Ancient Worlds, New Horizons

Inaugural Conference and Lecture

Harley Trilingual Psalter (BL MS 5786), Sicily, c. 1150 CE

Ancient Worlds, New Horizons: Broadening the Study of the Past

UCL, Wednesday 25 October 2023

UCL: Garwood lecture theatre, South Wing

To mark the expansion of ancient Middle Eastern languages at UCL, and to broaden the way we think about and study the ancient world, we are launching a new multidisciplinary BA programme Classics and the Ancient World with three flexible tracks:

(1) Classics: Language and Literature | (2) Ancient Literature, History, Archaeology | (3) Ancient Middle Eastern Studies

Starting Autumn 2024: applications are now open

Please join us to mark the launch of our new BA programme, a flexible and interdisciplinary BA in the language, literature, history and culture of the ancient world. We shall explain how it works and reflect on the intellectual and historical context.

2:30 Welcome and introduction (Gesine Manuwald/Stephen Colvin)

3:00 Phiroze Vasunia ‘Rethinking the Classical’

3:30 Discussion

3:45 Mairéad McAuley ‘Collaborative Pedagogy: building staff-student EDI partnerships’

4:15 Discussion

4:30 Tea

5:00 Mark Weeden: keynote lecture

‘War in heaven, war on earth – mythology as a means of dealing with disaster’
- Comparisons are frequently made between the mythology of the violent succession of kingship in heaven as known from Greek epic poetry of the 7th century BC and similar stories that were circulating in the areas of northern Syria and central Turkey during the 2nd millennium BC. But what did these stories mean to people in these areas, how did they use them? Documents in the Hittite and Hurrian languages that are preserved from the time may be able to help us to understand this, and new discoveries are continuing to throw more light on the matter every year.

6:00 Close; refreshments.