Approaches to the Other in the Greek and Roman Mediterranean
Our focus is analyzing the patterns of thought which built systemic biases and inequalities in the Greek and Roman world, what allowed them to persevere, and what we might learn to combat such ideologies.
Event Agenda
Our focus is analyzing the patterns of thought which built systemic biases and inequalities in the Greek and Roman world, what allowed them to persevere, and what we might learn to combat such ideologies. We plan to host various scholarly interpretations and interventions regarding social hierarchies in Greek and Roman antiquity over the course of four panels: Defining the Other, exploring how the ancients conceived of insider/outsider boundaries; Depicting the Other, exploring the tactics used to alienate and demean outsiders; Exploiting the Other, exploring coerced labor, the removal of people's social legitimacy, and the rationales supporting these processes; and finally, So...Who is the Other?, which summarizes and responds to the insights raised in our previous three sessions.
Program Day 1
Defining the Other (Friday, April 25, 2025, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM)
Keynote Speaker: Page duBois
Daniel Wisniewski: Barbarian Macedonians: The Other in Demosthenes’ Philippics
Jose Romero: The Barbarian Professor: Barbarisms and Alienation in the Attic Nights
Vassilios Vertoudakis: Constructing Otherness in the Greek Anthology: The Barbarian
Depicting the Other (Friday, April 25, 2025, 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM)
Keynote Speaker: Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Samuel Powell: Obedient or Obsolete: Imperial Subjects in Euripides’ Heraclids
Luca Onorato: Welcoming Bacchus: Depicting Otherness in Roman Republican Tragedy
Vanessa Stovall: Cyprian Characteristics: Erotic Imag(in)ing of Foreign Economies in Aeschylus’ Suppliants
Program Day 2
Exploiting the Other (Saturday, April 26, 2025, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM)
Keynote Speaker: Peter Hunt
Micheal Duchesne: Women’s Work: Enslaved Female Supervisors
Charlotte Mandy: Vicarius Meae Diligentiae Succedit: Translating Enslaved Experts from Xenophon to Cicero
Chiara Caporale: Lucretius on Cultural Appropriation: Roman Orientalizing Discourse and the Depiction of the Magna Mater
Discussing the Other (Saturday, April 26, 2025, 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM)
Speakers: Page duBois, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Peter Hunt, Micheal Duchesne, Samuel Powell
Event Report
On April 25-26, 2025, the graduate students of Stanford University’s Classics department hosted their latest annual conference, entitled "Approaches to the Other in the Greek and Roman Mediterranean." Welcoming presenters from across and beyond the United States, this event was devoted to examining the various strategies employed by the peoples of ancient Greece and Rome to identify, alienate, and exploit outsider populations. Our presenters explored these patterns of social stratification over the course of three panels.
The first of these panels, "Defining the Other", focused on traits frequently invoked to distinguish certain individuals or groups as being different from the majority population. The second, "Depicting the Other", discussed how ancient Greeks and Romans attached certain negative cultural associations to external peoples. The final panel, "Exploiting the Other", examined the cultural, economic, and social exploitation of "otherized" groups in the Greek and Roman world, ranging from slavery and serfdom to cultural appropriation.
Our department received a wide range of scholars, from graduate students to tenured professors. At present, plans are underway to digitally publish the conference proceedings to further inspire discussion of these significant topics. It was another wonderful event dedicated to investigating the future of classics.
