Roosevelt Montás (Columbia University)
"Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life"
Roosevelt Montás is a Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University.
Event Series (if not listed): Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Pedagogies for Life.
Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Barker Center, Rm. 133, 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Opening Conversation for Celtic Art Across the Ages
Harvard Classics Lectures
Free admission, but seating is limited and registration is encouraged. Register here.
We invite you to the opening conversation for the special exhibition Celtic Art Across the Ages, on view from March 6 through August 2, 2026. Susanne Ebbinghaus, Laure Marest, Penny Coombe, and Catherine McKenna will take a close look at elaborate Celtic bronze objects and gold coins, examine religious imagery from Roman Gaul, and highlight moments of Celtic revival in modern times.
Celtic Art Across the Ages offers an unprecedented opportunity to explore masterful metalwork, including exquisitely decorated weaponry, jewelry, and horse and chariot trappings of the first millennium BCE Iron Age and early medieval times, all brought to light through archaeological discoveries of the last 200 years. See how imagery transformed under Roman rule, and trace the revival of Celtic art and identities in the modern era. From shape-shifting ancient ornaments to the more well-known Celtic iconography of medieval Ireland and Scotland,…
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Harvard Art Museums, Menschel Hall, Lower Level
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA , Enter at Broadway for evening programs.
For more info visit harvardartmuseums.org. Gregory Nagy (Harvard University) & Leonard Muellner (Harvard University & New Alexandria Foundation)
Leonard Muellner will discuss the political and social functions of Ancient Greek athletics in a cross-cultural perspective. Ancient Greece was a highly differentiated political space, consisting of a wide variety of city-states each with different religious calendars, law codes, constitutions, etc. These communities were in principle in a state of war with one another (understanding that 'war' could be ritualized combat rather than actual fighting), so that enabling participation in games across the city-states required a global truce. Greeks derived a common identity from their participation in athletics. However, there were no team games, only one person was awarded a prize in each contest, and the skills involved were at their core individualized warrior skills in a ritualized (that is, theoretically, non-fatal) context. Muellner will go on to compare this elitist way of gaming with the way sport functions in other cultures, including contemporary settings historically derived from it. The word stadium—or…
Event contact to appear in listing: ghi-events@mit.edu. Event Series (if not listed): MIT Global Humanities Forum Series.
Friday, March 6, 2026, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM.
Zoom: https://bit.ly/472LLCL.
For more info visit comparativeglobalhumanities.mit.edu. Santiago Vicent (Harvard University & Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
"Making Meaning Where Evidence Is Sparse: Archaic Greek Poetry and the Power of Small Data"
When confronting any field marked by a scarcity of data, the researcher inevitably finds himself at a crossroads: either he may scale down the ambition of his enquiry, redirecting his efforts towards the analysis of isolated phenomena, or he may seek ways to increase the available body of evidence. In the case of Archaic Greek literature, only one of these paths is truly viable, for no amount of funding can secure an increase in data. The most valuable material witnesses, consisting og high quality copies in medieval manuscripts, are already fully incorporated into the corpus, and any new discoveries can emerge only in the form of papyrus fragments recovered from the deserts of Egypt: a pursuit unlikely to benefit from more aggressive excavation practices, which may in fact jeopardize the very remains they seek to uncover.
This limitation has been the same stumbling stone upon which generations of classical…
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 3:15 PM – 4:45 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; RCCHU Conference Room, 26 Trowbridge St. Cambridge, MA 02138, United States.
(RESCHEDULED) Panagiotis Roilos (Harvard University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
"The Cultural Politics of Imagination: From 'Paganism' to Christianity"
This lecture focuses on the ways in which ancient Greek philosophical conceptions of phantasia (imagination) were adjusted to early Christian and later Byzantine discursive contexts. Emphasis is placed on the exploration in such discourses of 1). the inherent liminality of phantasia as a cognitive faculty, and 2). the conceptual/theological/moral binary opposition Christ=Logos (truth) vs. Satan=phantasia (falsity). The lecture will illustrate pivotal aspects of the methodological model of “cognitive historical anthropology” that the speaker has put forward in his research on the specific topic.
This event has been rescheduled from Tuesday, 2/24/26 due to inclement weather. .
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, location TBD.
Matthew Gabriele (Virginia Tech)
Abstract: At the end of the 8th century, the Franks under their new Carolingian kings built an empire that spanned Europe and inspired the respect of both emperor(s) in Byzantium and caliphs in Baghdad. But by the middle of the next century, the empire was in tatters. In June 841, a field outside Auxerre (in modern France) lay drenched in blood, as old friends killed one another, as brother fought brother. This talk will focus on the fateful battle of Fontenoy in June 841 and particularly the account of 1 participant – a warrior named Angelbert and the poem he wrote about the battle, detailing how an empire that seemed so secure, so tightly bound in its political and cultural consensus, could be destroyed so quickly by greed and vengeance over a disputed succession to power.
,
Bio: Matthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech,. His research and teaching cover the European Middle Ages, ideas of religion and violence, as well as nostalgia and apocalypse. He has written for The…
Event contact to appear in listing: ams-events@mit.edu. Event Series: MIT Ancient & Medieval Studies Colloquium Series.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 5:15 PM – 6:30 PM.
MIT; Building E51-265, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02139
Take the stairs to the first conference room facing Amherst St parking lot.
For more info visit ams.mit.edu. Kimberly Cassibry (Wellesley College)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Influence, Fame, and Infamy: Legacies of Classical Celts in Ancient Art.
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Barker 133 (tentative), 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos (St. Joseph's University)
"1956 is Greek to Filmmakers": Recreating the Ancient Battlefield in Cold War Hollywood
This lecture examines the sociohistorical conditions that led to the emergence of Greek antiquity as a cherished theme in American cinema during the early Cold War years. It traces Hollywood’s fascination with armed conflict in the classical world and explores how cinematic re-creations of ancient warfare reflect, and refract, the geopolitical tensions of the modern era.
