Sarit Kattan Gribetz (Yale University)
A Queen in Jerusalem: Helena of Adiabene and the Malleability of Memory
According to the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, Helena was a queen of the Parthian client kingdom of Adiabene, located in today’s Iraqi Kurdistan. In the mid-40s CE, she traveled from northern Mesopotamia to Jerusalem, drawn by her devotion to the Jewish God and her wish to worship in the temple. She became a beloved patron of the city, feeding its residents during famine and erecting monumental buildings. Traditions about Helena circulated throughout late antiquity in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Judaeo-Arabic. How do we make sense of these traditions, their transmission, and their relationship to one another?
Sarit Kattan Gribetz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at Yale University. Her first book, Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism, received a National Jewish Book Award as well as a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies. Her second…
Monday, December 1, 2025, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Room 201, 6 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Sarit Kattan Gribetz (Yale University)
Rabbinic Texts, Roman Calendars, and Religion in Late Antiquity
Abstract: Rabbinic sources prohibit Jews from conducting business with gentiles three days before idolatrous festivals. What counts as an idolatrous festival – and what counts as business? In this seminar, we will explore a set of passages from the Mishnah as well as the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds that shed light on how the rabbis of late antiquity conceptualized time, engaged in the calendars and festivals of those amongst whom they lived, and constructed Jewish identity and difference in a diverse and complicated world.
Speaker biography: Sarit Kattan Gribetz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at Yale University. Her first book, Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism, received a National Jewish Book Award as well as a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies. Her second book, A Queen in Jerusalem: Helena of Adiabene and the Malleability of Memory, is forthcoming from Princeton…
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Room 201, 6 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138.
FAS Faculty meeting
FAS Faculty Meetings
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
For more info visit secfas.fas.harvard.edu. MIT Ancient & Medieval Studies Colloquium: Sarah Olsen (Williams College) & Naomi Weiss (Harvard University)
MIT's Ancient & Medieval Studies Colloquium presents, "An Orestes for the 21st Century: Commentary as Criticism and the Myth of Objectivity," a presentation by Sarah Olsen (Associate Professor of Classics at Williams College) & Naomi Weiss (Professor of the Classics at Harvard University).
Euripides’ Orestes, first produced in 408 BCE, was one of the most popular tragedies in the ancient Greek and Byzantine worlds. It is also a play suited to a range of current scholarly and cultural interests, from ancient music to queer reimaginations of antiquity to the construction of race in ancient Greece, while the ways it pushes the boundaries of form and genre look increasingly at home among today’s postmodern and experimental theater. At present, however, work on Orestes is hampered by the absence of a modern English commentary. In this talk, we will discuss our approach to creating such a commentary, as well as broader questions about the purpose, audience, and unexamined assumptions of the commentary as a…
Event Series (if not listed): MIT Ancient & Medieval Studies Colloquium.
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 5:15 PM – 7:00 PM.
MIT; Building E51 (Tang Center), Rm. E51-275.
Last Day of Fall Term Classes
Registrar's Calendar
Wednesday, December 3, 2025.
Greek Philosophical Texts Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: Peter Osorio (posorio@fas.harvard.edu). Event Series: Greek Philosophical Texts Reading Group.
Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM.
Alternating between Harvard University, Emerson 107, and Boston University, STH 525.
Fall Reading Period
Registrar's Calendar
Thursday, December 4, 2025 – Tuesday, December 9, 2025.
Metaphysics and Theology Workshop (Department of Philosophy, Harvard University)
Friday, December 5 | 8:30am - 4:30pm (Emerson 211)
Saturday, December 6 | 8:30am - 1:30pm (Robbins Library)
Speakers:
Julia Borcherding (Cambridge University), "Divine Minds: Leibniz on the imago Dei Thesis and the Commonwealth of Spirits"
Therese Cory (University of Notre Dame), "A Puzzle about Intellectual Memory: Three States of Mental Forms in Aquinas"
Sam Newlands (University of Notre Dame), "Panentheism, Idealism, and Monism"
Dominik Perler (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), "One Substance and Many Attributes: Spinoza and the Scholastic Background“
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Oxford University), "What Kind of Trope Theorist Was Hume?"
