Jackson Colloquium
Harvard Classics Lectures
"Nationalism, origins, and the politics of Latin literature"
See conference website for complete details and to register.
This international conference has as its objective the critical re-examination of narratives (both ancient and modern) on the origin of Latin literature. Romans told themselves stories about how, when, and why Latin literature came into being, and classical scholars have relied on these ancient aetiologies to construct a model of Latin literary history that has remained largely static since Friedrich Leo’s Geschichte der römischen Literatur (1913). As is well known, narratives of the origins of Latin literature are deeply entangled with histories of translation and transference. At times these accounts have suppressed wider and more complex dynamics of inter-cultural and inter-linguistic exchange in the Mediterranean from the fifth to third centuries BCE (Beyond Greek, Feeney, 2016). More recent work has highlighted the role of cultural appropriation, plunder, and enslavement in the…
Event Series: Jackson Lecture Series.
Friday, September 19, 2025 – Saturday, September 20, 2025.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Barker 110, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA and Zoom Webinar.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop
Workshops
TBD.
Event Series (if not listed): Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop.
Tuesday, September 23, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Latin Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, September 26, 2025, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. Party for Prospective Concentrators
Classics Concentrator Calendar
Monday, September 29, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
TBD.
Irene Soto Marín (Harvard University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
"The Nile Flows with Gold: Money and the Global Economy of Roman Egypt".
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD.
Homer Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, October 1, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Methods and Practice Workshop
Workshops
TBD.
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Friday, October 3, 2025, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
FAS Faculty meeting
FAS Faculty Meetings
Tuesday, October 7, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
For more info visit secfas.fas.harvard.edu. Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop
Workshops
TBD.
Event Series (if not listed): Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop.
Tuesday, October 7, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Latin Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, October 8, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, October 10, 2025, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. University Holiday: Indigenous Peoples' Day
Registrar's Calendar
Department offices closed.
Monday, October 13, 2025.
Classics Department Meeting
Harvard Classics Department Meetings
Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
TBD.
Can We (or Should We) Moralize the Past?
In his 1982 essay, “Nonmoral Nature,” the historian of science Stephen Jay Gould meditated on the role that morality should or should not play in our understanding of the natural world. The essay cemented the fame of the ichneumon wasp, a parasitic species that, as Victorian naturalists had discovered, reproduces by paralyzing a host caterpillar and then inserting its eggs into the caterpillar’s body. The wasp larvae eat the caterpillar from the inside out, carefully avoiding the vital organs until the very end. The ichneumon wasp offered a profound moral challenge to Victorian beliefs about God’s benevolence. For Gould, the case provided an object lesson for why we should resist the temptation to moralize the natural world. Animals are neither evil nor kind, in Gould’s view, and morality has no part to play in evolutionary thought.
What Gould didn’t ask is whether scholars of the human past should embrace or reject the same moralizing impulses that motivated Victorian commentators. Is it okay to speak in…
Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Robinson Hall Basement Seminar Room.
Josh Billings (Princeton University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
TBA.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:45 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBA.
Homer Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Student-Faculty Lunch
Student-Faculty Lunches
Friday, October 17, 2025, 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM.
Harvard Faculty Club.
Cinzia Arruzza (Boston University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
TBA.
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: Irene Soto Marín (irenesotomarin@fas.harvard.edu). Event Series: Loeb Classical Lecture.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Latin Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop
Workshops
TBD.
Event Series (if not listed): Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop.
Thursday, October 23, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, October 24, 2025, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. Andrés Henao Castro (UMass Boston)
Harvard Classics Lectures
“Antigone’s fort/da".
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD.
Homer Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
FAS Faculty meeting
FAS Faculty Meetings
includes in camera degree proceedings.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
For more info visit secfas.fas.harvard.edu. Methods and Practice Workshop
Workshops
Presenter: Alexander Reed
"The Rural Peasantry of Roman Britain".
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Tuesday, November 4, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Course Registration begins (enroll in courses)
Registrar's Calendar
Wednesday, November 5, 2025.
Latin Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop
Workshops
Mira Seo, Title TBA.
Event Series (if not listed): Harvard Classical Receptions Workshop.
Thursday, November 6, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, November 7, 2025, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. New Approaches to Classics Lecture Series: Jared M. Hudson
"Pomponius Mela on the Periphery: Latin Geography and the Roman Empire."
Jared M. Hudson is an Associate Professor of the Classics at Harvard University.
This event is free and open to the public.
Event Series (if not listed): New Approaches to Classics Lecture Series.
Friday, November 7, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY; CAS B18.
Veteran's Day--Classes are held.
Registrar's Calendar
Department offices closed.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025.
Methods and Practice Workshop
Workshops
Presenter: Connor North
"Polybius and the Irrational".
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Tuesday, November 11, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Homer Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Senior Thesis Colloquium
Classics Concentrator Calendar
Friday, November 14, 2025, 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM.
TBD.
Classics Department Meeting
Harvard Classics Department Meetings
Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
TBD.
Course Registration Deadline
Registrar's Calendar
Wednesday, November 19, 2025.
Latin Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Emily Hauser (University of Exeter)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Dr. Emily Hauser will talk about her bestselling book, Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It (Chicago 2025).
Event Series: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For more info visit mahindrahumanities.harvard.edu. Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, November 21, 2025, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. Department deadline for traveling fellowships and GSAS merit fellowships
GSAS Calendar
Tuesday, November 25, 2025.
Submit applications in CARAT by noon.
For more info visit gsas.harvard.edu. Methods and Practice Workshop
Workshops
Presenter: Phoebe Lakin
"Landscapes".
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Thanksgiving Recess
Registrar's Calendar
Department offices closed.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025 – Sunday, November 30, 2025.
FAS Faculty meeting
FAS Faculty Meetings
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
For more info visit secfas.fas.harvard.edu. Last Day of Fall Term Classes
Registrar's Calendar
Wednesday, December 3, 2025.
Homer Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 5:15 PM – 6:15 PM.
Boylston 203.
Fall Reading Period
Registrar's Calendar
Thursday, December 4, 2025 – Tuesday, December 9, 2025.
Classics Department Meeting
Harvard Classics Department Meetings
Tuesday, December 9, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
TBD.
Fall Term Final Examinations Period
Registrar's Calendar
Wednesday, December 10, 2025 – Friday, December 19, 2025.