NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies was created by the Faculty of Arts and Science (A&S) in 1996 to promote interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the past. The Center does this by promoting collaboration among those A&S departments and programs which focus, in whole or in part, on antiquity and its reception in the modern world; it also collaborates with other units of the university, including the Institute of Fine Arts and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. The Center is delighted to present our first newsletter, which is part of an initiative to strengthen communication between the Center and its supporters, provide a public record of the Center's projects, and cultivate community engagement and connection. In particular, we want to call your attention to the opportunities, listed at the end of this newsletter, for departments and individuals to apply to the Center for grants, partial subvention of events, and co-sponsorship of programs. We also look forward to your feedback at ancient.studies@nyu.edu

Matthew S. Santirocco
Angelo J. Ranieri Director
Professor of Classics

In keeping with its mission to promote the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the past, the Center for Ancient Studies last year joined with the Departments of Art History, Classics, Comparative Literature, East Asian Studies, and Hebrew and Judaic Studies, to submit to the A&S Dean and the Provost a proposal to recruit over the next several years five new faculty members for a Comparative Antiquities cluster. Focusing on emerging scholarship and undertheorized lines of inquiry, this cluster will challenge and enrich current conceptions of the ancient world. It also aims to attract more diverse faculty and students. The proposal was approved and the first faculty member, Professor Alexander Forte, has joined the Classics Department this fall, coming to us from the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC. Professor Forte is a Homerist whose research specializations include cognitive approaches to metaphor and methods of comparatism. He is interested in reading archaic Greek poetry alongside Indic and Iranian poetic traditions, and is currently analyzing metaphors of speech in Homeric Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, and Avestan. To accompany this cluster initiative, the Center will sponsor the Comparative Antiquities Forum, occasional lectures and workshops highlighting research that applies comparative methodologies and theoretical reflection to the study of the ancient world.

The University has announced the appointment of Greg Woolf as the new Leon Levy Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World effective January 1, 2025. He will replace Professor Alexander Jones, who will be returning full-time to the faculty after eight and a half years as director. Professor Woolf is currently the Ronald J. Mellor Distinguished Professor of Ancient History at UCLA and the former director of the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London. A Roman historian, he works on ancient literacy, the Roman economy, ancient cities, and the emergence of religions. He has published six single-authored books and 10 edited works, and serves as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. A fellow of the British Academy, he is also a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ranieri Colloquium
Before Emotion II: Further Conversations on Affectivity in Pre-Modern Cultures (November 9-10, 2023)
The full program can be viewed here.

Larissa Bonfante Workshop of Etruscan and Italic Arts
Ways of Making in Early Italy (November 17, 2024)
The full program can be viewed here.

Rose-Marie Lewent Conference
Feeding Cities: Antiquity to the Middle Ages (April 4-5, 2024)
The full program can be viewed here.

NYU Society for Ancient Studies (SAS)
Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Conference on the Ancient World (April 5, 2024)
The full program can be viewed here.

Perpetual Antígonas: The Latin American Legacy of Antigone Past, Present, and Future (April 5, 2024)
The full program can be viewed here.

The Survival of Civilizations: The Mediterranean after 1177 BCE (May 7, 2024)
The full program can be viewed here.

Over the past two years, 60 students, approximately half graduate and half undergraduate, have received grants from the Center for Ancient Studies' Antonina S. Ranieri International Scholars Fund. This endowed fund supports summer or term-time international travel for the purposes of researching any aspects of antiquity. Both independent study and participation in formal programs are eligible for support. Since the fund's inception, nearly half a million dollars has been disbursed to students. Our grantees tell us how important these awards have been in their lives and careers:

Congratulations to Claire Bubb, Assistant Professor of Classical Literature and Science at the NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient world, whose recent book Dissection in Classical Antiquity: A Social and Medical History (Cambridge, 2022), was awarded the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit by the Society for Classical Studies this year!

