Patrick Finglass (University of Bristol)
Title: Chariots of Song: Editing Lyric Metaphor at the Great Library of Alexandria
Description: This paper is focused on the organization of Alexandrian editions of Archaic lyric poetry. After examining how these editions were organized, and how we can tell, it argues that significant connections can be drawn between different editions in terms of the placement of particular poems – connections which themselves generate meaning and reveal the editor as a participant in the creative process.
Sponsors:This event has been generously funded by the Boston University Center for the Humanities.
Event contact to appear in listing: classics@bu.edu. Event Series: Boston University: New Approaches to Classics.
Monday, March 23, 2026, 5:30 AM – 7:30 AM.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY; 725 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215, CAS B18.
For more info visit www.bu.edu. Kimberly Cassibry (Wellesley College)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Influence, Fame, and Infamy: Legacies of Classical Celts in Ancient Art
Ancient Celts (also called Gauls and Galatians) crafted exquisite metalwork with abstract designs and they only rarely depicted their many defeated enemies in art. In contrast, their Greek and Roman foes commissioned countless caricatures of defeated Celts stripped of their well-crafted belongings. This talk focuses on the classical Greek and Roman sculptures known as the Dying Gaul and the Suicidal Gaul and Wife. Reframing their ancient influences, modern fame, and potential for infamy, the lecture considers the future of famous works that celebrate violence and demonize enemies.
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, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
I-Kai Jeng (National Taiwan University; HYI Visiting Scholar)
Comic Wisdom: The Case of Aristophanes
In the fifth century, comic and tragic theatre were integral to the city’s religious festivals. In celebrating the civic gods, and Dionysus the god of theatre in particular, the staging of dramas had religious and political significance. When Plato criticizes poetry a century later, he is not attacking drama or recitals of Homeric epics as idle amusement, but as the spiritual and moral foundation of Greek city-states. He wishes to replace that foundation by his philosophy and a new theology.
Plato’s critique treats Greek poetry as a homogeneous tradition. This obscures the fact that poets were often in conscious rivalry both within and across genres. Comic playwrights would make fun of each other besides mocking tragic poets. The heterogeneity of poetic practice opens up the possibility that parts of its tradition might actually be immune to Plato’s critique or potentially capable of responding to it. My project makes such a case for the playwright of Old Comedy,…
Event contact to appear in listing: hyiprog@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series (if not listed): Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar Talk Series.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Common Room (#136), 2 Divinity Ave. Cambridge, MA, 02138.
For more info visit www.harvard-yenching.org. 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. Nadav Asraf (Harvard University)
"ὁ δεῖνα ἐποίει: 'X was making [this]’: The Employment of the Imperfect in Artists’ Signatures in Light of Homeric and Herodotean Usage".
Event Series: GSAS Workshop "Indo-European and Historical Linguistics”.
Friday, March 27, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Boylston Hall 335, 5 Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Shawnya L. Harris (Georgia Museum of Art) & Jeffrey Richmond-Moll (Peabody Essex Museum)
Title: Nineteenth-Century Black Sculpture & the Classical Tradition: A Conversation about Edmonia Lewis with Shawnya L. Harris and Jeffrey Richmond-Moll
Decription: Join us in welcoming Shawnya L. Harris and Jeffrey Richmond Moll, the curators behind the current Peabody Essex Museum’s exhibition “Edmonia Lewis: Said in Stone.” The Black Classicism–Moving Forward lecture series, focused this year on “Black Classicisms In and Out of Africa,” is designed to engage with and critique the ancient world from the perspective of Black authors, artists, and thinkers.
Event contact to appear in listing: bgwalsh@bu.edu. Event Series: Boston University: Black Classicism—Moving Forward.
Monday, March 30, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY; Zoom.
For more info visit www.bu.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.
The Boston Area Roman Studies Conference: Hellenism & Greek Literature in the Roman Empire
Hellenism & Greek Literature in the Roman Empire
Generous sponsorship provided by Boston University Center for the Humanities & the Department of Classical Studies.
Event contact to appear in listing: Steven Smith (sds74@bu.edu). Event Series: Boston Area Roman Studies Conference.
Friday, April 10, 2026, 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 745 Commonwealth Ave. Boston, MA. Room B19.
For more info visit www.bu.edu. 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
""Rediscovering the Discovery: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their First Audience"
A Lecture by Prof. Alex Jassen (NYU)
The Dead Sea Scrolls have been described as the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times. This presentation examines the first public exhibition of the scrolls in 1949 as a case study into how scholars, journalists, and public figures taught the world about the scrolls in the early years after their discovery. The Library of Congress exhibit “Ancient Hebrew Scrolls” showcased three scrolls. The impact of this event on public excitement about the scrolls cannot be overstated. The scrolls were brought to Washington D.C. under the protection of the Secret Service. Extended hours accommodated the overwhelming interest as thousands of guests visited over two weeks. The world’s most famous Bible scholar, William F. Albright, gave an opening night lecture to a packed audience in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium. Paramount News and Fox Movietone News sent crews to document the opening night and th…
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.