News and Events

September 7-9

Conference: Elite Women and Leadership in Late Antiquity

October 16

Lecture: Greece as a Strategic Partner in the Eastern Mediterranean, featuring Ioannis Stamatekos, Consul General of Greece in Los Angeles. 4-7pm @ Atkinson Pavilion, Faculty Club

November 1

Lecture: Ancient Greek Voices, featuring Christian Ammitzbøl Thomsen (Associate Professor, SAXO Institute of Archaeology, Ethnology, Greek and & Latin, and History, University of Copenhagen, Denmark). 5-7pm @ Atkinson Pavilion, Faculty Club. 

November 29

Annual Vassiliadis Lecture: Julian and the Third Temple, feaduring Jan Willem Drijvers (Professor of History, University of Gröningen, Netherlands).

January 24

Annual Ranglas Lecture: Performance and discussion of "The Blues of Achilles: Homer's Iliad in Song Performance" by Joe Goodkin, singer, song-writer and modern bard. 5-7pm @ Village 15A

November 16

Lecture: Rendering the Body in Pain: Pathography in Late Ancient Letters featuring John Penniman, Associate Professor of religious Studies, Bucknell University. 4-6 pm @ Red Shoe Room (Price Center West).

December 5

Annual Vassiliadis Lecture: Greek Romans and Roman Greeks: 10 Years of Byzantium, featuring Edward Watts, Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and Professor of History, UC San Diego. 4-7pm @Atkinson Pavilion, Ida and Cecil Green Faculty Club, UC San Diego.

January 25

Lecture: The Serena Project: Female Agency in the Writing of Biography, by Cristiana Sogno, Associate Professor, Fordham University, 4-6pm, @Ranglas Room 935, Arts and Humanities Building, Ridgewalk Academic Complex. 

February 1

Lecture: The Role of the Praefectus Annonae in the 4th Century CE: Working in the Shadows, by Maria Lubello, Università degli Studi di Firenze, 4-6pm, @Room 0846, Arts and Humanities Building, Ridgewalk Academic Complex. 

February 16

Lecture: African American Travelers Encounter Greece, ca. 1850-1900, by John W. I. Lee, Professor of History, UC Santa Barbara, 4-6pm, Huerta Vera Cruz Room | Student Center, Level 1

Febryary 28

Performance: The Suppliants Project, translated and Directed by Bryan Doerries, 5:30-8:00pm @Price Center Ballroom West and via Zoom.

Co-Sponsored with the Humanities Program, Institute of Arts and Humanities, Chicanx and Latinx Studies, Latin American Studies, Making of the Modern World Program, Eleanor Roosevelt College, Classical Studies Program, Latin American Studies, History Department, Middle East Studies, the office of the VC for EDI, the office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities, Ancient Jewish Civilization Endowed Chair, Gerry and Jeannie Ranglas Endowed Chair.

March 14

Lecture: Sex, Manumission, and Emotions in Ancient Greece: A Case Study from Hellenistic Delphi, by Deborah Kamen, Professor of Classics, University of Washington

May 1

Film Screening: Memory: The Origin of Alien and Q&A with writer and director, Alexandre O. Philippe, co-sponsored with the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts and Film Studies. @Price Center Theater, Level 2, 5-8pm.

May 16

Annual Ranglas Lecture: "'Doing Whatever she Wants and Going Wherever she Pleases:' Women's Agency in the Delphic Manumission Inscriptions," featuring Sara Forsdyke, Josiah Ober  Collegiate Professor of Ancient History, University of Michigan, 4-7pm @ Village15A

April 29: 

Annual Ranglas Lecture: Pluriversal History: Towards a "Many Worlds" Vision of the Past, featuring Greg Anderson, Professor of History, Department of History at The Ohio State University

April 28:

Annual Vassiliadis Lecture: Breaking the Apocalyptic Frame: Constantinian Propaganda and the Longue Durée, featuring Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

April 12:

Work in Progress Series, featuring Edward (Ted) Kelting, Assistant Professor of Mediterranean Studies, Department of Literature, UC San Diego: "Navigating the Philosopher/Priest Divide after Black Athena."

