public history
This week, classicist and ancient historian Young Kim discusses public history and his contribution to episodes of a History Channel series focused on Attila the Hun. Then, using ancient Ge'ez writings to recover the realities of the Aksumite Empire; new books on everything from Edward Said's
Political Architecture
This week, Kimberly Cassibry and Elizabeth Macaulay discuss the architectural history and political messaging of triumphal arches. Then, a new book looks at W.E.B. Du Bois and Ancient Rome; researchers discover residues of anesthesia on 14th century surgical scissors and tweezers from Ming China; new open access books
Homer
This week, noted ailurophile and Homerist Joel Christensen sings to us about new scholarship helping us to make sense of Homer and highlights a new book on lamentation and glory in the Iliad. Then, reconfirming Jefferson's children with Sally Hemings, mapping the roads and coin circulation of the
Ancient India
This week, ancient historian Jeremy Simmons discusses Rome, India, and his new book on ancient Indian Ocean trade networks. Then, new mosaics may honor two beloved ancient pets, a new book on Aristotle in the antebellum South, the medieval evolution of the taifa of Denia, a gigantic new dinosaur in
translations
This week, classicist and translator Stephanie McCarter discusses the art of translation, adapting myth, and her new book on Catullus. Then, India's Rāmāyana answer to Nolan's Odyssey, archaeologists at Sardis find a monumental new statue, mapping the ancient jade trade in western Canada, a medieval caravanserai
ancient history
This week, classicist Jermaine Bryant discusses Zora Neale Hurston's posthumously published The Life of Herod the Great. Then, a new study of the mass grave at Phaleron (Attica) confirms a local population; UNESCO announces 25 new heritage areas as protected sites, including Sebastia in Palestine; a new, open
Homer
μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, of this special Homer issue to prepare you to head to the theaters to see The Odyssey this week. Our resident Homer sage, Joel Christensen, discusses his new book, Why Odysseus?: Survivor, Scoundrel, (Anti)hero. Then, Yoandy Cabrera provides a list of Hispanic reimaginings of The Odyssey
Supporting a Global Antiquity
This week, classicist Erika Valdivieso discusses new directions in Latin American classical reception, Virgil, and her new book, Empire’s Companion: Virgilian Epics from Colonial Iberoamerica. Then, ancient Cypriot pigeons, what film costumes convey about views of the ancient "other", a new game board from an early medieval
This week, ancient historian Tara Mulder discusses her new book, A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome, critical fabulation, and other methods for writing lost histories. Then, brewing beer during the Qin dynasty; marginalia within Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophical traditions; infants wrapped
This week, medievalist Matthew Vernon discusses Beowulf, Blackness, and the film Sinners (2025). Then, the ACLS, AHA, and MLA win the day for NEH grantees; dendrochronology and medieval Japanese aurorae; using pitch to examine where Roman boats were repaired; open access books on Serving the Christian State in Late Antiquity
This week, high school classicist Max J. Foa discusses how field schools and local museums can reshape the ways that we see the people of the past and the present. Then, remembering Averil Cameron and Annetta Alexandridis, the director of Pompeii announces that the site is jumping on the shady
This week, scholar of the ancient Mediterranean and India Tejas S. Aralere discusses ancient astrology in South Asia. Then, what medieval chess can tell us about race relations in the Middle Ages, new interactive maps of late antique church councils, encouraging Classics in China, ancient Native American dice games, lost
This week, Nandini Pandey, Niek Janssen, and Christopher Londa discuss writing, labor, and enslavement in Roman antiquity. Then, a new book on Venice and the Mongols, how ancient Maya communities made good use of local wetlands, Ancient Mediterranean astrological practices, democracy's global origins, introducing Latin to Massachusetts middle
This week, scholar of late antique Judaism and Angelologist Mika Ahuvia discusses the shared vocabulary of angels in antiquity. Then, ancient graffiti written in South Asian languages are discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, Yvonne Chireau discusses the religious history in Sinners, putting a price on Egyptian
Across the world—from the United States to Canada to Australia—departments and museums within higher education are closing. This week, ancient historian Geoffrey Greatrex discusses the suspension of the honors program in Greek and Roman studies at the University of Ottawa, Morag Kersel examines the closing of the DePaul
This week, classicist Curtis Dozier discusses new books—including his own—that critique Classics and the ways it is instrumentalized. Then, the role of Blackness in the imagery of the Middle Ages, an important new Edmonia Lewis retrospective, repatriating the Benin Bronzes, the pre-Inca Chincha Kingdom's use
This week, medievalist and historian of race Cord J. Whitaker discusses the National Park Service's removal of an exhibit on American slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park. Then, a new digital humanities project examines the ancient and modern artifacts of refugees, an open access Latin reader
This week, intellectual historian and classicist Inger N.I. Kuin discusses her new book on Diogenes and ruminates on the controversy in Texas surrounding teaching Plato. Then, a new edited, open access volume on the Material Dimensions of Ancient Philosophy and another on the joy of Chinese philosophy, a novel
This week, we are back from holiday break with a deep dive into the ethics, big business, and myth-peddling of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education. Then, bees in ancient jawbones within the Dominican Republic, Roman camels in Basel, protecting buildings from earthquakes during the Tang and Song Dynasties,