SELECTED BOOKS PUBLISHED BY AFFILIATED FACULTY IN 2024:

Alessandro Barchiesi, ed., A Commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses, Volumes I, II, and III (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

Hallie Franks, Ancient Sculpture and Twentieth-Century American Womanhood: Venus Envy (Bloomsbury, 2024)

John Hopkins, Unbound from Rome: Art and Craft in a Fluid Landscape, ca. 650-250 BCE (Yale, 2024) 

Patricia Eunji Kim and Anastasia Tchaplyghine, eds., Queens in Antiquity and the Present: Speculative Visions and Critical Histories (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Antonis Kotsonas, The Sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite at Syme Viannou VII, Volumes I and II (ISAW Monographs, NYU, 2024)

David Levene, Livy: The Fragments and Periochae, Volumes I and II (Oxford, 2024)

M. G. Masetti-Rouault, I. Calini, R. Hawley, and L. d'Alfonso, eds., Ancient Western Asia Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration, 1200-900 BCE (ISAW Monographs, NYU, 2024) 

To date, eleven books have been published that grew out of Center events. The two most recent ones are:

Alex Jassen and Lawrence Schiffman, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: New Insights on Ancient Texts in "The New Antiquity" monograph series, ed. M. S. Santirocco (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

Del Maticic and Jordan Rogers, eds., Working Lives in Ancient Rome in "The New Antiquity" monograph series, ed. M. S. Santirocco (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) 

The Faculty Resource Network (FRN) is a professional development consortium of over 50 colleges and universities. Administratively housed at NYU, the FRN hosts lectures, symposia, seminars, and visiting scholar opportunities to improve the quality of teaching and learning at its member and affiliate institutions. The Center for Ancient Studies partners with the FRN to sponsor each year a summer seminar for faculty from across the country. Center-sponsored seminars have covered topics such as "Democracy and Diversity," "Ancient Cities and Modern Urbanism," "Uses and Abuses of the Past," "Health, Disease, and Society from Antiquity to Today," "Rewriting History: The New Science of Antiquity," "The Quest for Peace in the Ancient World and Beyond," and "The Emotions." For more information on the FRN, click here.

ArchaeoHub is an initiative at NYU aimed at linking together the university’s archaeological resources, including people, projects, lab resources, courses and events.

The NYU ArchaeoHub website is a central part of this initiative and serves as a directory and nexus for all things archaeological at NYU. ArchaeoHub is also the sponsor of symposia bringing together archaeologists at the university, focused particularly on the topic archaeological science and the continued development of archaeology’s diverse emergent methodologies.

The NYU Society for Ancient Studies (SAS) is a graduate student collaborative affiliated with our Center. Seeking to foster an interdisciplinary community of scholars with interests in the ancient world, the membership includes MA and PhD students from relevant Arts & Science departments as well as from the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World and the Institute of Fine Arts. SAS organizes several events throughout the academic year, including guest lectures by noted scholars, panel discussions between professors and graduate students, an annual graduate student invited lecture, and an annual interdisciplinary undergraduate conference on the ancient world. More information can be found here.

In addition to sponsoring its own programs, the Center for Ancient Studies invites requests for the subvention of scholarly and outreach events, international travel and research, and other projects related to the study of the ancient world –– as follows:

NYU departments and student organizations interested in partnering with the Center for an upcoming event may apply for modest support. Events that engage a comparative framework may be promoted as part of the Center's Comparative Antiquities Forum. To apply for Center support, please email ancient.studies@nyu.edu

Undergraduate and Graduate students can apply for grants through the Center's Antonina S. Ranieri International Scholars Fund. While most of the research supported by these grants takes place over the summer months, applications will be considered on a rolling basis for projects taking place at other times of the year. Please contact the Center's program administrator at ancient.studies@nyu.edu for more information.

The Emerging Scholars video series pairs advanced PhD students from the US and abroad with NYU faculty members to discuss innovative approaches to the study of the ancient world, either by addressing new topics and questions or incorporating non-traditional materials and methods. We are also interested in highlighting the work of scholars from groups that have historically been underrepresented in the fields of ancient studies and the academy at large. We invite proposals from advanced graduate students working on the ancient world, broadly conceived. In order to submit a proposal, please send a short abstract (no more than 250 words) along with a current CV to ancient.studies@nyu.edu

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