Feb. 28:

Work in Progress Series, featuring Denise Demetriou, Associate Professor, Department of History, UC San Diego: "Towards a More Comprehensive History of the Ancient Mediterranean."

Feb. 23: 

Panel Discussion: Memory: Ridley Scott's Alien and Mythology, with Alexandre O. Philippe (Film Director), Denise Demetriou (Associate Professor, Department of History, UC San Diego), and Daisuke Miyao (Professor, Department of Literature). Co-sponsed with Film Studies

Feb. 2:

Work in Progress Series, featuring Monte R. Johnson, Professor, Department of Philosophy, UC San Diego

Jan. 27:

Work in Progress Series, featuring Jacobo Myerston, Assistant Professor, Department of Literature, UC San Diego

Oct. 25:

Conversation with Ed Watts, Professor, Department of History, UC San Diego: "Why the Decline and Fall of Rome Still Matters Today"

 April 16 - Jan 7:

Lecture Series on Decline, co-sponsored with the Universityà di Firenze, featuring lectures by Adalberto Magnelli (Università di Firenze), Mira Balberg (UC San Diego), Veronica Bucciantini (Universityà di Firenze), Edward (Ted) Kelting (UC San Diego), Carlo Slavich (Universityà di Firenze), Michele Salzman (UC Riverside), Eric Robinson (Indiana University), Stefania De Vido (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) Fréderic Hurlet (Universityé Paris Nanterre), Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga (University of Tennessee), Cam Grey (University of Pennsylvania), Edward Watts (UC San Diego) and Giovanni Cecconi (Universityà di Firenze)

May 5: Hegeso and Me, featuring Page DuBois, Distinguished Professor of Literature, UC San Diego

April 21: Penelope's Odyssey, Sappho's Tale: Studying Women's Songs from Ancient to Modern Greece, featuring Andromache Karanika, Associate Professor of Classics, UC Irvine

Feb. 18:

Lecture: Negotiating Class and Gender in Classics and the Real World, featuring Edith Hall, Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, Durham University.

Feb. 4:

Lecture: Classics, Creativity, and Survival, featuring Sarah Nooter, Professor of Classics, University of Chicago. 

Mar 12

Lecture: Democratic Hedonism and Its Tyrannical Child in Plato's Republic, featuring Cinzia Arruzza, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. 12-2pm @Sequoyah Hall Room 103. Co-sponsored with the International Institute Working Group on Fascism and Authoritarian Populism.

Mar 10

CANCELED Lecture: Who's Who: Anagnorisis (Recognition) and Late Ancient Christianity, with Ellen Muehlberger, Professor, Departments of History and Middle East Studies, University of Michigan. 5-7pm @ The Huerta-Vera Cruz Room.  CANCELED

Feb 26

Annual Ranglas Lecture: Aeschylus' Oresteia and Athenian Politics, featuring Constance Carroll, Chancellor of the San Diego Community College District. 5-7PM @The Village at Torrey Pines -15th Floor, Room 15A (1 Scholars Drive N)

Feb 3

Annual Vassiliadis Lecture: Late Antique Caesarea: a City of interreligious and intercultural Encounters, featuring Maren Niehoff, Max Cooper Professor Jewish Thought at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 5-7PM @The Village at Torrey Pines -15th Floor, Room 15A (1 Scholars Drive N)

Nov 25

Lecture: The Resilience of a "Non-People": Notes on Phoenician-Punic Identities in the Interconnected Mediterranean, co-sponsored with Classical Studies), with Carolina López-Ruiz, Professor, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, 4:30-7PM @Barrett Room, HDH Admin Building, 4th floor

Nov 18

Lecture: Thessaloniki: A Metro-Polis Through the Centuries, with Dr. Polyxeni Adam-Veleni, Director of General Antiquities and Cultural Heritage in the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 5-7PM @The Village at Torrey Pines - 15th Floor, Room 15-B (1 Scholars Drive N)

