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.
Luca Grillo (University of Notre Dame)
"Cupido Regnandi: Lust for Power in the Ancient Mediterranean World"
Keynote Speaker: Luca Grillo, Professor of Classics (University of Notre Dame)
Register here.
Event Series (if not listed): Boston University Classical Studies Graduate Conference.
Saturday, March 28, 2026, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY, School of Theology, Room 235, 745 Commonwealth Ave.
For more info visit docs.google.com. 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"
Roman historians have been aware for a generation of the severe limitations placed on imperial action by the slowness of communication across the Empire. Yet we have remained committed to the view that, in Olivier Hekster’s phrase, “Caesar Rules”. Solutions to the apparent paradox have been found in the symbolic unity of the empire, in the power of ideology communicated by ceremony and images, and in the notion of “government by correspondence”. I shall be asking how plausible these solutions are, and indeed whether emperors did, in any meaningful sense, rule the empire. They, and some members of metropolitan and provincial élites, were committed to the view that the empire was steered from above. But can we infer this from the simple persistence of imperial structures over the centuries? What happens if instead of focusing on success stories and imperial claims we look at failures, and also initiatives that seem to have been abandoned after brief…
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, Sever 213, 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.
Claire Bubb (ISAW, NYU)
The John C. Rouman Classical Lecture Series
presents a free and public lecture | refreshments available following lecture
Diet as Medicine in Greco-Roman Antiquity, by Dr. Claire Bubb
Assoc Prof of Classical Literature and Science, ISAW, NYU
Visiting Assoc Prof of Classics, University of Southern California
Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 7:00PM-8:30PM, Hamilton Smith Hall, Room 210, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824
Livestream link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81546864248
The John C. Rouman Classical Lecture Series at the University of New Hampshire. Created in 1997 by the Christos and Mary Papoutsy Charitable Foundation, this extraordinary series of lectures and events continues to promote and enhance awareness of the Classics in New Hampshire. throughout New England, and beyond. Topics explored each year by the series will cover a range of subjects wthin Greco-Roman civilization including mythology,literature, history, philosophy, art and language, and will feature lectures delivered by…
Event contact to appear in listing: Lisa.hartford@unh.edu or Scott.Smith@unh.edu. Event Series (if not listed): The John C. Rouman Classical Lecture Series.
Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM.
Wednesday, April 8, 2026 | 7:00PM-8:30PM
Hamilton Smith Hall, Room 210
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Durham, NH 03824.
For more info visit cola.unh.edu. The Boston Area Roman Studies Conference
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
This daylong symposium, featuring five guest speakers, will focus on some of the most intricately decorated objects included in the exhibition Celtic Art Across the Ages (March 6–August 2, 2026). The presenters will first take a close look at the objects, then explore such topics as their materials and making; contexts of use and deposition; actual and symbolic functions; and their roles in encounters between the Iron Age populations of western Europe and the Roman Empire. A roundtable discussion highlighting current approaches and new finds will close the symposium.
Session 1: 10:30am–12:30pm
Welcome and Introduction
Susanne Ebbinghaus, George M.A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art, and Head, Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, Harvard Art Museums
Ode to the Humble Safety Pin: The Multivocality of Fibulae in Iron Age Europe
Bettina Arnold, Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Old Acquaintances in a New Light: Current Research on the Finds from “Princely” Tombs in the…
Saturday, April 11, 2026, 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Harvard Art Museums, Menschel Hall, Lower Level, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For more info visit harvardartmuseums.org. 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.
Alex Jassen (NYU)
Harvard Classics Lectures
"Rediscovering the Discovery: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their First Audience"
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 these newsreels played in theaters and h…
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.