Thank you #ClassicsTwitter for your replies. I did have a few reasons for putting this question out there.
1. It’s easy for classicists of every age and people who are interested in antiquity to talk to one another—you just have to start with the root questions.
2. There’s a diversity of ways people become interested: books, movies, language courses, tv shows, comics, relationships, tangents, etc. Reception tends to draw in the most people, which is why I think it’s hard for classicists to critique what got them initially interested.
It took me years to talk about Harry Potter, Fantasia, Percy Jackson and all the ways they got me invested in many of these areas of study, but the negative impact of trying to internalize a lot of the aesthetics and internalized philosophies of those pieces of media.
And looking at how the field can become more diverse, I wonder if classicists have taken a look at the vast diversity of what gets people invested in the field and actually putting a critical eye to how reception is influencing how people conceive of classics.
3. On that note, I also made this post because I wanted to hammer it home that sometimes classical reception pops up in places most western classicists would never think to look: eastern media. Sailor Moon grabs a wild amount of classical myth and aesthetic...
...blending them with aspects of Japanese folklore and Chinese astrology. I bring it up because it’s one of the more recognizable anime in America, but there are so many interesting comics and cartoons that blend multiple ancient societies together.
Like Red River, a time traveling romance about a 90s teenage girl who gets thrown back to Hittite society in the Late Bronze Age and is thought to be a reincarnation of Ishtar to aid them I their struggles with the Mitanni and Egyptians.
To sum up—thank y’all for opening up this conversation with me, please hold your reception darlings over the fires of your learning, and the key to being a better classicist is getting up in some manga/anime.
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