Jun
13
2025
Classics Undergraduate Graduation Party
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This is a celebratory reception honoring our graduating majors and minors. Graduating students are welcome to bring guests.
Past Events
Jun
6
2025
Classics Expo and Award Ceremony
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Join us for an afternoon of lunch, presentations, and awards. Open to all members of the Classics Community.
May
23
2025
Ancient Economies Conference
8:15 AM - 5:15 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Ancient Economies May 23, 2025 Sponsored by: Northwestern Center for Economic History Joel Mokyr, Joe Ferrie, and Walker Hanlon, co-directors Organizers: Walker Hanlon and Taco...
May
16
2025
Suspense and Surprise in Greek Tragedy
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Visiting Lecture by Glenn Most Starting from Alfred Hitchcock's classic distinction between suspense and surprise, I ask how much of each...
Apr
18
2025
Sarah Derbew (Stanford University): “Horizontal Reading Practices in Greek and Ethiopian Satire”
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Please join us on Friday, April 18 at noon in the Classics Seminar Room (Kresge 4364) for a lecture by...
Apr
11
2025
Classics Visiting Lecture: Francesca Schironi (University of Michigan)
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Beautiful but Wrong: Hipparchus on Aratus’ Phaenomena and their Ancient Reception Aratus’ Phaenomena (ca. 270 BCE), a poem about constellations, enjoyed...
Mar
6
2025
Professor Barry Wimpfheimer, "Myth, Ritual, and the Invention of the Passover Seder"
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Recent scholarship has intervened against established scholarship to assert that the Mishnah, the foundational second century rabbinic code of law,...
Feb
28
2025
Patrice Rankine (University of Chicago): " Revisiting August Wilson’s Reading of Aristotle’s Poetics"
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Please join us on Friday, February 28 at 12:00pm in Kresge 4364 (Classics Seminar Room) for a lecture by Patrice...
Feb
17
2025
Nick Winters - "Rival Arithmetics of Ancient Greece"
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Science in Human Culture Program - Klopsteg Lecture Series
Speaker Nick Winters, Classics, Northwestern University Title "Rival Arithmetics of Ancient Greece" Abstract The origin of European theoretical mathematics is usually placed by historians in...
Jan
31
2025
Naomi Weiss (Harvard University): "Tragic excess: the poetics of proliferation in Euripides’ 'Orestes' and 'Ino'"
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Already in his own lifetime, Euripides was known for pushing the boundaries of what a tragedy could be. While recent...
Jan
24
2025
Flint Dibble (University of Cardiff): Let’s Talk about Atlantis: Engaging with Archaeology and History Misinformation
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Let’s Talk about Atlantis: Engaging with Archaeology and History Misinformation "Over the last few decades, pseudoarchaeological narratives about Atlantis and Lost...
Nov
15
2024
Elizabeth Macaulay (CUNY Graduate Center): "Ancient Exempla: Moving Towards A Global Reception of Ancient Architecture and Monuments"
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Reception studies are now a core part of classical studies. Yet, the study of ancient art and architecture has lagged...
Nov
1
2024
Charles McNelis (Georgetown University): Achilles and Odysseus in Statius' "Achilleid"
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Statius' Achilleid takes as its subject the hero Achilles prior to his participation in the Trojan War. Even though this...
Oct
16
2024
Peter van Dommelen (Brown University): "Nuragic Nostalgia: Cultural Memory, Local Traditions and Colonial Entanglements in Iron Age Sardinia"
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
As was the case throughout most of the Mediterranean, for the prehistoric (Indigenous) Nuragic communities of Sardinia, the Iron Age...
Jun
7
2024
Classics Undergraduate Graduation Party
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This is a celebratory reception honoring our graduating majors and minors. Graduating students are welcome to bring guests.
May
30
2024
Classics Expo and Awards Ceremony
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Open to all members of the Classics Department
May
24
2024
Serena Witzke Visiting Lecture: What can we see through Roman Comedy? Exploring non-dominant narratives in Plautus and Terence
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
The extant literature of ancient Rome has a representation problem. How can we understand the experiences of women, non-citizens, freedpersons,...
May
23
2024
Serena Witzke Workshop: Wheelock, AGAIN? How to promote diverse voices in traditional textbooks
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
In this workshop, we will examine Northwestern’s set textbooks for Intro and Intermediate Latin: whose voices are promoted? what perspectives...
May
11
2024
Chicago Region Workshop
10:00 AM - 4:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This workshop brings together early and mid-career faculty in Classics from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana for informal peer review. Papers...
Apr
5
2024
Edith Hall (Durham University): "What I learned from Editing Aeschylus' Agamemnon"
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
RSVP at classics@northwestern.edu
Mar
29
2024
Skye Shirley (PhD candidate, Yale University): Women Writing Vergil
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Please contact classics@northwestern.edu for RSVP.
Mar
12
2024
Teaching Museum Literacy
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This pedagogical event will be hosted at the Art Institute of Chicago with Lisa Cakmak and Ashley Aricho. Contact Prof. Ryan...
Mar
1
2024
Using Trans Theory to Reinterpret Megillos: Re-embodiment and the Difficulty of Translation in Lucian’s Fifth Dialogue of the Courtesans
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Lucian’s Megillos has often found himself at the center of contemporary border wars over identity in modern scholarship. Is Megillos...
Feb
29
2024
Building a Community of Care: Trans in Classics and the Necessity of Care within the Academy
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
At the intersection of scholarly life and marginalized gender identity lies a unique set of challenges. In 2020, in answer...
Feb
28
2024
Helping Trans* Students Thrive: Finding Mentorship, Community, and Advocacy
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
On top of the normal pressures of school life, trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming students often feel like we’re barely getting...
Feb
26
2024
Nava Cohen, "The Old Story for Our Modern Times: Ancient Figures in Contemporary Anglophone Young Adult Fiction"
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Nava Cohen (PhD Candidate, Comparative Literary Studies, Classics Cluster) will offer a public preview of her dissertation prospectus: “The Old...
Feb
16
2024
Shadows of Time: The Science and Art of the Ancient Sundial
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Mechanically simple and mathematically sophisticated, the sundial was a triumph of ancient astronomy and technology. In this lecture and workshop,...
Jan
29
2024
Sawyer Seminar: Cato, A Tragedy
5:15 PM - 7:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
The panel will address how a 2023 performance adapted from Joseph Addison's "Cato, A Tragedy” — a play favored by...
Dec
8
2023
Hybrid workshop: Producing Collaborative Commentaries, Tom Hendrickson (University of California, Berkeley)
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
In this hybrid workshop, Tom Hendrickson will provide us key background on print-on-demand, collaborative research, and the current status of...
Sep
21
2023
Launch Event for “On Decolonizing Theatre”
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
You’re invited to a presentation about the Mellon Sawyer seminar series featuring brief remarks from the project leaders and a...
Sep
21
2023
Launch Event: "On Decolonizing Theatre" Sawyer Seminar
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM, sponsored by "On Decolonizing Theatre" Mellon-Sawyer Seminar
What: Launch Event for “On Decolonizing Theatre” When: September 21, 2023 from 6:00 PM - 7:15 PM Where: Regenstein Hall of Music...
May
26
2023
Symposium on Plato's Symposium: Platonic Love After the Affective Turn
12:30 PM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Department of French and Italian
Join us Friday, May 26 from 1:00–6:00pm for the Department of French and Italian's spring quarter conference: Symposium on Plato's Symposium:...
May
26
2023
Student Workshop, "Virgil in the Cane Fields" and Book History with Erika Valdivieso (Yale University)
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
In this workshop, Professor Valdivieso will share her process for researching and assembling a current work-in-progress, “Virgil in the Cane...
May
24
2023
Erika Valdivieso (Yale University), "Erasing Dido"
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Dido is omnipresent in early modern imitations of the Aeneid, but there is no Dido figure in Latin epics from...
May
12
2023
Elizabeth Hunter (Washington University in St. Louis), “Your House Is Her House: Agamemnon in Augmented Reality"
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Elizabeth Hunter, Classics Cluster Certificate alumna (Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre & Drama 2018) and Assistant Professor of Drama at Washington...
May
5
2023
Glenn Most (University of Chicago), "On the Relation between Xenophanes’ Hexametric and Elegiac Poetry"
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Xenophanes wrote poems in dactylic hexameters and in elegiac couplets (and also, though this may be doubted, in iambic trimeters)....
Apr
21
2023
Andrea Augenti Global Antiquites Workshop
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Andrea Augenti (University of Bologna) will be presenting "From the Ashes? Transformations of Italian Cities during Late Antiquity and the...
Apr
15
2023
Teaching Antiquities Symposium
All day, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Northwestern University’s Global Antiquities group is hosting a one-day symposium on the topic of “Teaching Antiquity.” This symposium will bring...
Mar
10
2023
Arjan Zuiderhoek, “Empire and the Limits of Exploitation: Wealth and Power between Imperial Centre and Provincial City in the Roman World"
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Global Antiquities Workshop. In-Person. Description to come.
