Biography
Nicholas Diak is a writer, pop culture scholar, and a podcaster. His areas of interest and expertise include:
- Neo-peplum / peplum / sword and sandal media
- Italian Eurospy cinema
- Exploitation cinema
- Industrial music and the art of sampling
- Synthwave music and 80s retroism / outrun
- Sequential art scholarship
- Horror and H. P. Lovecraft studies
He graduated from the University of Washington with a masters in interdisciplinary arts and sciences. Ever since procuring his degree he has been writing about the subaltern fringes of pop culture. He has contributed essays to a variety of academic anthologies, journals, and websites. He has been a contributor to online periodicals such as Heathen Harvest, Fanbase Press, and We are the Mutants. His first published book is the scholarly collection The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s. He has been a presenter at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association, the Comics Arts Conference, and along with Michele Brittany, he co-created and co-chaired the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference from 2016-2022.
Along with Michele, he co-hosts the H. P. Lovecast Podcast, a thrice-a-month podcast devoted to works that are derivative of H. P. Lovecraft, but also showcases many emerging and new voices in the horror genre. He also appears monthly on the Scholars from the Edge of Time program.
He enjoys video games, tiki culture, pinup art and photography, cocktail making, hot sauces and extremely spicy foods, and cooking. He currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with Michele and their eight cats: Algernon, Cecily, Sam, Max, Gwendolyn, Cleo, Pocki, and Spunky G.
Professional Goals
A list of lifelong professional goals I’d like to achieve in my academia. These were set in January 2021 and ordered in what I suspect from the easiest to ain’t going to happen in terms of achievability.
- Have a book published that I wrote in its entirety
- Asked to pen a foreword or afterword
- Reach 250 personal citations or bibliography appearances
- 32 direct / 26 essays from books I’ve edited = 58 total
- Contribute an essay, commentary, or other supplemental feature to a Blu-ray release
- Win a prestigious, recognized award
- Be invited to be a guest of honour/speaker at a conference/convention
- Appear in a sword and sandal film (even as an extra)
- Receive an honorary PhD
Contact / Social Media
Please feel free to contact me or follow me on any of the avenues listed below. I love appearing on other podcasts, collaborations, and contributing content to anthologies, so please reach out!
Email: vnvdiak@gmail.com
Academic CV
Link to download the most current version of my academic CV: