During a televised debate between Congressman Ron Paul and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, Congressman Paul pointed to inflation under Diocletian as a reason to be concerned about expansion of the money supply today. Prof. Krugman disagrees, although he admits to little knowledge of ancient history, and in a subsequent post discusses the difficulty of talking about the "zero lower bound" when the numerical system has no zero. In Slate, Matthew Yglesias provides a literature summary on the topic.
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14th London Ancient Science Conference 2019
The 14th London Ancient Science conference will be held at the Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House, University of London from Monday, February 17th to Friday, February 21st 2020.
Abstracts of around 200 words should be sent to Prof. Andrew Gregory (andrew.gregory@ucl.ac.uk) by 10th November. Decisions by mid November.
Papers are welcomed from established academics, postdocs and postgraduate students. Papers are welcomed on science in any ancient culture treated historically, philosophically, sociologically or technically. Science is construed quite broadly and may include epistemology, metaphysics and ontology relating to the natural world.
This year the keynote speaker will be Prof. Dan Graham
Paper proposals are welcomed for these sessions as well as any other ancient science topic.
There is a website for this conference at:
Res Difficiles: A Conference On Challenges and Pathways for Addressing Inequity In the Ancient Greek and Roman World
Organizers: Hannah Çulik-Baird (Boston University) and Joseph Romero (University of Mary Washington)
Date: May 15, 2020
Place: Campus of the University of Mary Washington (Fredericksburg, Virginia), HCC 136
One of the great benefits of the shift from a pedagogue-centered to a student-aware or student-centered classroom is that we listen more attentively to how our students experience the content of what we read. A decided strength of Classical Studies is the simultaneous proximity and distance—temporally, geographically, ideologically—of the ancient Greek and Roman world. That distance is felt more keenly when potentially difficult subjects (res difficiles) in our readings—domination, inequity, violence both sexual and otherwise—present themselves for inspection. Often the underlying source of the dissonance or disconnect is the distance in our perceptions of social justice.
The 50th Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest (CAPN) will take place at The University of Oregon in Eugene, OR, on March 20-21, 2020. The keynote speaker will be Andrew Stewart, Emeritus Professor in the Department of the History of Art (UC Berkeley). This keynote lecture will be open to the general public as well as to conference attendees.
Call for Papers: We invite papers on any aspect of the ancient Mediterranean world, including Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Ancient Near East. We seek those that are likely to be of broad interest and to make connections among different elements of the ancient world. Such connections may cross traditional disciplinary boundaries (such as archaeology, drama, history, literature, and philosophy) or geographical boundaries (e.g., looking at intersections between Greek society and Roman society) or even temporal boundaries (including receptions of Mediterranean antiquity in later places and times). It should be noted, however, that papers on narrower topics are also invited. Furthermore, we welcome pedagogical papers, especially those that address the instruction of Latin and Greek at the primary, secondary, and university levels. Teachers and students of Classics at any level of instruction (K-12, college, or university) are encouraged to submit abstracts.
As part of its commitment to diversifying the graduate student body and the field more generally, the Department of Classics at the University of Virginia seeks to support students from groups that are underrepresented in our discipline and who have not yet received sufficient training and research experience to prepare them for admission to doctoral programs. The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia is accepting applications to join the first cohort of Bridge to the Doctorate Fellows for enrollment in Fall 2020. The Bridge Fellowship is a fully funded two-year program assisting gifted and hard-working students in Classics to acquire research and language skills needed to pursue a Ph.D. in Classics. The Fellowship is geared exclusively to assist the professional and personal development of the Fellow, and as such it comes without teaching responsibilities. Fellows will receive $24,000 per year in living support and full payment of their tuition, and fees, and single-person coverage in the University’s student health insurance plan for a period of two years.
43rd ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY WORKSHOP
KEYNOTE: MARISKA LEUNISSEN, UNC CHAPEL HILL
The Joint Program in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Texas is pleased to announce that the 43rd annual Ancient Philosophy Workshop will be held this year in Austin. In keeping with workshop tradition, we invite proposals on any problem, figure, or issue in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Workshop sessions will begin on Friday morning, March 6, and conclude Saturday evening, March 7. Each paper will be allotted forty minutes for oral presentation in order to allow for both a prepared response and open discussion.
To propose a paper, send both a 1-page abstract of 300-500 words and a cover sheet with contact information to this box as two distinct attachments, preferably as PDFs. The cover sheet should contain contact information and enable its reader to identify your abstract. The abstract should contain no identifying information. The box will not receive emails, only attachments, so place all identifying information in the cover sheet.
Proposals are due no later than Friday, December 20, 2019.
Romans across the city this week remembered the anniversary of the rastrellamento within the Jewish ghetto in Rome on October 16, 1943 carried out by 365 Nazi officers at the order of SS Captain Theodor Dannecker. Italians often refer to it as 'la spietata caccia agli ebrei' (“the ruthless hunting down of the Jews”). During the raid, 1,022 Jewish Romans were gathered and sent to the Collegio Militare in Palazzo Salviati in Trastevere, just a few hundred meters from Vatican city and the papal residence. Most of these Romans were sent to Auschwitz on sealed trains that left from Tiburtina station. Most would die in the gas chambers there. Only 15 men and 1 woman survived the camps and returned back to Italy alive.
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ANCHORING TECHNOLOGY IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY
‘Anchoring Innovation’ is a Dutch research program in Classics that studies how people deal with ‘the new’ (http://www.ru.nl/oikos/anchoring-innovation/). We want to understand the multifarious ways in which relevant social groups connect what they perceive as new to what they feel is already familiar (‘anchoring’). In this conference, our focus will be on technological innovations in classical antiquity, and the ways in which these became acceptable, were adopted, and spread – or died an unceremonious death.
Technology is here understood in the widest sense of the word: it includes building materials and techniques, technical procedures and products, but also information technologies such as writing and calculating, coinage, medicine and military technology. Greco-Roman antiquity offers an ideal testing ground for understanding technological change in a complex, yet non-modern society: it is richly documented (both in the written record and in material remains), and the ‘sources’ are complex but also well-disclosed, which enables us to tackle complex research questions.
On October 13, 2019, the SCS Board of Directors approved the following letter addressed to the Board of Directors of the Paideia Institute for Humanistic Study, Inc.
"The Society for Classical Studies joins the American Classical League in expressing deep concern in response to recent public statements regarding the Paideia Institute. Some of those statements are authored by individuals who have been closely associated with Paideia in various capacities and who have now resigned from the Institute. Some of the published allegations are more generally about the Institute’s cultural climate, while others concern specific incidents. All the allegations are serious.
Accordingly, the SCS board of directors has approved a temporary hiatus on new funding for Paideia programs, including but not limited to support via the SCS Minority Scholarships, Coffin Fellowships, and Classics Everywhere micro-grants.
Years of restoration work on the Palatine Hill and in the Roman Forum which—together with the Colosseum—now make up the Parco Archeologico del Colosseo has been coming to fruition over the last few years. After decades of sporadic work, rusting scaffolding, and locked gates, a fabulous flurry of activity has yielded an ever greater number of visitable sites.
Many of these are accessible as part of the SUPER ticket, which provides access to the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum (but not the Colosseum), and includes access to eight excellent “bonus” sites: Santa Maria Antiqua, Temple of Romulus, Palatine Museum, the Neronian Cryptoporticus, the Aula Isiaca and Loggia Mattei, the Houses of Augustus and Livia, and—most recently—the Domus Transitoria.
Departmental memberships for 2020 are now available. This year's departmental membership includes new publication options as well as the ability to purchase membership for students and contingent faculty.
You can download the form here, then send it to the SCS office through fax or via email at info@classicalstudies.org
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