Mar
3
2023
Richard Saller (Stanford), "Pliny's Natural History: ''a culture of innovation"?"
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
E. W. Gudger described Pliny’s Natural History as “the most popular Natural History ever published” and it has been regarded...
Feb
24
2023
Renaud Gagné (University of Cambridge), "Secret Signs and Hidden Gods: Magic and Philosophy in the Later Roman Empire"
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Innumerable types of graphic marks populated the visual environment of Mediterranean cities in the later Roman empire. Different sign systems...
Feb
22
2023
Henry Stead (University of St. Andrews), "Class Struggle in Catullan Rome: Jack Lindsay’s 'Brief Light: a novel of Catullus' (1939)"
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
To Jack Lindsay (1900-1990), the Australia-born British communist poet and man of letters, discovering Marxism felt like coming home. He...
Feb
17
2023
Edith Hall (Durham University), "New Directions in Aristotle Scholarship: Literary Style and Reception"
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Further to the publication of Aristotle's Way (2019), which aimed to make Aristotle's secular ethics accessible to a wide audience...
Jan
6
2023
Byzantine Influence On Old Rus': A Reassessment
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Sergey Ivanov (British Academy Fellow; Northwestern University Visiting Scholar) will be presenting a Global Antiquities Workshop in the Classics Seminar...
Dec
1
2022
Joseph Farrell (University of Pennsylvania): Is race a theme in Vergil's Aeneid?
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
The title of this talk poses a question that has seldom if ever been asked, and that appears simple, but...
Nov
18
2022
Capillary Networks in a Contact Zone: Upper Indus Rock Inscriptions and Petroglyphs
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
Jason Neelis (Wilfrid Laurier University) will be presenting a Global Antiquities workshop entitled "Capillary Networks in a Contact Zone: Upper...
Nov
8
2022
Pascale Brillet-Dubois (Université Lumière Lyon 2): Euripides’ "Trojan Women": A Tragic Parthenon
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
In his tragedy The Trojan Women, Euripides makes use of verbal, visual and structural allusions to the recently built Parthenon...
Oct
21
2022
Blaze Marpet (NU): Philosophy, Happiness, and Liberation: Protreptic in Plato and Vātsyāyana
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
In Plato’s Euthydemus, Socrates offers a famous protreptic argument—that is, one intended to exhort his audience to practice philosophy. Socrates'...
Oct
18
2022
Joseph Farrell (University of Pennsylvania): Is race a theme in Vergil's Aeneid?
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Description to come.
Oct
14
2022
Irene Romano (University of Arizona): Exhibiting Classical Antiquity during the Nazi Era
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Art History
Much has been written about the interest in Greek and Roman antiquity and its appropriation under National Socialism, but among...
Oct
14
2022
Claude Calame (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales): The technical relationships of humans with their environment and the Greek phusis: neither nature nor Gaia
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
The consequences of the increasingly striking interventions by humans on their living environment, with the various types of pollution that...
May
27
2022
POSTPONED Marathon Reading of the Aeneid
10:00 PM - 11:45 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This event is now postponed until the fall. Date to be announced. Kick Off for the Marathon Reading of the Aeneid:...
May
27
2022
POSTPONED Marathon Reading of the Aeneid: Kick Off
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This event is now postponed until the fall. Date to be announced. Kick Off for the Marathon Reading of the Aeneid:...
May
19
2022
Professor Jennifer Finn (Loyola University): "The Last Plans of Alexander, Reconsidered"
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
The historian Diodorus Siculus tells us that Alexander left a memorandum with his last orders. These included a supply of...
May
2
2022
Judith Hallett: Latin literary portrayals of Phoenician female speech and their American legacy: Plautus’ Phoenicium, Vergil’s Dido, Emma Lazarus and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
My paper first examines the Latin literary portrayals of two fictional women—both described as what ancient Greeks and Romans called...
Apr
29
2022
Glenn Most: From Athens to China and Back: A Western Student of Ancient Greece Looks at the Chinese Classical Tradition
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Until recently, modern Europe and the cultures that derive from it accorded an unquestioned privilege to the Classical traditions they...
Apr
21
2022
Eric Cline: 1177 BC: Revisiting the Late Bronze Age Collapse
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
For more than three hundred years during the Late Bronze Age, from about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean...
Apr
14
2022
Professor Griet Vankeerberghen (McGill University): "Mobility and the Consolidation of Empire: The Case of a Local Official during Late Western Han"
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
In 1993 the tomb of Shi Rao, a low-level local official working for the Governor of the Donghai commandery who...