Nov 6

Lecture: Defending Democracy from Extremism: The Rise and Apparent Fall of the Greek Golden Dawn (co-sponsored with International Institute Faculty Group on Fascism & Authoritarian Populism), with Antonis Ellinas, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Cyprus. 5-7PM @Huerta-Vera Cruz room, Original Student Center

Nov 4

Lecture: Jews, Greeks, and the American Racial Imagination (co-sponsored with Jewish Studies), with Devin E. Naar, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Washington.  5-7PM @Seuss Library, Ida & Cecil Green Faculty Club

Oct 30

Lecture: Cities on the Edge of War: Teaching Greek History Through a Strategy Role-Playing Game, with Eric Robinson, Professor, Department of History, Indiana University Bloomington. 4-6PM @Marshall College Room, Price Center West, Level 2

Oct 14

Lecture: Reading Boredom: Pliny the Younger, Praise and Competition in the Panegyrici Latini, with Marco Formisano, Professor, Department of Literary Studies, Ghent University.  5-7PM @Galbraith Room, H&SS 40425

May 16 

Lecture with Alex Petkas, Assistant Professor at Fresno State and lecturer at UCSD will lecture on "Plato in Sicily: Tyrants, Letters, and the Fate of Philosophy," at 3-5pm in the Galbraith Room on the Fourth Floor of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building.

May 2-3

UC San Diego - Firenze University Workshop

April 18

Nate Aschenbrenner (PhD candidate, Harvard University) will lecture on "Reframing Byzantium: Empire, Territory, and Identity after the Fall of Constantinople."  3-5pm at the Galbraith Room on the 4th floor of the Humanities and Social Sciences Building. 

March 18

Annual Vassiliadis Lecture: "Yearning to See God: Early Byzantine Art, Theology, and Science." Our featured speaker this year is Laura Nasrallah, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard Divinity School.  5:00-7:00 pm, at The Village at Torrey Pines, 15th Floor.

March 7

"Women and Children First: The Earliest Evidence for Ancient Greek Body Amulets." A lecture by Professor Christopher Faraone, University of Chicago. 5pm, Boardroom at Sixty-Four North.

February 27

"This is Sparta?: Sparta and Athens as Classroom Models." A lecture by Dr. Mike Lippman, Associate Professor of the Practice, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  4pm at the Yosemite Room, Canyon Vista.

February 21

Annual Ranglas Lecture. Our distinguished speaker was H. Alan Shapiro, The W. H. Collins Vickers Professor of Archaeology, The Johns Hopkins University.  His talk, "Up Close and Personal: Gods and Mortals in Classical Athenian Art," will discuss the intensely personal relationship between gods and humans in Greek religion.  The talk will take place at  5:00-7:00pm, at The Village, 15th Floor.  Light refreshments will be served.

January 28

"Dreams in Greek and Roman Religion: Old and New Problems." Lecture by Gil Renberg, Lecturer of Classics and Religious Studies, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  Dr. Renberg is the 2018 Goodwin award recipient for his book, "Where Dreams May Come: Incubation Sanctuaries in the Greco-Roman World."

January 7

"Dido of Carthage: Reclaiming a Roman Queen."  Lecture by Josephine Quinn, Associate Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University and Martin Fredericksen Fellow and Tutor of Ancient History at Worcester College, Oxford.  Dr. Quinn is author of In Search of the Phoenicians, published by Princeton University Press in 2018.  

October 5

"Bodies, Books, Histories -- Augustine of Hippo on the Extraordinary." Lecture by Susanna Elm, the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of History and Classics, at UC Berkeley. 4:30-6:00pm, at the Galbraith Room, H&SS 4025

October 9

"Late Antiquity: 'Long and Broad.'" Seminar featuring Arnaldo Marcone, Humanistic Studies Department, Roman History, Roma Tre University. 1:00-4:00pm at the Galbraith Room, H&SS 4025.

June 6, 2018

In collaboration with the Scripps Center for Maritime Archaeology, we hosted a lecture on underwater archaeology, by Professor Stella Demesticha. The talk, "Mazotos, Cyprus: A 4th BC Shipwreck Site by the Book?" discussed a fourth-century shipwreck discovered off the coast of Cyprus, near the village of Mazotos. The shipwreck lay undisturbed for 2,400 years.  Underwater excavations and new digital technologies reveal much about classical ships and their cargos.

