Black Cicero: A Conversation with Mathias Hanses
Sponsored by the Department of the Classics and the Hutchins Center, Harvard University
Featuring Professor Mathias Hanses (Associate Professor of Classics, Penn State University) on his new book Black Cicero: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Ancient Romans in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Oxford University Press, 2026.
In conversation with:
· Hannah Čulik-Baird (Associate Professor of Classics, UCLA)
· Harriet Fertik (Associate Professor of Classics, Ohio State University)
· Andrea Kouklanakis (Associate Professor of Classics, CUNY)
· Professor Jesse McCarthy (John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Harvard University)
· Jackie Murray (Associate Professor of Classics, SUNY Buffalo)
· Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Professor of Classics, Arizona State University)
· Diontay Wolfries-Thomas (Department of the Classics, Harvard University)
The panel will be followed by an EOS Reads event (from 3:30-5 pm), focusing on Du Bois’s classicism: details and readings to follow.…
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Venue: Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Hip Hop Archive & Research Institute, 104 Mount Auburn Street.
"Mesopotamian Scribal Education, Literacy, and the Transmission of Knowledge" - Paul Delnero (Johns Hopkins) - HAANES
"Mesopotamian Scribal Education, Literacy, and the Transmission of Knowledge"
Paul Delnero, Professor of Assyriology, Johns Hopkins University
There is a wealth of evidence for education in ancient Mesopotamia exceeding that of any culture or period of the ancient or pre-modern world. At the city of Nippur, the religious center of Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BCE, the entire sequence of lists and texts that were taught to pupils learning to read and write can be reconstructed.
This reconstruction, which was put forward in a pioneering study by the Assyriologist Niek Veldhuis in the late 1990s, led to a paradigm shift in how the transmission of Sumerian literary works is understood, with scribal education becoming the primary explanation for why these texts continued to be copied centuries after they were composed.
While the positive significance of this reconstruction for studying ancient education and for situating Sumerian literature in the social contexts in which it was learned cannot be…
Event Series: Harvard History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Societies Workshop.
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
HMANE 201.
Senior Thesis Colloquium
9:35 a.m. Professor Kathleen Coleman, Welcome & Introduction
9:35–10:00 a.m. Carl Scandelius, “On the Digamma and its Distribution in Homer”
10:00–10:25 a.m. Corbin Robinson, “According to the (Im)perfection of the Seventy (One)”: a Re-Analysis of the Translation Technique in Syrohexaplaric Ecclesiastes”
10:25–10:50 a.m. Edward Somuk, “A Tale of Two Arenas: Paired Amphitheaters and Roman Imperial Order along the Danube”
10:50–11:05 a.m. Coffee Break
11:05–11:30 a.m. Karl Molden, “While Their Worlds Were Burning: A Study of Kraus's Reception of Aristophanes”
11:30–11:55 a.m. James McCurley, “The Demos Made Flesh”
11:55 a.m.–12:20 p.m. Jane Lilly, “Early Christian Catacombs: Life in the Cities of the Dead”
12:20–1:35 p.m. Lunch (Ticknor Lounge, Boylston 1st Floor)
1:35–2:00 p.m. Lorenzo Levy, “Etymologizing Tyranny in Antiquity”
2:00–2:25 p.m. Owen Butler, “Felices ter et amplius: Horace's Epistolary Friendships”
2:25–2:50 p.m. Natasha Chamitoff, “Catullus Castigatus: The Censorship of Catullus in the…
Friday, November 13, 2026, 9:30 AM – 4:45 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Emerson 305.
Houghton-Medieval Studies Early Book History lecture: Thomas Schmidt, "The Materiality of the 'Plutarchan Book'"
Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies present Dr. Thomas Schmidt on “The Materiality of the ‘Plutarchan Book.’” The Greek biographer and moralist Plutarch of Chaeronea (45–125 CE) is well known as the author of the Parallel Lives, a collection of 23 pairs of biographies, each comparing a famous Greek and a famous Roman. Immensely influential in the West since their rediscovery during the Renaissance, these works were already well known and widely circulated in Late Antiquity. Drawing on papyrological evidence, this lecture will focus on the bibliological characteristics and the transmission of what is commonly referred to as “the Plutarchan book.”
