Past events
Events sponsored by the Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies
“Lucian’s Icaromenippus as an Exercise in Scalar Literacy”
CAES annual lecture, Friday, 16 October 2026, at 4:15pm
Speaker: Anna Athanasopoulou (Ghent)• • •
CAES CCHRI inaugural St Andrews Workshop
24 September, 3-6pm in Seminar Room 310, Irvine Building.
The Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies (CAES) is excited to announce that the Climate Change and History Research Initiative (CCHRI) has officially moved to the University of St Andrews, as has its founder, Professor John Haldon (emeritus, Princeton University, and honorary, University of St Andrews). Prof Haldon and CCHRI will be based in the School of Classics and affiliated with the St Andrews Global Research Centre for Changing Climates.
CCHRI is an interdisciplinary research initiative examining the relationship between shifting climates, environmental change, and Eurasian societies since the Bronze Age. CCHRI brings together historians, archaeologists, social scientists, and environmental scientists to investigate climate–society interactions and promote consilience, the integration of diverse forms of historical, archaeological, palaeoenvironmental, and scientific evidence, to answer related questions. Its activities include collaborative research projects, colloquia, guest lectures, and training workshops introducing researchers to methods and evidence in the palaeosciences. CCHRI also explores how historical experiences of environmental stress and resilience can inform contemporary approaches to sustainability, risk, and adaptation in the face of varied environmental crises.
CAES and CCHRI will be co-hosting an inaugural St Andrews event on 24 September, 3-6pm in Irvine Building, Seminar Room 310. This event will be in-person only, though future events will be held in hybrid format.
Programme
3:00-3:30pm:
Opening comments from John Haldon and James Rae (head of the Changing Climates GRC).3:30-4:00pm:
Andrea Burke on advances in the study of volcanism and climate change.4:00-4:30pm:
Claudia Paparella on religious and cultural responses to environmental extremes in Republican Rome.4:30-4:45pm: Break.
4:45-5:15pm:
Rowan Jackson on society and climate change in Greenland.5:15-5:45pm:
David Patterson on the 4th-3rd c. BCE volcanic quiet period, climate, and Republican Rome.5:45-6:00pm:
Closing thoughts and outline of future CCHRI plans at St Andrews.• • •
“Forms of the Flesh: Autochthonous Origins in Late Antiquity”
Friday 3 April 2026, 4:15pm, Room SO3,Swallowgate
Speaker: Daniel Hanigan (Cambridge)
Seminar• • •
“Ancient environmental studies: interdisciplinary approaches”
9 March 2026, 10am to 1pm
SGSAH Online workshop• • •
“Explosive Volcanism, Nile Failure, and Political Instability in Ptolemaic Egypt (305-30 BCE)”
Friday 20 February, 2026 4:15 p.m, Room SO3, Swallowgate
Speaker: Francis Ludlow (Trinity College Dublin)
CAES Annual Lecture• • •
“Rome at its core: a new history of early Rome and its republic”
21 November 2025
Speaker: Andrea Brock (St Andrews)• • •
“Ovid’s ecological disasters: scalar zoom and the challenges of narrative time”
Annual Lecture, 21 March 2025
Speaker: Alison Sharrock (Manchester)Hybrid event
• • •
“St Theodore, Euchaïta and Anatolia, c. 500-1000 CE. Landscape, climate and the survival of an empire”
Research seminar, 29 November 2024
Speaker: John HaldonHybrid event
• • •
“Pre-modern environmental history and its contemporary relevance”
Workshop, 6 December 2024
School I, St Salvator’s Quad, St AndrewsA workshop on the contemporary relevance of pre-modern environmental history with a focus on the potential policy implications of this research. Andy Dugmore (Edinburgh), Rowan Jackson (Edinburgh), and John Haldon (Princeton) will all address this topic from different perspectives.
This event is open to anyone interested in attending.
Please note: only Haldon’s keynote presentation will be streamed online via Teams.Programme
- 13:00-13:10 – Introduction
- 13:10-14:30 – Panel with presentations and discussion by Andy Dugmore and Rowan Jackson
- 14:30-14:45 – Break
- 14:45-16:00 – John Haldon keynote presentation and discussion (hybrid)
• • •
“Trees and the anthropocene in Greek and Roman antiquity”
Workshop, 15 September 2023
Hybrid event: in person in School II, St Salvator’s quad, St Andrews, and online via MS Teams
Programme and selected recorded talks
09.15 – 09.30: Introduction
09.30 – 10.15: Emma Bentley: ‘Dionysus Dendritês: Wood and Carpentry in Greek Tragedy’
10.15 – 11:00: Kresimir Vukovic: ‘Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome: Resilience, Deforestation, Interpretations’
11:00 – 11.30: Coffee
11.30 – 12.15: Andrew Fox: ‘The Death Grove at the Heart of Seneca’s Thyestes’
12.15 – 13.00: Leila Williamson: ‘Strawberry-tree solastalgia: following the arbutus in Vergil, Rutilius, and Ennodius’
13.00 – 14.00: Lunch
14.00 – 14.45: Emily Kneebone: ‘Deforestation in imperial Greek epic’
14.45 – 15.30: Matthew Westermayer: Intervention and Mixture: Grafted Trees and Baptismal Practice on Mt. Nebo
16.15 – 17.45: Edith Hall: ‘Achilles in green: reading the Iliad in the 21st century’
(Annual lecture of the Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies)Subscribe to the CAES mailing list for updates about the event, and to get the Teams meeting link.
• • •
“Uninvited guests, unexpected passengers: Insects and past environments in the Eastern Mediterranean”
Research seminar, 3 November 2023
Speaker: Eva Panagiotakopulu• • •
“Imagining the earth in ancient Greek and Roman literature: human-environment relations in Lucian’s True Stories”
Research seminar, 21 February 2024
Speaker: Jason König• • •
Fluid Horizons: Charting Ancient Environmental History and Blue Humanities
Workshop, 7 May 2024, London
View programme and register Watch recording
• • •
Postgraduate Research Showcase
9 May 2024
Swallowgate 11, School of Classics, St AndrewsProgramme
12.00 Welcome and introduction to CAES
(Sian Lewis, Jason Konig)
12.15 – 1.00 Spotlight talks
- Stefano Carlo Sala (Classics): “Archaic Past and Augustan Present in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Depiction of Rome’s Cityscape”.
- Florence Rogers (Classics): “Representations of Fog in Latin Literature”.
- Ronnais Lloyd (Classics): “Sensory Approaches to the Palaeoenvironment in Pompeii”.
- Sally Mubarak (Classics): “Landscapes of Trauma: reevaluating battlescapes in the historiography of the Roman Republic”.
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch
2.00 – 3.15 Spotlight talks
- Max Dyer (Classics): “Winding and Twisted: connections across Mount Helikon”.
- Frances Bickerstaff (Medieval History): “Monasticism on a Maritime Frontier: Paisley Abbey and its landscape context, c. 1150-1300”.
- Gwenffrewi Morgan (Medieval History): “Periodising Environmentally in High-Medieval Past-Writing: time, environment, and agency”.
- Rowan Munnery (Classics): “Stuck in the Middle: the Mediterranean maritime cultural landscape’s Sicilian Divide”.
- Dimitar Krastev (Classics): “The Role of Climate Change in Migration”.
- William Laird (Classics): “Reconstructing Experiences of Devastation and Resilience in Italian Communities during the Second Punic War”.
3.15 – 3.30 Coffee break
3.30 – 4.00 CAES research projects overview and future plans
(Andrea Brock, Ruben Post, Sian Lewis)
• • •
Past Perspectives: How can premodern environmental research be made useful in the climate emergency?
Impact Workshop, Monday May 27, 2024
Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Read event report by
Florence Rogers and Max DyerThe human species has forever been adapting to dynamic environmental conditions. The premodern world provides a laboratory of various experiments in human-environment interactions: a rich history of successes and failures, acute and chronic pressures, false-starts and path dependencies, resilience and vulnerabilities—all operating on a global scale over the longue durée. How should we collate, compare, and engage critically with this past record in order to drive change in the modern climate crisis?
Part I: Showcasing Premodern Environmental Studies
- How did premodern societies react to experiences of environmental change?
- How do societies react to ecological shocks, both acute and chronic?
- How/why have societies changed in response to ecological pressures throughout History?
- In what ways do a society’s socio-economic inequalities intersect with environmental vulnerabilities?
- What factors create resiliency and/or vulnerabilities in societies?
Part II: Brainstorming Applications of Premodern Environmental Studies
- What are the strengths and limitations of the communication of climate change science to popular audiences?
- What is the value and application of comparative case studies in sustainability education and policy making?
- How can narratives from the premodern world supplement current practice and strategy?
- How do historical narratives influence identity and drive behaviour/cultural change?
- How can representations of premodern human-environment relations in literature and art act as a resource for creative responses to current crises?
Programme
Keynote presentations were hybrid sessions which were recorded, while all other events were in person only (in the Physics Building at the University of St Andrews). Registration to attend in person can be directed to [email protected]. Subscribe to the CAES mailing list to receive the Teams link for remote attendance.
9:15-9:35 – Welcome and Presentation 1
Andrea Brock (St Andrews Classics): Flood Risk and Response in the City of Rome
9:35-9:55 – Presentation 2
Liz Macwhirter (Glasgow): Theopoetics: Giving voice to Julian of Norwich and trauma spirituality in the climate crisis
9:55-10:15 – Presentation 3
Justine Firnhaber-Baker (St Andrews History): Into the Woods: Negotiating Landscape and Power in Post-Plague France
10:15-10:35 – Presentation 4
Althea Davies (St Andrews Geography & Sustainable Development): Where’s the climate story? Scottish woodlands past and future
10:35-11:00 – Coffee break
11:00-11:20 – Presentation 5
Rowan Jackson (Edinburgh): Information, Perception and Learning: Intergenerational adaptation to environmental change in Medieval Greenland
11:20-11:40 – Presentation 6
Lilah Grace Canevaro (Edinburgh): The Environment and the Subaltern: focusing on the margins in Greek literature
11:40-12:00 – Presentation 7
Rhyne King (St Andrews Classics): Sustainable Water Management: Qanats in the Ancient Persian Empire
12:00-1:00 – Keynote 1
Christopher Schliephake (Augsburg): ‘Ecological wisdom’, cultural sustainability and the reception of ancient texts (the example of Homer’s Odyssey)
1:00-2:00 – Lunch Break
2:00-2:45 – Discussion Panel 1
Sian Lewis (St Andrews Classics), James Palmer (St Andrews History), and Richard Oram (Stirling) with responses to the morning presentations, considering opportunities for capitalizing on popular fascination with the ancient/premodern world
2:45-3:15 – Coffee Break
3:15-4:00 – Discussion Panel 2
James Rae (St Andrews Earth & Environmental Science), Robert Wilson (St Andrews Earth & Environmental Science), and Nicki Whitehouse (Glasgow) on the strengths and limits of the popular reception of climate change science
4:00-5:00 – Keynote 2
Rebecca Hardin (Michigan): Creating, curating and comparing case studies of the premodern to inform the present
• • •
“Godscapes: Ritual, Belief and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond”
Conference, 27 June – 1 July 2023, St Andrews
Sponsored by the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions and the School of Classics, St. Andrews
• • •
New Approaches to the History of Plague in Late Antiquity
Workshop: Friday 3 February 2023
School 2, St Salvator’s Quad, University of St AndrewsHosted by the Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies and the Centre for Late Antique Studies
This was a hybrid event.
