in video games (most recently, (ed.) Classical Antiquity in Video Games: Playing with the Ancient World, London: Bloomsbury 2020). He is currently preparing the manuscript of his next book on late antique court ceremonial for publication in 2024.

Natalie J. Swain, Assistant Professor, Acadia University

Natalie’s research interests include Latin elegy, narratology, and philology, as well as the reception of the ancient Mediterranean world in modern comics, manga, and video games. Her reception work often takes a theoretical approach, engaging with comics or games studies, narratology, and feminism, anti-imperialism, and anti-racism. After she completes her first monograph on comics studies and Latin elegy, she intends to expand her research into the impact of ancient ideas of the Polar Regions in Ameri-European literature from the 17^th century.

Roger Travis, Associate Professor of Classics, Departments of Literatures, Cultures, & Languages and Digital Media and Design, University of Connecticut

Roger Travis’ research interests include narrative games as epic performance, reception of adventure games as humanistic inquiry, game performance as mimesis, cooperative card games, and digital RPGs.

Alexander Vandewalle, PhD Researcher, University of Antwerp & Ghent University

Alexander Vandewalle is a Joint PhD Researcher at the University of Antwerp (Department of Communication Studies) and Ghent University (Department of Literary Studies) in Belgium, where he studies the characterization of Greco-Roman gods and heroes in video games. He holds an MA in Linguistics & Literature: Latin & Greek from Ghent University (2017), and an MSc in Film Studies and Visual Culture from the University of Antwerp (2018). He has previously published and/or presented on characterization in video games, game analysis methodology, players’ experiences with historical video games, various topics related to the reception of the ancient world in games (including mythology, aesthetics, intertextuality, epigraphy, pedagogical applications, and haptic feedback), and broader media franchises (Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic Universe). His work has been published in Games and Culture, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, and Game Studies. He is also the creator of Paizomen (www.paizomen.com), a work-in-progress database of video games set in classical antiquity, and co-hosts regular archaeogaming livestreams on Twitch with the Save Ancient Studies Alliance.

Kevin Wong, PhD Student in Classical Philology, Harvard University

Kevin Wong is an interdisciplinary scholar of classical antiquity and videogames. His research aims to unpack the new media afterlife of ancient Greece and Rome—above all, the evolution of ‘epic’ into a framing ideology of gaming entertainment. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Classical Philology at Harvard University, with a Secondary Field in Science, Technology, and Society.

His studies focus on (1) the worldbuilding potential inherent to the epic, rhetorical, and historiographical traditions of Greco-Roman literature; (2) the entrenchment of this historical imaginary within the game industry’s creative, commercial, and sociotechnical path dependencies; and (3) the ideological continuities between ancient narrative and modern entertainment, and how they shape our contemporary visions of fantasy, immersion, and fun.