Classics and the World Today 8: "Connecting Places in Greek and Roman Antiquity: The Role of Empires"
October 2–3, 2025
From the second millennium BCE, the Mediterranean Sea was the tissue that connected Greek, Italic, and Levantine communities. The empires that were emerging in this world – Hittite, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman – not only created a space for mobility and migration, both forced and voluntary, but also established new boundaries for people.
This event, the eighth in our ‘Classics and the World Today’ series, interrogates the roles of empire for connecting and separating places in the ancient world, and how they affected the people who moved between them.
- Oct. 2, 5:15pm, Kaneff Rotunda - Public Lecture with Prof. Carlos Noreña (UC Berkeley) and Prof. Kathryn Stevens (University of Oxford) - *Reception to follow in MN Grand Hall (6:30-8pm)
- Oct. 3, 9:30am-4:30pm, MN 3230 (CDRS) - Graduate Workshop - Register
Take a deep dive into Classics and the World Today 8 with the Office of the VP Research & Innovation's feature "The Role of Empires: Classics at UTM Marks 8 Years of Public Scholarship".
The Classics and the World Today (CaWT) Initiative was founded in order to ask to what extent discussing the world of the Ancient Greek and Roman Mediterranean can contribute to our current society. Its second aim was to foster a community of people interested in the ancient world at UTM, encouraging undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, alumni and the broader public to engage with one another in a convivial setting.
The first events—consisting of public discussions with invited speakers and graduate workshops—were held in March 2017 when we celebrated both the 50th anniversary of the foundation of Erindale College as the predecessor of UTM, and the 50th anniversary of the teaching of Classical Civilization at UTM. Since this first event in 2017, further events have been held (see past events) discussing questions of religious violence, ancient mobility, the use and abuse of the historian Thucydides, the question of local identities, movement and global connections, civil wars and citizen strife in the ancient world, and digital tools for studying Classics. These events have drawn large numbers of visitors not only from within the university, but also from the Peel Region and the Greater Toronto Area. Please visit the ‘Past Events’ page to learn more about previous events.
Within the umbrella of CaWT, we also provide support for undergraduate students to continue studying the ancient Mediterranean beyond the classroom. Students have received bursaries to enhance their undergraduate experience by excavating in Greece, travelling to the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and visiting important museum collections in North America. Please visit this page to learn about options and past experiences.
For any questions, please contact:
Boris Chrubasik, Associate Professor
Email: boris.chrubasik@utoronto.ca
Office: MN 4264
Phone: (905) 569-4340