Schedule and selected recorded talks
9.00-9.05: Introduction
9.05-9.50: Peter Sarris (Cambridge): Why Historians of the Justinianic Plague need to know more about the Black Death
9:50-10:35: Gunnar Neumann (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig): Archaeogenetic Insights into Yersinia pestis from the First Plague Pandemic
10:35-11 Coffee
11.00-11:45: Scott Johnson (Oklahoma) and Kyle Harper (Oklahoma): Eyewitness to Mass Mortality: John of Ephesus, the Ecclesiastical History, and the Plague of Justinian
11:45-12:30: Helen Foxhall-Forbes (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice): Science, Society and the Environment: Approaches to Change in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
12:30-1:15 Lunch
1:15-2:00: David Orton (York): What Zooarchaeology can tell us about Rats in Late Antiquity and Beyond: Introducing the RATTUS Project
2:00-2:45: Elena Xoplaki (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen): Climate over the Greater Eastern Mediterranean during the 6th-8th centuries AD simulated with the fully forced COSMO-CLM
2:45-3:30: James Palmer (St Andrews): Pandemic and the Medicalisation of Religious Culture in the West (c. 540-c. 740)
3:30-4:00 Coffee
4.15-5.45: Kyle Harper: The Long First Plague Pandemic: A View from Italy (Annual Lecture for the Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies) (School 2)• • •
“Platonic Zoology”
Research seminar, Friday 14 October, 4pm (online)
Speaker: Dimitri El-Murr• • •
“Quintus’ Abject Monuments”
Research seminar, Friday 18 November, 4pm (online)
Speaker: William Brockliss• • •
“Weather, Authority, and Decision-Making in Ancient Greece: A Comparative Perspective”
Research seminar, 22 September 2021, 1pm.
Speaker: Dr Ruben Post (St Andrews)• • •
“Ancient Graeco-Roman History and the Contemporary Climate Crisis: Rhetoric, Pedagogy, and Relevance”
Seminar, 13 October 2021, 4pm
Speaker: Dr Ruben Post (St Andrews)
Part of the Fall seminar series hosted by Archaeology at the University of Glasgow.• • •
“More like stone than earth: a material history of gypsum on Iron Age Cyprus”
Research seminar, 15 October, 4pm.
Speaker: Katie Kearns (Chicago)• • •
“Turbulence / Emergence /Enchantment: A Compendium of Climate Literacies”
Symposium, 4-7 November 2021, at Cove Park, an international artists’ residency on the west coast of Scotland.
The event brought together artists, writers, performers, academics, and activists from a wide range of different backgrounds to talk together about climate literacy. The event was organised by Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey at Cove Park, in partnership with Jason König from the Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies at the University of St Andrews, London-based curator Lucia Pietroiusti, Markus Reymann and TBA21–Academy, and Giacomo Savani from the School of Classics and the College of Arts and Humanities Environmental Humanities Research Strand at University College Dublin. It was made possible by funding from the Culture and Business Fund of Arts and Business Scotland.
View recordings from the event Turbulence Emergence Enchantment
• • •
“Theocritus and Things: The Agency of Stone”
Research seminar, 5 November, 4pm.
Speaker: Dr Lilah Grace Canevaro (Edinburgh)• • •
“Ancient History and the Environment. The case for environmental change as a factor in historical processes”
CAES Annual lecture, 12 November 2021, 4pm.
Speaker: Prof Joseph Manning (Yale)• • •
“Dio Chrysostom’s Euboean Oration“
Workshop, 1 March 2022, 2-4pm GMT (9-11am EST).
Hosted by: The Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies, and the Department of Classics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignWritten in the late first or early second century CE, Dio’s Euboean Oration may be one of our best sources for both rural environmental practices and urban life in Imperial Greece. A resurgence of interest in the text has occasioned this event, facilitated by Clara Bosak-Schroeder (UIUC), which will feature brief remarks by Janet Downie (UNC), Jason König (St Andrews), and Mark Usher (UVM) followed by a group discussion of the oration itself and Donald Hughes’ 1996 article, “The Hunters of Euboea: Mountain Folk in the Classical Mediterranean” (which we will circulate in advance). Participants are asked to read both Hughes’ article and the oration (in Greek or translation) before the event.
The event will be held online, as a Teams meeting with live-captioning. For other access needs, please contact Clara Bosak-Schroeder ([email protected]). The link will be circulated closer to the date. All are very welcome!
• • •
“Take me to the River: Religious Communications in the Asopos-corridor in Boiotia (800-300 B.C.E.)“
Seminar, 23 March at 1pm, online (MS Teams).
