VIEWS Summer seminars 2026 We are delighted to announce an exciting programme of seminars for the coming term, taking place in May and June 2026. The first two seminars are in-person/hybrid, the second two online only &#8211…

VIEWS Summer seminars 2026 (online and hybrid) @viewsproject.bsky.social viewsproject.wordpress.com/2026/04/20/v... @pierskelly.bsky.social

(Re-)Uniting City and Country This volume inaugurates the IN-ROME Studies Series and explores the dynamic relationship between cities and their surrounding landscapes. Its objective is to enhance our understanding of the complex c...

a volume I'm a co-editor on has just been published. Contributions aim to center urban peripheries in the Roman world (heavy on Rome and Italy) from a variety of perspectives
(The paper version will cost you mightily, but an open-access digital version should be available within a day or two)
🏺

Now reading:
“The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt: 300 BC - AD 700” - J. McKenzie

A thorough examination of the visual and architectural landscape of Egypt from the Ptolemaic dynasty through Late Antiquity, particularly the city of Alexandria, the most renowned in the Hellenistic period

This fresco depicts a riot. Figures can be seen fighting inside and outside the arena. The arena has external stairs to reach the upper seating, archways leading into the arena, and awnings shading the central area. MAN Napoli: inv. 112222. Photo credit: Carole Raddato via World History Encyclopaedia.

✨Riot at the arena!✨

This fresco depicts a riot at the arena in Pompeii. The fresco likely depicts the riot that broke out in 59 CE between Pompeians and the neighbouring Nucerians.

I wrote this is a furious fugue state after reading Owen's skeet this afternoon. How I learned I can't trust academic online resources anymore, and what happened when I asked ChatGPT for some sources...

Academia is cooked.

www.ancientalexandra.co.uk/p/ai-lies

BOOK LAUNCH PARTY Celebrate the release of Dr. Jeremy Swist new book JULIAN AUGUSTUS Platonism, Myth, and the Refounding of Rome APRIL 15 5 PM HOOKED Bookstore 3142 E. Michigan Ave, Lansing 48912 Jeremy Swist is Assistant Professor at MSU Department of Romance and Classical Studies. His book, Julian Augustus, Platonism, Myth and the Refounding of Rome, gathers and synthesizes a rich and deep bibliography of scholarship on Julian from the past half centur Message

Anyone within striking distance of Lansing are welcome to attend this tomorrow. I'll read some selected passages from my book and do a Q&A. There's also free cake! 🎂

FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigate the violence, protests and arrests stemming from the federal immigration sweeps across the country. "Caught in the Crackdown" premieres tonight on PBS and online.

A tablet of Zimri Lim, a roughly rectangular clay tablet with Akkadian inscriptions.

This Friday (4/17) at 12:00 PM EDT, Sergio Alivernini (Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences) will discuss politics, intrigue, and espionage found in tablets from the Mesopotamian Kingdom of Mari (ca. 2900–1762 BCE). 🕵️🗺️

Register here to join: https://forms.gle/YLa4fXgc6redYExFA

In-Person Event. Reading Without Words: Hidden Stories of Ethiopic Manuscripts. Workshop with Dr. Jeremy R. Brown. Date: April 23 (workshop 3:30–4:30 p.m., reception to follow). Location: Minnesota Humanities Center, St. Paul, MN. RSVP: HMML.org

On Thursday, April 23, at 3:30 p.m. (CT), join Dr. Jeremy R. Brown in Minnesota for a hands-on, in-person workshop that brings the world of Ethiopic manuscripts to life, showing what we can learn simply by looking closely.

RSVP for this free, in-person workshop: hmml.org/events

Fragment of ancient Greek papyrus with handwritten text, featuring overlaid captions: "Hidden stories: gravedigger families from 1,800 years ago" and "Using digitised items to find hidden stories in Greek papyri.

Newly digitised Greek papyri from the Bodleian reveal the lives of ancient Egyptian gravediggers, including working as carers and taking part in legal affairs. 📜

[1/7]

Same goes for every "genius" academic or scholar.

Women's healthcare in ancient Mesopotamia in the first millennium BCE : an edition of the textual sources | WorldCat.org "Treatments for women from ancient Mesopotamia form the most extensive medical corpus on female health from antiquity beside the Hippocratic gynaecological works. This volume presents a comprehensive

There is a new, open access anthology (=great teaching resource) about _Women's healthcare in ancient Mesopotamia in the first millennium BCE_ edited by Ulrike Steinert. search.worldcat.org/title/Women'... I would then combine this with the ancient medicine sourcebook www.ucpress.edu/books/medici...

*Surreptitiously nudges taijijian back into its corner*

Another new resource on our site is a guide for scholars looking to start shifting into public scholarship or adding it to their repertoire.

Please check it out, share it with first gens, grad students, and ECRs, and make any suggestions for additions!