May 1-2, 2018

The first UCSD-Fudan University, Shanghai, graduate student conference in Greco-Roman antiquity was held.

April 24, 2018

Dr. Philon spoke about "Cultural Encounters: The Innovative Islamic Architecture of the Deccan, India." Dr. Philon has a PhD on the Bahmani of the Deccan and Early Islamic Deccani architecture. She was the curator of Islamic Art at the Benaki Museum, in Athens, Greece and is the co-founder of the Deccan Heritage Foundation.. Co-sponsored with the Jewish Studies Program and Middle East Studies Program.

April 18, 2018

Special Screening & Discussion of Iphigenia: Book of Change, a film by Elise Kermani.  The film of a live performance is inspired by Euripides' plays of Iphigenia, as well as stories of contemporary women who have endured, survived, and escaped captivity.  A common thread throughout the sources of inspiration is the concept of a prison in one's mind versus a physical place of imprisonment or incarceration. This performance found its origins in the experience and survival by a relative of Kermani at Teheran's Evin Prison when she was 16 years old.  How does one survive the experience of solitary confinement, physical, psychological, and emotional torture? As an "archaeologist of Greek myth," Kermani found a vehicle for her production through the ancient Greek plays about Iphigenia.  It is an intense journey through a series of seemingly unrelated events united by situations of confinement, censorship, fear, and death.  Throughout all this, however, there is a sense of hope of a better future if the characters involved continue to persevere, seek knowledge and listen to their muses.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the director, Elise Kermani, and UCSD's professors Page duBois and Babak Rahimi.

The film screening is co-sponsored with Middle East Studies and the Classical Studies Program, and part of Institute of Arts and Humanities' Film Series.

March 26, 2018

Celebration for Greek Independence Day. This year's Independence Day event celebrates the contributions, accomplishments, and experiences of our students.  It featured presentations by our doctoral students, who gave brief summaries of their cutting-edge research.  Each year hundreds of students take our Hellenic Studies courses and a smaller number of them go on our summer program in Greece.  They recounted their experiences of living and studying in Greece.  This event took place at 5:00-7:30pm in the Huerta-Cruz Room, at the Old Student Center.  

March 15, 2018

Lecture co-sponsored with the Classical Studies Program, with guest speaker Katerina Ierodiakonou, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the University of Geneva. The talk, "Ancient Theories of Color," will be held at the Huerta-Cruz Room, at the Old Student Center at 5-7pm. Light refreshments will be served, following the talk. 

March 10, 2018

Concert with the Xylouris White Duo, at the Loft.  Doors open at 6:30pm.  The Concert will be preceded at 7:00pm by a discussion with the performers, moderated by Professor Tom Gallant. Xylouris White is firmly rooted in the past and future. Playing Cretan music of original and traditional composition, the band consists of Georgios Xylouris on Cretan laouto and vocals and Jim White on drum kit. Xylouris is known and loved by Cretans and Greeks at home and abroad and has been playing professionally from age 12. Jim White is an Australian drummer known and loved throughout the world as the drummer of Dirty Three, Venom P Stinger and now Xylouris White. For the last four years these two men have been performing as Xylouris White, the culmination of 25 years of friendship forged through music and place. Tickets are FREE for UCSD Students. General Admission is $10. This event is co-presented with University Centers. 

February 15, 2018

A lecture with Dr. Nikos Panou, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Peter V. Tsantes Endowed Professor in Hellenic Studies at Stony Brook University. Dr. Panou will talk about "Artifices of Eternity: Constructing Sainthood in the Ottoman Balkans." The talk will be held at the Governance Chambers on the 4th floor of the Price Center, at 5pm.

