List of past workshops

Ancient Societies Workshops 2011-2023

2022-23:  “Corrupting Seas: Premodern Maritime Historical Ecologies in Premodernity” (Noel Lenski and Hussein Fancy)

Series poster here

September 9, Joseph Manning (Yale University)
October 13, Valerie Hansen (Yale University)
November 11, Arnaud Besson (University of Neuchatel)
December 2, Robin Fleming (Boston University)
January 27, Carolina Lopez-Ruiz (University of Chicago)
February 17, Kim Bowes (University of Pennsylvania)
March 3, Peregrine Horden (University of Oxford)
April 21, John Hoopes (University of Kansas)

2021-22:  “Plagues”

Series poster here

September 24, Frank Snowden (Yale University)
October 22, Maria Doerfler (Yale University)
December 3, (Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, Germany)
February 11, Monica Green (Standford University)
March 4, Kyle Harper (University of Oklahoma)
April 15, Antonella Palumbo (Yale University)

2020-21  “Encountering Pre-Modern Civilizations Through the Lens of Legal Historiography”

Series poster here

September 18: Chrstine Hayes (Yale University)
October 16: David Brick (Univeristy of Michigan)
November 20: Cuilan Liu (University of Pittsburgh)
December 11: Adriaan Lanni (Harvard University)
January 29: Noel Lenski (Yale University)
February 19: Elizabeth Urban (West Chester University)
March 12: Ahmed El Shamsy (Chicago University)
April 23: Kaius Tuori (University of Helsinki)

2019-20  “Images of Cult and Devotion in the Premodern World.”(Jackqueline Jung and Laura Nasrallah)

Series poster here

September 20: Milette Gaifman (History of Art)
October 25: Laura Nasrallah (Religious Studies/ Yale Divinity School)
November 15: Paroma Chatterjee (Byzantine Icons and Ritual)
January 24: Margaret Graves (Islamic Art)
February 21: Laurel Bestock (Egyptology)
April 3-5: Confrence organized by Subhashini Kaligotla (Yale) on “Temples Cultures and Pre-Modern Worlds in South Asia”
April 10: Wei-Cheng Lin (Chinese Buddhist Architecture and Art)

2018-2019 “Sensory Experiences in Ancient and Premodern Ritual” (Carolyn Laferriere, Archaia Postdoctoral Associate)

Series poster here (opens as image in new window)

September 14: Mick Hunter, EALL: “Harmonizing Heaven and Earth: Ancient Chinese Bells”

October 12: Verity Platt, Cornell: “Bodies, Bases and Borders: Framing the Divine in Greco-Roman Antiquity”

November 2: Karl Taube, UC Riverside: “Atop Flower Mountain: Flowers, Music and Paradise in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest”

December 7: James McHugh, University of Southern California: “The Changing, Timeless World of Drugs and Alcohol in Indian Religions”

January 25: Bissera Pentcheva, Stanford: “Ephemeral Liveliness: Gold, Chant and the Eucharistic Rite”

February 15:  Ed Kamens, EALL, and Riley Soles, Colorado: “Seeing, Scene, the Seen and the Unseen”

March 8: Kim Haines-Eitzen, Cornell: “Acoustic Territories in the Judean Desert’s Wadi Qilt”

April 19: Mary Weismantel, Northwestern: “Playing with Things: the Moche Sex Pots”

2017–2018 “Slavery, Dependency and Genocide in the Ancient and Premodern World” (Ben Kiernan, History, Noel Lenski, Classics and History)

September 15: Alice Rio, Kings: “Slavery after Rome”

October 13: Peter Hunt, Colorado: “Inside and Outside: Women Slaves in Ancient Rome”

November 17: Craig Perry, Cincinnati: “Slave ownership, competition and masculinity in medieval Egypt”

December 8: Mary Miller, Yale: “Were they enslaved? The women and men of Jaina Island, Mexico”

January 26: Ulrike Roth, Edinburgh: “Child slavery at Rome”

February 23: Michael Jursa, Vienna: “Constructing the tower of Babel: labour recruitment and the financing of public building in Iron-age Mesopotamia”

March 9: Robin Yates, McGill: “Law, slavery and social order in the early Chinese empires”

March 30: Anthony Reid, Sidney: “Provincialising premodern Europe: can we free slavery, genocide, gender etc. from Western Enlightenment categories?”

2016-2017 “Fakes and forgeries” (Eckart Frahm, NELC, and Irene Peirano Garrison, Classics)

Series poster (opens as PDF in new window)

September 16: Mary Miller, History of Art: “The pastiche, the fake, and the authentic:  from Stendahl Galleries to the world”

October 14: Kristine Haugen, Cal Tech: “The Quantification of Literary Doubt in the Enlightenment”

November 11: Anders Winroth, History: “How a Ninth-Century Bishop Became a Forger and Gave Us Human Rights”

December 9: Karen King, Harvard: “Authorship and polemics of forgery”

January 27: Irene Peirano Garrison, Classics, and Mick Hunter, EALL: “Forgery from an Early Chinese/Ancient Greek Perspective”

February 17: Marc Van de Mieroop, Columbia: “Fakes and the manipulation of time: a Babylonian case”

April 14: Jas Elsner, Oxford: “The Artemidorus Papyrus: Backgrounds and Shadows, Authenticity and Virtuality in the History of Ancient Art”

2015-2016 “Frontiers and Provinces” (Bill Honeychurch, Anthropology, Andrew Johnston, Classics)

September 11: Robert Cioffi, Dartmouth: “Narratives on the Edge: Roman Provinciality and Greek Novels”

October 2: Karen Radner, Munich: “Frontiers and provinces in the Assyrian empire (9th to 7th centuries BCE0”

December 11: Alicia Jiménez , Duke: “The center-laden concept of provincia: Hispania as a case study”

January 29: Nicola di Cosmo, IAS: “Frontier and Imperial Formation among the Steppe Nomads of Ancient China: a Reassessment”

February 12: Carlos Norena, Berkeley: “Provincial Spaces and Layered Monarchies in the Han and Roman Empires”

April 8: Elspeth Dusinberre, Colorado: “Provincial Participation in Imperial Endeavor: Power and Agency in Achaemenid Persian Anatolia”

2014-2015: “What is Commentary?” (Christina Kraus (Classics) and Hindy Najman (Religious Studies)

Series Poster (opens as PDF in new window)

Working papers

September 5: Ed Kamens, East Asian Languages: “Classical Japanese Poetics through Commentary”

October 3: Verity Harte, Classics and Philosophy: “Platonic Self-Commentary?”

November 7: Steven Fraade, Judaic Studies: “Early Rabbinic Midrash as Commentary: Between Philo and Qumran”

December 5: Rina Talgam, Judaic Studies: “From Wall Paintings to Floor Mosaics: Jewish and Christian Atritudes towards Figurative Art”

January 16: Emily Greenwood, Classics: “The classical commentary: meditations on an elliptical genre”

February 6: Tony Grafton, Princeton: “Some Ways of Composing a Renaissance Commentary: Isaac Casaubon Explicates Polybius”

March 6: Eckart Frahm, Near Eastern Languages, “Origins of interpretation: Cuneiform text commentaries from Assyria and Babylonia”

April 17: Sean Gurd, Missouri: “Inter-sensual Commentary”

May 1: Dale Martin, Religious Studies: “Forgery as Commentary within the New Testament”

2013-2014 “Exchange: cultural and economic” (Joe Manning, Classics and History, Milette Gaifman, Classics and History of Art)

September 6: Joe Manning (Classics and History), Richard Burger (Yale Anthropology), David Grewal (Yale Law School), and John Baines (Oxford): “EXCHANGE”

October 4: Gojko Barjamovic, Harvard: “Volume, Infrastructure, and Interlocking Trade Networks in Western Asia c. 2000 – 1700 BCE”

November 1: Karen Foster, NELC and History of Art: “The Wine-dark Sea and the Great Green: Aegean/Egyptian Interconnections in the Late Bronze Age”

December 6: Neil Coffee, University of Buffalo: “Merchants in Love: Gift, Gain, and Genre at Rome”

January 25: Sara Ronis, Judaic Studies: “The Demonic as a Site of Cultural Exchange Between the Rabbis and the Sasanian Empire”

April 4: Seth L. Sanders, Trinity, Hartford: “Beyond Borrowing: Aramaic Scribal Culture and the Creativity of Second Temple Judaism”

2012-2013 “Law in the Ancient World” (Joe Manning, Classics and History, John Collins, Divinity)

September 14: Joe Manning, Classics and History, and Jim Whitman, Law School: “Was there ancient Law?”

November 2: John Darnell, Near Eastern Languages: “Nb-hp.w: Junctures of Law, Literature, and Religion in Pharaonic Egypt”

December 14: David Brick, South Asia Studies and Mick Hunter, EALL: “Law in Eastern Traditions. An Introduction to classical Indian and Chinese law”

January 18: John Matthews, Classics: “Getting it all together; the character and codification of Roman law”

February 1: Chris Hayes, Religious Studies: “Ancient Discourses of Law”

March 1: Katherine Slanski, Humanities: “The Law Stele of Hammurabi and its Audience”

April 15: Alissa Abrams, Classics: “Ethnicity and Law in Ptolemaic Egypt”

2011-2012, “Ancient Historiography” (Eckart Frahm, Near Eastern Languages, Harold Attridge, Divinity, John Matthews, Classics and History)

September 2: David Levene, New York University: “Ancient Historiography: A Roman Perspective”

October 7: Mark van de Mieroop, Columbia University: “The Mesopotamians and their Past”

November 4: Colleen Manassa, Near Eastern Languages: “Historiography and Fiction: Imagining the Past in New Kingdom Egypt”

December 2: Robert Wilson, Divinity School: “The Book of Kings as History and Ideology”

January 13: Christina Kraus, Classics: “Livian Historiography”

February 3: Mary Frazer, Near Eastern Languages: “Akkadian Royal Letters in Later Tradition (ca.700-100BC)”

February 17: Robert Doran, Amherst College: “Second Maccabees as Hellenistic Historiography”

March 2: Thomas Beasley, Classics: “Thucydides, Rhetoric and Scientific Historiography”

April 1: Review panel: Eckart Frahm (Near Eastern Languages), Harold Attridge, (Divinity), John Matthews, (Classics and History)