«My job isn’t to do the teachingside but I hope to get people back into the classroom»

etü: Erica, you are a YouTube classicist and public historian. What led you to this profession?

Erica Stevenson: I didn’t plan this at all. It was a series of accidents. Originally, I wanted to work in film. I ended up working at a film company after graduation but that was short-lived. I hated being on set, I hated writing. It was just not as magical as they had made it seem. It was not about the company or the people, they were all lovely. But I just wasn’t happy. I had to go back to ground zero. So, I went to work in a pub. I worked there for four years, and I would talk to my regulars, and it would always come back to ancient history, to Greek mythology. One of my regulars, a guy called James, came in one day and was like: «Maybe you should start a YouTube channel.» And I was like: «What?» And he goes: «Yeah, just sit in front of a camera and talk on the internet. I think people would really enjoy that.» I thought he was a bit crazy, but I sat with it for a while and thought: Maybe I should do that. Then, as I started doing more videos, people started to give me content suggestions, which made me realise that people enjoy my work. Now, I do all sorts of videos: I make summaries of important ancient works, offer introductions to their authors, interview academics and book authors, and I also do book reviews.

Is this your full-time job now?

I do a lot of freelancing. My main focus is on my channel, but I also help a lot of authors with editing or research, and I do research for other history podcasts. Additionally, I do some tutoring on the side.

How do you prepare your videos?

I will normally come up with a list of things that I either find interesting or that I would’ve wanted to learn as a student because that’s always who I’m thinking of: Some­one who is really lost in class. What do they need? But I also listen to my audience’s comments under my videos. When it comes to breaking down a text, I do this completely psychotic thing: I write down everything I know about the topic. And then I see if I can back it all up by going to my sources and summarising everything. After three lines I stop and summarise those three lines. With these notes I go back to my first brainstorm summary and revise everything.

You think about what you could’ve used as a student yourself. What were the most useful skills you learned in your studies? And how do you apply them to your YouTube channel?

When it comes to what I learned in my studies, it was always: What’s on the page, that’s what’s important. You can have a lot of theories and analyse things and that’s great, but what really matters is what’s on the page. That’s why I need to be able to back up everything that I write down. If I can’t, I immediately get rid of it. I definitely learned that back in university. There are so many memories of me sitting in the classroom being like: «This is so interesting.» And my professor going: «Well, it’s not in the Greek, so I don’t want to hear about it.»

How do you deal with issues coming up when producing a video?

Something I always keep in mind is, the video can’t be longer than the actual audiobook. So, I need to try to keep it palpable for my viewers. With the Iliad for example, the big struggle was summarising. I asked myself, what part of the story is important to the audience? It’s about pulling back and thinking: «What do they really need?» I always remind myself that my job is getting people excited to read and not to make them feel like it’s unapproachable.

You have a difficult job. You’re summarising these beautiful and famous works on a public platform. Do you ever receive negative feedback either for your work or for you as a person?

Yeah, I do, it just doesn’t bother me. For example, this morning some guy commented: «You’re a disgrace and the ancient Greeks would have hated you.» And I was like: «Of course they would’ve. But for a bunch of other reasons.» The key when you get bad comments online is to be confident and to be surrounded with really good people who make you feel loved. The only opinions of me that I care about are of the people around me, my friends, my family, all the professors I work with. If a professor were to email me and tell me this was horrible, I’d have a meltdown. (laughs) But some stranger on the internet? That doesn’t really bother me.

And academic feedback?

No, see, that’s the thing, if people comment: «Oh, you missed that part.» That’s something different. They disagree with what I’ve left out. And I do think that’s important. Academic feedback is always fine.

Speaking of academia, there is a lot of criticism towards classics as a discipline, that it is not inclusive enough. What do you think about that?

I think classics, historically, has been incredibly exclusive. It just has. There’s no denying that. In the UK for ages, they were only teaching classics to people who would go to private school rather than state school. So, you’re basically gatekeeping a whole subject from people who you don’t think deserve to learn about it. It’s almost been prideful in being exclusive. But I do think at the point where we are now, we are aware of that and the people at the front of the discipline – like Mary Beard for example – are really trying to reclaim classics and that part of history. So, even though it has been exclusive, people are trying to appeal to a bigger audience. And that’s the most important thing.

In Zurich, we currently have a declining number of history students for the first time in decades. What do you think is the relevance of history and classics in contemporary society?

I always think it’s important to acknowledge the question that everybody has when they hear history or classics: «Well, what does it do?» And I think that’s a really valid point. Why should we study it, if it doesn’t help the world? And on the surface, it doesn’t. But on the other end of things, I respond: «Do you think it is important to go to therapy to understand yourself? To look back on your past? Don’t you think that it is important to understand yourself and who you are today?» Most people tend to agree with that. So, if you want to do that for yourself, why wouldn’t you want to do it for society? Why shouldn’t we look back and see how people were dealing with problems back in their days? And of course, it’s going to be different from the modern world because we have different technologies. But that cliché of history repeating itself isn’t just a cliché. So, we might as well study it all and ask ourselves what we keep doing wrong. And maybe try something different.

Do you think that you as a public historian also contribute to the subject’s efforts? Is that a goal you have set for yourself?

Absolutely! Where I position myself is to connect people with the ancient world. I know that a lot of people see me as an educator, which always scares me. I don’t see myself as that but rather as someone who redirects people and reminds them of these ancient stories and histories. My job isn’t to do the teaching side, but I hope to get people back into the classroom.

Currently, modern retellings of ancient myths are extremely popular – what is your opinion on these reinventions?

I love them! I read them all the time. I love the effort to take ancient myths and to readjust them to our society. The only problem I ever have with them lies in the mar­keting. Earlier, I was talking about what’s on the page. Most of these modern myths contain things that weren’t on the page. So, maybe we shouldn’t call it a retelling? Maybe we could say it’s a reimagining. Besides that, I love them. And I think we should keep doing it, because these sto­r­ies are hu­man stories. They resonated then and there’s something in all those characters that still re­sonates with people today.

This issue of our journal is about sex. Do you have any corresponding favorite love or sex myth?

I don’t have a sex story but when it comes to love myths – and this is a horrible answer – the myth of Echo and Narcissus is my favorite. I know that it’s dark. The thing about Echo and Narcissus that I always loved is the idea that both essentially destroyed themselves because of the expectation they had of love, with which reality didn’t match up. Narcissus does reject Echo, but she’s getting rejected not because she put herself out there, but because she couldn’t. Essentially, she breaks her own heart. The same with Narcissus: the idea is that he sees himself reflected in the water and that breaks his heart because he cannot reach his reflection. It’s so dark, but I love it.

Thank you for the conversation.