Speaker: Roy van Wijk
In 1948 Guillon mentioned that Boiotia is divided into ‘les deux Béoties’ geographically. These were centred around the massifs dividing the region, with one area anchored around Orchomenos, and the other around the Teneric plain. Lake Kopais effectively formed the barrier alongside which these two ‘Boiotias’ existed. The neat separation resulted in a ‘religious corridor’ that negotiated these two halves, with the Poseidon-sanctuary at Onchestos as the main hub. Depending on the prism one uses to look at the region, there are many more Boiotias to be uncovered.
In this paper, I will investigate whether we can trace a similar religious corridor along the river Asopos in Southern Boiotia, inspired by theories from social geography. The river Asopos hosted many Boiotian poleis along its shores, such as Oropos, Tanagra and further removed, Plataia and Thespiai. Mythologically, these towns were connected by grace of their parentage, namely the river god Asopos. But how did the inhabitants of these towns view themselves? Can we detect a religious corridor as well that was meant to reconcile and negotiate between these various poleis? And if there was one, why were these places chosen? What this investigation will show is how the lives of the inhabitants around the river Asopos in Boiotia were shaped by an engagement with the local environment and influenced by their cultural, economic and political interactions. What emerges is an analysis of a ‘sub-region’ centred around the river Asopos without ever losing touch of its roots in Boiotia.
• • •
“Testing Hypotheses of Climate-Driven Societal Change through Settlement Archaeology“
Seminar, 12 April at 1pm, online (MS Teams).
Speaker: Matthew Jacobson
To confidently examine links between climatic and socio-cultural change, we need proximate high quality evidence for both changes and for a causal mechanism. However, this is rarely present. In this talk, I will discuss Late Antique Lycia-Pamphylia, a region with strong datasets, and explore pre-existing theories linking climate change to shifting agricultural productivity and settlement “prosperity”. On this smaller scale, these theories are found to be overly simplistic and/or false.
All are welcome. To get the meeting link, please subscribe to the CAES mailing list.
• • •
“The Environments of Mediterranean City-States: Experience and Resilience“
International conference, 27-28 May 2022.
The urgency of modern environmental crises has led to growing interest in past human-environment interactions. A fundamental truth about effective responses to ecological pressures, today as in the past, is that they often require communal, not simply individual, action. This conference aims to examine the dynamics of human-environment interaction through the lens of the city-state in the first millennium BCE Mediterranean world.Watch again: Follow the links below to watch recordings of individual papers on YouTube.
27 May
9:00-9:20am: Opening remarks
Morning session: Greek city-states and the environment (9:20am-1:00pm)
9:20-9:55am: Hans Beck, “Aesop’s logoi: environmental setting, ecocritical approaches”
9:55-10:30am: Anton Bonnier, “Land use, climate variability and the Greek polis: new perspectives from interdisciplinary research in Attica and the northeastern Peloponnese”
10:30-10:40am: Coffee break
10:40-11:15am: Ruben Post, “Weather, anxiety, and decision-making in the Hellenistic polis: Greek astrometeorological calendars reassessed”
11:15-11:50am: Lou Godefroy, “Multiproxy and Ancient Greek world : reconstructing farming practices and subsistence strategies, in Greek motherlands, indigenous and colonial areas in Southern Italy (850-550 BC)”
11:50am-12:10pm: Sophia Nomicos response
12:10-1:00pm: Discussion
1:00-2:00pm: break for lunch
Afternoon session: Italian city-states and the environment (2:00-5:30pm)
2:00-2:35pm: Seth Bernard, “Environment and early urban society in Etruria: resources, resiliency, and community”
2:35-3:10pm: Peter Attema, “Salt and power: early states, Rome and resource control”3:10-3:20pm: Coffee break
3:20-3:55pm: Angela Trentacoste, “Herds for the urbs: animal resources as a lens for city-environment interaction”
3:55-4:30pm: Andrea Brock, “Building the eternal city in a floodplain: communal challenges and
communal response”4:30-4:50pm: Marian Helm response
4:50-5:30pm: Discussion
28 May
Morning session: The environmental history of Mediterranean city-states in perspective (9:00-
12:30pm)9:00-9:35am: Francesca Fulminante, “Urbanization and women’s lives: a complex cause-effect
relationship”9:35-10:10am: Katie Kearns, “The roots of kingship: towards a political ecology of historical
states on Cyprus”10:10-10:20am: Coffee break
10:20-10:55am: Paul Erdkamp, “Challenging the carrying capacity perspective on climate
change in Antiquity”10:55-11:30am: John Bintliff, “Mediterranean city-states and their environmental challenges”
11:30am-12:30pm: Discussion
12:30-1:00pm: Concluding remarks
• • •
“Pausanias as nature writer”
Research seminar, 25 September 2020, 4 – 5:30pm.