Mar
11
2022
Flint Dibble: Horse Sacrifice at Phaleron? Interpreting Ancient Greek Horse Burials
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Global Antiquities
The study of over a dozen horses buried at Phaleron represents one of the largest scientific studies of horses in...
Feb
18
2022
Demetra Kasimis: The Intimacy of Conspiracy: Democratic Erosion and the Problem of the Oikos
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Real and suspected plots to overthrow democracy periodically dominated life in classical Athens, but scholars have been slow to see...
Dec
10
2021
The Dangers of Sects: Lucian, Galen, and Sextus Empiricus
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM, sponsored by NU Ancient Philosophy Workshop
The NU Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy Workshop Series will host University of Illinois, Chicago's Justin Vlasits.
Oct
8
2021
Department of Classics Lecture: Jackie Murray (University of Kentucky)
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
The Department of Classics is delighted to present Jackie Murray (University of Kentucky) on Friday, October 8, at 3:00-5:00 PM CST. Title:...
Sep
1
2021
Academic Directions Fair 2021
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
This year’s Academic Directions Fair for incoming students will be virtual. The Department of Classics presentation is on September 8th...
Jun
13
2021
Department of Classics Graduation Meetup
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Join us for congratulations and friendly conversation at the Classics Graduation Meetup event on Sunday, June 13th, 2-3pm. In the...
Jun
3
2021
Classics Expo and Awards Ceremony
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Classics Expo and Awards Ceremony on June 3 will showcase research by undergraduate students. Email classics@northwestern.edu for for more information.
May
28
2021
Global Antiquities Lecture: Ann Gunter
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Global Antiquities is delighted to present Ann Gunter (Professor of Art History, Classics, and in the Humanities), "A Culture of...
May
19
2021
Warnock Lecture Series: Jennifer Trimble (Stanford University)
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Art History
Interactions of Slavery and Visual Culture in Ancient Rome Northwestern University Department of Art History presents the Warnock Lecture Series This lecture...
May
7
2021
Famoro Dioubate: a performance and discussion of the poetic and musical heritage of West African song and oral poetry
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
An afternoon with Famoro Dioubate: a performance and discussion of the poetic and musical heritage of West African song and...
Apr
22
2021
Curtis Dozier (Vassar College), “‘The Values of Athens’ in Contemporary White Ethnonationalism”
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
“The Values of Athens” in Contemporary White Ethnonationalism Classical scholars who are familiar with the admiration for ancient Sparta among contemporary...
Apr
14
2021
The Suppliants Project online by Theater of War Productions
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
The Suppliants Project by Theater of War Productions featuring performances by David Zayas (Dexter), David Denman (The Office), Andrea Patterson...
Mar
11
2021
Classical Receptions Workshop: Francesca Tataranni and CA Davis (MAD Studio)
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
"One Dark Wall: Waking Up to the Aeneid in 1985" Join professor Francesca Tataranni (Department of Classics) and filmmaker CA Davis...
Feb
19
2021
Going, Going, Gone!—The Online Market in Mesopotamian Antiquities in Times of Conflict - Oya Topcuoglu
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
The Global Antiquities Research Workshop presents Dr. Oya Topçuoğlu: Going, Going, Gone!—The Online Market in Mesopotamian Antiquities in Times of Conflict Please...
Feb
5
2021
Classical Receptions Workshop: Glenn Most (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa/University of Chicago), “What is a Classic Text?”
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
“What is a Classic Text?” Classical Receptions Workshop: Glenn Most (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa/University of Chicago) on Tuesday, February 5th,...
Nov
18
2020
Global Antiquities Online Lecture: Loubna El Amine
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Global Antiquities is delighted to present Loubna El Amine (Political Science), “The political status of women in the ancient Confucian...
Nov
12
2020
AntigoneNOW at the Wirtz Center, opening on November 12
All day, sponsored by Department of Classics
AntigoneNOW Available On-Demand NOV 12–19 In the midst of a bombed-out city still feeling the aftershocks of war, the rebellious and intense...
Oct
30
2020
Classics Online Lecture: Amy Richlin (UCLA), "Subalternity in the Roman Metropole"
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
"Subalternity in the Roman Metropole" Please join the Department of Classics for an online lecture with Amy Richlin, UCLA, on October...
Sep
25
2020
Classics Welcome Event
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Please join the Classics faculty, students, and friends to celebrate the launch of the 2020-2021 academic year at the Classics...
Sep
2
2020
Weinberg Academic Directions Fair
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM, sponsored by Department of Classics
Join Classics at the virtual Weinberg Academc Directions Fair on Wednesday, September 2, 11am – 12pm. For more information visit...