Adam Riekstins

 

Adam Riekstins graduated in December 2021 from Belmont University with a B.B.A. in English and Music Industry. In his undergraduate career, he wrote heavily about Vladimir Nabokov and his bestselling work, Lolita. Aside from Nabokov, some of Riekstins’ championed authors include Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anthony Burgess, Nathanael West and Søren Kierkegaard. His thesis focused on Dostoevsky’s influence on postmodern character archetypes, mapping Raskolnikov’s Extraordinary Man Theory. At Villanova, he hopes to further study existential literature.

At Belmont University, Riekstins worked as a research assistant helping compile definitions and translations for the world’s first Tatar to English dictionary. He also worked as a writing center tutor, helping students compose and edit papers. In his junior and senior year, Riekstins joined the Writing Fellows group at Belmont which allowed him to serve as a teacher assistant to a first-year seminar class on social epistemology. Outside of academics, Riekstins worked various positions in the music industry as a touring musician, sound engineer, A&R representative, tour manager and events coordinator. Recently, he has been working as a long-term high school substitute teacher for romance languages.

In his free time, Riekstins enjoys writing, producing music, skateboarding and spending the day thinking about dinner plans.