Stephan Schmid (Universität Hamburg), "Spinoza’s Attributes as Ways of Being"
Organizers:
Clara Carus (Harvard University)
Jeff McDonough (Harvard University)
Co-Sponored by the Abigail Adams Institute and the Harvard Provostial Fund for the Arts and Humanities.
Friday, December 5, 2025, 8:30 AM – Saturday, December 6, 2025, 1:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Emerson Hall Rm. 211 & Robbins Library.
Homer Reading Group
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: lkiriakidi@g.harvard.edu.
Friday, December 5, 2025, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM.
Boylston 203.
Classics Department Meeting
Harvard Classics Department Meetings
Tuesday, December 9, 2025, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
TBD.
Department of the Classics Holiday Party
Please join us after the faculty meeting for our holiday party! Drinks and light refreshments will be served!
Please RSVP here.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; Boylston 2nd floor.
Fall Term Final Examinations Period
Registrar's Calendar
Wednesday, December 10, 2025 – Friday, December 19, 2025.
University Holiday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Registrar's Calendar
Department offices closed.
Monday, January 19, 2026.
Check-In Deadline for All Students
Registrar's Calendar
Monday, January 26, 2026.
First meeting of spring term classes.
Registrar's Calendar
Monday, January 26, 2026.
Walter Scheidel (Stanford University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Title TBD.
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD.
Methods and Practice Workshop
Workshops
TBD.
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Friday, January 30, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Classics Department Meeting
Harvard Classics Department Meetings
Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
TBD.
Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, February 13, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu. University Holiday: President's Day
Registrar's Calendar
Department offices closed.
Monday, February 16, 2026.
Prospective Graduate Student Visit
GSAS Calendar
Tuesday, February 17, 2026 – Wednesday, February 18, 2026.
Hold for event
GSAS Calendar
Tuesday, February 17, 2026, 3:00 PM – 7:00 PM.
TBD.
Workshop: Scott McGill and Susannah Wright (Rice University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Dr. Susannah Wright and Dr. Scott McGill will talk about their new translation of the Aeneid, published by W. W. Norton in August 2025, and lead a public workshop.
Event Series: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Rethinking Translation.
Thursday, February 19, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:45 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For more info visit mahindrahumanities.harvard.edu. Lecture: Scott McGill and Susannah Wright (Rice University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Dr. Susannah Wright and Dr. Scott McGill will talk about their new translation of the Aeneid, published by W. W. Norton in August 2025.
Event Series: Mahindra Humanities Center Seminar: Civilizations of Ancient Greece and Rome.
Thursday, February 19, 2026, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For more info visit mahindrahumanities.harvard.edu. Methods and Practice Workshop
Workshops
TBD.
Event Series: Methods and Practice in Classics Workshop.
Friday, February 20, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
Panagiotis Roilos (Harvard University)
Harvard Classics Lectures
Title TBD.
Event contact to appear in listing: Contact: classics@fas.harvard.edu. Event Series: Harvard Classics Departmental Seminar Series.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, TBD.
I-Kai Jeng (Yenching Institute)
I-Kai Jeng, a fellow at the Yenching Institute, will give a lunchtime/brown-bag talk on his fellowship project, which features Plato and Aristophanes.
Thursday, February 26, 2026, 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY; TBD.
Department deadline for Graduate Society Summer Predissertation Fellowships
GSAS Calendar
Students should apply for GSAS Society Summer Predissertation Fellowships (intended for language study and preliminary dissertation research at the pre-prospectus stage) by this date.
Friday, February 27, 2026.
Submit applications in CARAT by noon.
For more info visit gsas.harvard.edu. Dissertation Writers Workshop
Workshops
Event contact to appear in listing: contact: classicsDGS@fas.harvard.edu.
Friday, February 27, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM.
Boylston 237.
For more info visit classics.fas.harvard.edu.