Hi! If you're reading this, I've finally gotten around to setting up a blog for myself. My name is Felix; currently I'm a student in a PhD program for "classical studies," ie. study of ancient Greece and Rome and adjacent areas. I'm a writer and reader, and I dabble in various creative endeavors when I have time. I'm also physically disabled, which informs a lot about my day-to-day life and my overall worldview. I made this blog so I could post stuff that's slightly more longform and formal than a social media post, but still more casual in register than an academic paper. On this blog, you can expect to see:
- my academic interests (mostly Greek and Latin poetry, especially Greek tragedy)
- disability
- fandom-related topics
- fiction books I've been reading, when I have time; I usually read SF, although I'll read anything if it's good
- original poetry, creative writing, and translation
- the various intersections of the above
- and whatever else catches my interest
In particular, I really value accessibility (in every definition of the word), and I'm hoping this one way to have academic conversations that are accessible to anyone who wants to participate. I won't be assuming my audience is made up of experts in anything I talk about, academic or otherwise, and (once I figure out comments, or maybe set up an email and a couple social media profiles) I encourage readers to engage me and each other in conversation.
The blog title, thermenkardian, comes from one of my favorite lines from Sophocles' Antigone: "θερμὴν ἐπὶ ψυχροῖσι καρδίαν ἔχεις." The line translates to, "You have a hot heart for cold deeds," and is something Antigone's sister says about Antigone's plan to break the law by burying her dead brother. "Thermen kardian" is just the transliteration of "hot heart" from ancient Greek.
I'm running this blog with Zonelets. When I set out to create a blog, I was frustrated by the available options. I like to fiddle with HTML code, which a lot of blogging engines and site builders won't let you do. Not only that, but I just don't like a lot of web design these days, and I wanted the flexibility to opt out of the templates most sites offer. After a bit of research, I gave up on professional site builders and started looking into how people run blogs on Neocities. Zonelets' pitch perfectly described what my problem was and what I was looking for: "Plenty of services can help you to 'create a professional-looking website without writing a single line of code.' Now, thanks to Zonelets, you can create an UNPROFESSIONAL-looking website by writing NUMEROUS lines of code!" So far I highly recommend it, if you are also the sort of person who wants to create an unprofessional-looking website by writing numerous lines of code.
The site itself is still a work in progress, and will probably continue to be as long as its active. In particular, I have to figure out what text I want on the home page, and I'd like to figure out whether I can have comments without using a DISQUS widget, since DISQUS basically tells you outright that it's going to sell your data. I hope you'll stick around to see how the blog (and I) grow(s)!
In the meantime, thank you for reading. I hope to see you again soon.