Sponsored by the Hellenic Studies Program at UMass Lowell, the History Department, and the generosity of the Zamanakos Family.
Event contact to appear in listing: Jane Sancinito, Jane_Sancinito@uml.edu. Event Series (if not listed): Zamanakos Annual Lecture.
Thursday, March 26, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM.
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL; Coburn Hall 255, 850 Broadway St, Lowell, MA 01854.
For more info visit www.uml.edu. Dan Smail (Harvard University)
"Practices of Slavery in Mediterranean Europe, 1250-1500”
Abstract: Everywhere in late medieval Mediterranean Europe, it was possible, at least in theory, to purchase and hold an enslaved individual. The traffic in slaves began a noteworthy period of growth in the thirteenth century. In the second half of the fourteenth, the rise of the Black Sea trade led to a significant acceleration. Yet the practice of slavery was never uniform across the region. In some cities, as much as 15 percent of the population may have been enslaved. Elsewhere, the presence of enslaved individuals is scarcely detectable. The significant variation in the degree to which slavery implanted itself in the cities and towns of Mediterranean Europe is a historical phenomenon in search of explanation. Through a survey of practices of slavery in Marseille, a city located in the borderlands of the practice, this lecture seeks to frame a set of questions that could guide research in coming decades.
Bio: Daniel Lord Smail is Frank B.…
Event contact to appear in listing: ams-events@mit.edu. Event Series: MIT Ancient & Medieval Studies Colloquium Series.
Monday, March 30, 2026, 5:15 PM – 6:30 PM.
MIT; Building 14, Room 14E-304
From the Lewis Music Library stairs, walk to the third floor of Building 14, through the CMS/W doors. Alternatively, take the elevator to the 3rd floor and walk to the end of the hall.
For more info visit ams.mit.edu. Greg Woolf (NYU ISAW)
Harvard Classics Lectures
"The Resilience of Empire and the Weakness of the Emperors".
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Loeb Classical Lecture.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Margaret Andrews (Harvard University)
Solving a Problem like the Sabines in Mid-Republican Rome.
Event contact to appear in listing: Christopher Cochran (Christopher.Cochran@umb.edu).
Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
UMASS BOSTON, Campus Center, 3rd Floor, Room 3545.
Public Symposium: Celtic Art Up Close
Saturday, April 11, 2026.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Harvard Art Museums, TBA, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Brian Krostenko (University of Notre Dame)
TITLE TBD
Krostenko’s research centers on the culture and law of the Late Roman Republic, Cicero, rhetoric, and Latin linguistics. He is the author of Cicero, Catullus, and the Language of Social Performance (Chicago, 2001), which discusses the problem of aestheticism in Roman culture by means of historical semantics. He is also the author of The Voices of the Consul: The Rhetorics of Cicero's de lege agraria I and II (Oxford, 2024), the first book-length study of the rhetoric of those speeches, which uses the techniques of discourse analysis to reveal how and why Cicero lays claim to contested political slogans and ideologies in the turbulent late Republic.
Thursday, April 16, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; LOCATION TBD.
Rebecca Moorman (Boston University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Boylston 237, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA.
Lecture: "Rediscovering the Discovery: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their First Audience" - Prof. Alex Jassen (NYU)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Event Series: Ancient Studies at Harvard Visitors Series.
Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
Sever Hall 103
Quincy Street, Cambridge MA.
Ilse and Leo Mildenberg Memorial Lecture, David G. Wigg-Wolf (Leicester University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Ilse and Leo Mildenberg Memorial Lecture: "Gods? Beasts? Warriors? Interpreting the Imagery of Celtic Coinages"
Speaker:
David G. Wigg-Wolf, Honorary Professor, Leicester University
Free admission, but seating is limited and registration is encouraged. Register here.
Celtic coins present a remarkable world of varied, often fantastic images. The earliest coinages were generally close copies of Hellenistic coins from the Mediterranean world, but gradually they developed a distinct visual language. Elements of the original prototypes were adapted or became disjointed; because these were combined with new elements, the resulting designs can be difficult to understand today. Different regions also followed different iconographical traditions, leading to a wide variety of designs. In a later phase, the arrival of Rome on the political stage led to the re-appearance of coinages with a classical look, particularly in Britain. In this lecture, David G. Wigg-Wolf, of Leicester University, will trace the iconography…
Wednesday, April 29, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:15 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Harvard Art Museums, Menschel Hall, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For more info visit harvardartmuseums.org. Conference—Past and Present: Cultural Politics in Byzantium and Beyond
Harvard Classics Lectures
TBD.
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: roilos@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, May 1, 2026 – Saturday, May 2, 2026.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBA, Cambridge MA.
CANCELLED - Brettman Memorial Lecture Reception: Jacopo Tabolli (Università per Stranieri di Siena)
...But the Past: When Everything Changes in the New Discoveries of Bronzes at San Casciano dei Bagni
Jacopo Tabolli is associate professor of pre-Roman Archeology and Etruscology at the Università per Stranieri di Siena and director of the Center of Archeology for Diversity and Mobility in Pre-Roman Italy. Jacopo—who currently directs the archeological excavations at San Casciano dei Bagni and at Isola del Giglio, both in Italy, as well as the excavation at the tumulus of Laona in Palaepaphos, Cyprus—delivers this year’s Estelle Shohet Brettman Memorial Lecture, titled "...But the Past: When Everything Changes in the New Discoveries of Bronzes at San Casciano dei Bagni.".
Event contact to appear in listing: A.
Saturday, May 9, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
For more info visit www.mfa.org.