Also see our other resources on the site!

Me, at a naval museum, reading a display about sea mammals being trained to do recovery work:

“Oh! Look! It says here that dolphins train for 5-7 years. It’s like they get a PhD!”

[reads further]

“Oh…no. Never mind. It also says that ‘naval animals learn through positive reinforcement.’”

How "heroes" destroy civilisations Joel P. Christensen shares a provocative reflection linking modern geopolitical rhetoric to ancient Greek myth, exploring how hubris, heroism, and “main character” thinking continue to shape war, leadership, and the fate of civilisations.

"Superficial readings of Homer lead audiences to imagine that heroes are admirable. What each epic shows, however, is that the vast majority of people in heroic communities suffer because of their excesses...

neoskosmos.com/en/2026/04/0...

The Art of Flowers in the Tale of Genji “In the woodblock print “Evening Banquet for Cherry-Blossom Viewing...”

Murasaki Shikibu’s 11th-century novel "The Tale of Genji" has remained popular and influential in Japan for more than a thousand years, including in visual art.

Katherine Goertz considers the role of #Flowers in the novel by examining an Edo-period print woodblock print: https://bit.ly/3OeySzq

The Huntington Library recently unveiled Sandy Rodriguez’s “Book 13,” which features a 20-foot-wide U.S. map of child migrant detention centers alongside federal Native-American boarding schools.

To reserve tickets to the full exhibit, visit huntington.org.

Treatment and Pharmacology of Anxiety From Classical Antiquity to the Present Day: Methods and Therapeutic Practices Anxiety has been an integral component of human experience, which has been explained through a variety of medical, philosophical, and cultural models throughout history. This study is a narrative revi...

Treatment and Pharmacology of Anxiety From Classical Antiquity to the Present Day: Methods and Therapeutic Practices | Cureus
www.cureus.com/articles/480...

So Happy Together: Arches with ArcGIS Integration As part of the March 12, 2026 Arches US Interest Group meeting, Adam Lodge and Peter Hansen (Farallon Geographics) gave a presentation entitled, "So Happy Together: Arches with ArcGIS Integration" to attendees, followed by a Q&A session. Learn more about the Arches US Interest Group and get email

▶️ Recording now available: watch a demo of various ways to utilize the Arches ArcGISPro integration, presented at a recent US Interest Group meeting by Adam Lodge and Peter Hansen of Farallon Geographics.

This #EarthMonth, we uplift Indigenous caretakers of the greater Los Angeles region w/ art by Tongva artist @Weshoyot Alvitre:

"I wanted to create something that will educate the public but also reflect back to us, as the original caretakers of Los Angeles’s unceded lands."

A black poster featuring orange and blue Chinese characters reading 荷马史诗与气候变化, "Climate Change in the Ancient World." There is a blue wave of the ocean next to a beige drawing of an ancient Greek maiden with a headpiece and handle like those of an amphora.

Today on the blog, Jinrui Zhang discusses his public engagement initiative in China, “Echoes of Antiquity,” funded by the Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities initiative.

classicalstudies.org/scs-blog/jin...

Election Day should be a national holiday, voter registration should be mandatory and universal, and all forms of voting should be made easier. And not voting should have a stigma to it, after it is made more accessible.

Thank you my friend 🙏🏾

bsky.app/profile/audr...

Erinnnn bsky.app/profile/loll...

Selling Out Santa Christmas is not just a day or a frame of mind as Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) imparts in Miracle on 34 th Street (1947); Christmas is also a vehicle for national mythmaking as an idealising mirror for...

My book Selling Out Santa is about the cultural consequences of political pressure on Hollywood in the post-war period.

It's Open Access and I stand by that; everyone should have access to education and scholarship.

But I am also unemployed, so any copies sold/venmo tips really do help a lot!

Book cover, with an ancient stone relief of 2 pairs of fighting gladiators. The text is crimson.

🥳Cover reveal for 'Gladiators in the Greek World: How a Roman Bloodsport Took Ancient Greece by Storm'🥳

Now officially available to pre-order with an early bird discount (though I'm not sure the release date on the website is 100% set in stone yet)

www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Gladiators-i...

At least one of these will likely feature in a future @tkingfisher.com novel.

Protect Chaco Canyon! Trump’s DOI has announced a proposal to open it to oil and gas drilling—potentially destroying sites that have been sacred to Pueblo and Diné indigenous communities for generations.

Say NO to revoking protections for this sacred place: eplanning.blm.gov/Project-Home...

Pasts Imperfect (4.2.26) 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...

The latest Pasts Imperfect is out! 📚 This week, Nandini Pandey, Niek Janssen & Christopher Londa discuss enslaved readers & writers in Roman antiquity. Then, Venice & the Mongols, a podcast on Cahokia, ancient astrological practices, ancient world journals from @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & more.