February 12, 2018

The annual Vassiliadis Lecture was held at The Village 15th Floor, from 5-7pm.  Our featured speaker, Dr. Michael Kulikowski, the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Classics  at Penn State University, will speak on "Was There a Eurasian Late Antiquity?". Dr. Kulikowski writes on the institutional and political history of late antiquity.  His books include Rome's Gothic Wars (2007) and Triumph of Empire (2016), and have been translated into six languages. He writes regularly for the London Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal.  Light refreshments will be served following the lecture.

January 18, 2018

The second annual Ranglas Lecture was held at The Village 15A, between 5-7pm.  The talk is: "Were Barbarians Barbaric? The View from Greece," featuring Erich Gruen, Wood Professor Emeritus of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley .  The talk attempts to elicit how term "barbarian" was understood in the Hellenic world. Greeks Regularly referred to those who did not speak Greek as "barbaroi." Was this simply a matter of language and culture? Or did the term carry within it a sense of ethnic inferiority? Did that label signify uncivilized savages who were reckoned as contemptible and even subhuman? In short, did such characterization constitute racism?   

November 16, 2017

“Nations Against Empires: Nation State Building in the Balkans, 18th-20th Centuries.” A special lecture with Dr. Christina Koulouri, Professor in Modern and Contemporary History at Panteion University of Political and Social Sciences, in Athens, Greece, and Director of the Research Center for Modern History.  The talk will focus on major transformations in Southeastern Europe from the late eighteenth century to the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and the First World War (1914-1918), in the context of global changes that led to the demise of the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and German empires and reconfigured the map of Europe.  The talk will be held at The Village at Torrey Pines, on the 15th floor, from 5-7pm.  Light refreshments will be served after the talk. 

October 9, 2017

“An Archaeologist's Eye: Drawing the Parthenon Sculpture (or trying to see what is no longer visible).” Lecture with Katherine Schwab, Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Fairfield University, scans of whose graphite drawings are part of the permanent installation in the Acropolis Museum, in Athens, Greece.  Dr. Schwab will discuss the drawing techniques she developed, the process of making these drawings, including the influence of Tibetan thangka painting, discoveries she has made, and proposed polychromatic effects in some of the Parthenon's East metopes. The talk will be held at the Fung Auditorium, in the Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall, at the Jacobs School of Engineering, from 5-7pm, and will be followed by a reception with light refreshments.

October 29, 2016 at 9:30 am – 4:00 pm
UC San Diego hosted the Friends of Ancient History Meeting.

January 14, 4:00 pm
Johannes Haubold gave a lecture titled: “Greece and Mesopotamia: Paradigms and Pitfalls of Comparative Literature”

February 9, 4:30 pm
Christine Shepardson (Lindsay Young Professor at the University of Tennessee) gave the 4th annual Vassiliadis lecture on "Putting Religion in its Places: How the Roman Empire Became Christian"

March 24, 4:30 - 6:30 pm
The Eighth Annual UC San Diego Greek Independence Day Celebration— Sponsored by the Nicholas Family Endowed Chair and the Center for Hellenic Studies Program

1. Introduction and Report on the Center for Hellenic Studies
2. Current Research by UCSD Doctoral Students
3. Featured Speaker: Dr. Laurie Kain Hart, Professor of Anthropology, UCLA "Greece at the Cutting Edge: from the Cold War to the Migration Crisis" Reception

March 31– April 2
UC San Diego’s Center for Hellenic Studies participated in the 2016, Second Annual Western Consortium for Hellenic Studies Graduate Student Conference at Simon Fraser University

April 7, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Event: Marco Formisano of the University of Ghent gave a talk: “A 'new-allegorical' reading of late Latin poetry"

April 14, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Event: Screening of the documentary film: “Kisses for the Children” Followed by a Q and A session with the film’s director, Vassilis Loules.

April 18, 4:00 pm
Antonis A. Ellinas gave a talk: Organizing against Democracy: The Development of the Golden Dawn in Greece

May 12, 6:00 pm
Inaugural Address by Professor Denise Demetriou the Gerry and Jeannie Ranglas Endowed Chair in Ancient Greek History

May 17, 4:30 pm
Event: Scott McGill of Rice University gave a talk: "Did Plagiarism Exist in Ancient Rome?"