Joel Gordon

I would be concerned that students would skip the essay component if it was a low percentage - which would then defeat the entire purpose. It might just be an NZ problem as high school students “pick” which assessments they complete until they’ve got enough marks (credits) to get them over the line

After what has been a total write-off of the past few months with so many personal obstacles I made a spontaneous purchase of a new board game - Caesar! And yes I did take Rome in 20 minutes and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rhea Receptions

Announcing our new forum, RHEA RECEPTIONS!

“We live in an Odyssey time.” —Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 12 April 2025

Rhea Classical Reviews could not agree more with Ms. Higgins.

Classics at the University of Otago 🥳 We wish to congratulate our friend and colleague, Dr Arlene Allan, on her retirement from the University of Otago this week, after more than 20 years of dedicated teaching and research activity. At....

A celebratory post, but with mixed emotions. Congratulations, Arlene, and we'll miss you! www.facebook.com/OtagoClassic...
#BlueskyClassics #AncientBluesky

Joel’s medical misadventures - big costs all round Help Joel and Jess with their medical expenses

Not usually something I do on the old social media, but there’s probably enough friends floating around here who could do with a life update.

givealittle.co.nz/cause/joels-...

Don’t get me wrong, I love NZs public health system, but it drastically needs more funding and an overhaul.

Surely at this point defy the gods is just a catch phrase that any “mythological” movie has to include purely because otherwise we won’t know it’s supposed to be mythological? :p

So awesome to see this project announced - it was a privilege to be a part of it!

And it gets better “
“The Marsden Fund will continue to support excellent researchers in New Zealand, who are looking to create a better country for us”… I guess humanities scholars just don’t care about a better Aotearoa

NZ government just announced the major funding grant will no longer be supporting humanities or social sciences : justification being “Real impact on our economy will come from areas such as physics, chemistry, maths, engineering and biomedical sciences.”

Murderous rabbits in medieval manuscripts are simply amazing! I made a point of including them in a class a taught last year on Alexander in medieval traditions

Someone has gone to quite enormous trouble to painstakingly recreate the Great Palace of Constantinople in Minecraft - AND based on VERY recent scholarship... the greatest thing I've seen on the Internet in a while!

(Images belong to the OP of threat in following post, obvs...) #classicsbluesky

This should be an amazing conference! Really encourage everyone to get onboard

Please add me to this :) currently working on classics and video games and deicide in the MCU

Aaaaand, I’m back. Appreciate the lack of Elon bots over here

this is totally my three year old at the moment. If only English wasn’t so stupid!

Ancient Magic and the Supernatural in the Modern Visual and Performing Arts (Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception)
Filippo Carlá & Irene Berti (Editors). Might also be useful

Art Pomeroy definitely has a chapter on magical ancient languages in Buffy in the book “and then it was destroyed by the volcano”

Gwynaeth McIntyre (Otago) #BMCR review: Darja Šterbenc Erker, Ambiguity & religion in Ovid's Fasti bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2024/2024.01... "valuable contribution to current discussions of genre, poetic intention, & audience expectations in literature of..late 1st century BCE to 1st century CE"

I've only just started Rage of the Titans, so perhaps my view might change =) But I do have a soft spot for sci-fi so I think Neo Rome is what does it for me

@gamingthepast.bsky.social, if you give me a day or two I can get a more formal list (including the publisher, for example) to you =) Just let me know if that would be helpful

and for good measure, Imperial Destiny: Path of Gold (a tycoon sim) - but it might be a bit 'racy' for your context as part of the way you 'earn' money is by "collecting" partners and "producing" offspring; and some other fun ones Grow Empire: Rome (a hoard defence) & Gladiator Heroes of Kingdoms

Plus all the usual 'suspects' in the Civ-Builder genre that give you 'Rome' and 'Caesar' as one of many ancient civs/individuals: Rise of Cultures: Kingdom Game; Rise of Kingdoms; Land of Empires; Rise of the Roman Empire: Rome; Era of Conquest: Warfare; Epic Age.

also Game of Nations: Epic Discord (hero collector); Gladiators: Survival in Rome (my personal favourite!); Empire City: Civilization Dawn (a civ-builder/simulator that is roman-ish - from memory I'm not sure if Rome is mentioned or if its a generic empire, but aesthetically, its very Roman)

Opps sorry I missed this. I think some of my favourite ones would be Jewels of Rome (match 3); Roads of Rome (time management); Romance Club – Stories I Play: Gladiator Chronicles (while I'm not the target audience, I'm totally hooked on this one); Ancient Allies: TD (tower defense)...

So excited to share the CFP for "Worlds Above and Below" - a hybrid (Dunedin & zoom) interdisciplinary conference (theology, biblical studies, ancient studies & classics) on supernatural worlds - abstracts due 22 March 2024 to above_below@otago.ac.nz

Zeus: Release the Kraken! *waits* What's the holdup? Zeus' assistant, Joe: the Kraken is a Norse monster, so I have to file a requisitio form with the Aesir. If they approve the release we'll have to wait for the creature to travel here from Greenland

I can totally picture @sentantiq.bsky.social in this role.

So gutted that nz is 12 hours behind the UK. I would have loved to zoom in, but unfortunately 4am is a bit too early. All the best though Kate!

Totally gutted that the strain of COVID that I’ve likely got is Eris, I would much preferred the more cooler Cerberus or kraken or even Centaurus or Argus. I mean goddess of strife sums up the week, but Cerberus!

Gah, 2023 can go suck a lemon. To finish off the year in style our family has gotten COVID (thankfully only for the second time). Currently Mr 5 and Ms 3 are testing negative but myself, Jessica and bubs are all positive

the struggle is real