Peter Fibiger Bang (Copenhagen): Classics and the Challenge of World History - empires and comparisons, connected histories, divergence and periodization

Talk begins at 5:15 PM, with light refreshments served at 5:00 PM.

This talk attempts to situate the study of Greek and Roman societies within the wider discourse on world history, between comparative analysis and cultural connections, from the great divergence to universal empire. Which stories can we tell of the Greeks and Romans in a world history context and how can world history contribute to the field of classics?

Peter Fibiger Bang is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and holds a PhD from Cambridge. He has worked extensively on Roman economic and comparative imperial history. Among his many publications are: The Roman Bazaar (Cambridge 2008), with C. A. Bayly (eds.), Tributary Empires in Global History (Palgrave 2011), with Dariusz Kolodziejczyk (eds.), Universal Empire (Cambridge 2012), and with W. Scheidel (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (New York 2013).