Dr. Alexander Vandewalle

Alexander Vandewalle is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University (Belgium) who specializes in the reception of antiquity, history, and mythology in video games. For his PhD thesis (2024), he investigated the characterization of Greek mythological figures in games. He has previously published or presented on various aspects of classical reception in games (e.g., aesthetics, intertextuality, pedagogy, epigraphy, haptics), characterization, player experiences, game development, game analysis methodology, and wider pop-cultural franchises (e.g., Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe). He is also the founder of Paizomen, a work-in-progress database of games set in ancient Greece and Rome, and the author of Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games (2026, Bloomsbury Academic).