Registration is encouraged to help us plan for catering, but is not required. (Register here.)
Please arrive a few minutes early. The lecture starts promptly at 5:30 PM.
Thomas Schmidt is Professor of Ancient Greek Language and Literature and Curator of the papyrus collection of the Bibel+Orient Museum at the University of Fribourg…
Event Series (if not listed): Houghton-Medieval Studies Early Book History.
Monday, November 16, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
Houghton Library.
For more info visit libcal.library.harvard.edu. Book Celebration in honor of Leah Whittington
Celebration in honor of Leah Whittington’s book, Antiquity Made Whole: The Renaissance Continuation of Ancient Literature.
Event Series: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome. Event Series (if not listed): The Early Modern Workshop at Harvard University.
Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Thompson Room, Barker Center, Cambridge, MA.
For more info visit emworkshop.fas.harvard.edu. Harvard Hebrew Bible Workshop: Prof. Corinna Korting, University of Hamburg
Tuesday meeting, in Alternate Location. Details to Follow.
Event contact to appear in listing: hbworkshop@gmail.com. Event Series (if not listed): Harvard Hebrew Bible Workshop.
Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
TBA.
Thomas Schmidt - Morning Workshop - "The Typology of the Ancient Book: Papyrological Evidence from Houghton Library"
Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies present "The Typology of the Ancient Book: Papyrological Evidence from Houghton Library" by Dr. Thomas Schmidt.
For more than a century and a half, numerous papyrological discoveries in Egypt and elsewhere have greatly enriched our understanding of the physical nature of ancient books. Drawing on a selection of papyri from Houghton Library’s extensive collection, this hands-on workshop will invite participants to explore the main bibliological characteristics of Greco-Roman books (material, format, script, layout, etc.) and introduce them to some aspects of papyrological research.
"The Typology of the Ancient Book" will be offered once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Space is limited, and registration is required. Please register for one session only. This is the listing for the morning session (Register here). Follow this link to register for the afternoon session (3:00pm-5:00pm).
Workshop attendees are encouraged to attend Dr.…
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM.
Houghton Library.
For more info visit libcal.library.harvard.edu. Thomas Schmidt - Afternoon Workshop - "The Typology of the Ancient Book: Papyrological Evidence from Houghton Library"
Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies present "The Typology of the Ancient Book: Papyrological Evidence from Houghton Library" by Dr. Thomas Schmidt.
For more than a century and a half, numerous papyrological discoveries in Egypt and elsewhere have greatly enriched our understanding of the physical nature of ancient books. Drawing on a selection of papyri from Houghton Library’s extensive collection, this hands-on workshop will invite participants to explore the main bibliological characteristics of Greco-Roman books (material, format, script, layout, etc.) and introduce them to some aspects of papyrological research.
"The Typology of the Ancient Book" will be offered once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Space is limited, and registration is required (Register here). Please register for one session only. This is the listing for the afternoon session. Follow this link to register for the morning session.
Workshop attendees are encouraged to attend Dr. Schmidt's public…
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
Houghton Library.
For more info visit libcal.library.harvard.edu. Harry Saunders (Harvard)
Event Series: GSAS Workshop "Indo-European and Historical Linguistics”.
Thursday, November 19, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Boylston Hall 335.
Ian Wilson (Harvard University)
Edifice and Artifice: Innovating Sacred Ecologies at Late Antique Heliopolis (Baalbek, Lebanon).
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Friday, November 20, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Boylston Hall 237.
Zachary Rothstein-Dowden (Harvard)
Event Series: GSAS Workshop "Indo-European and Historical Linguistics”.
Thursday, December 3, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Boylston Hall 335.
Workshop on Classical Pedagogies
Laura Viidebaum from NYU
James Ker from Penn.
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: Irene Peirano Garrison (peirano@fas.harvard.edu).
Friday, December 4, 2026, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Barker 128, 12 Quincy St. Cambridge, MA.
Harvard Classics Department Seminar Series (Jan Ziolkowski)
Title TBD.
Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, January 26, 2027, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Plimpton Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy St. Cambridge, MA.