Speaker: Christopher Schliephake (University of Augsburg)
Watch again: “Pausanias as nature writer” .• • •
“Life on the edge of the desert: religious and economic landscapes in late antique Egypt”
Research seminar, 9 October 2020 , 4 – 5:30pm.
Speaker: Louise Blanke (University of Edinburgh)• • •
“In the Shadow of the Desert: The Making of Roman Africa”
Research seminar, 16 October 2020, 4 – 5:30pm.
Speaker: David Mattingly (University of Leicester)• • •
“Interdisciplinary Engagement in Ancient Environmental Studies: Prospects and Problems”
Workshop, 28 October 2020
This inaugural CAES workshop will be held over Microsoft Teams and is open to the public. It aims to facilitate productive dialogue between palaeoenvironmental specialists and more traditional archaeologists, historians, and philologists interested in the environment of the ancient Mediterranean. For those interested in attending, further information will be sent out in September via the CAES mailing list.
Programme
All scheduling according to UK time.
Watch again: follow the links in the program to watch the individual recordings.Ruben Post (St Andrews) – Opening statement (9:00-9:10am)
Panel 1: Climate
David Kaniewski (Toulouse) – Palaeoclimatology (9:10-9:35am)
Jed Kaplan (Hong Kong) – Land use and climate change modeling (9:35-10:00am)
Lin Foxhall (Liverpool) response and question period (10:00-10:30am)
Panel 2: Plant and Animal Remains
Dimitra Mylona (INSTAP) – Zooarchaeology (10:40-11:05am)
Robyn Veal (Cambridge) – Palaeobotany (11:05-11:30am)
Sian Lewis (St Andrews) response and question period (11:30-12:00pm)
Break: 12:00-12:30
Panel 3: Geology and Landscape
Cristiano Nicosia (Padova) – Geoarchaeology and micromorphology (12:30-12:55pm)
Helmut Brückner (Cologne) – Palaeolandscape reconstruction (12:55-1:20pm)
Andrea Brock (St Andrews) response and question period (1:20-1:50pm)
If you are interested in attending, please subscribe to the CAES mailing list.
• • •
‘The environmental impact of protohistoric activity in Mediterranean mountains: a review of the roles of climate and people in the story of environmental degradation’
Research seminar, 9 April 2021, 4-5:30pm.
Kevin Walsh (University of York)• • •
Interdisciplinary engagement in ancient environmental studies II: new directions in ecocritical approaches to classical literature
Workshop, Thursday 27 May 2021, 1:30-4:45 p.m.
Watch again: follow the links in the program to watch the individual recordings.- 1.30-1.35: Introduction
- 1.35-2.15: Rebecca Armstrong: Time and the vegetable in Ovid’s Fasti
- 2.15-2.55: Emmanuela Bakola: Between cosmology, environmental philosophy and performance criticism: building a framework for reading Aeschylus’ Oresteia from an ecocritical perspective
- 2.55-3.15: Break
- 3.15-3.55: Krešimir Vuković: Wolves, twins, and rivers: beyond nature and culture in early Rome.
- 3.55-4.35: Mark Usher: The Roman Villa Project: Archaeology, Paleobotany, and Sustainable Agriculture in Italy’s Sabine Hills.
- 4.35-4.45: Closing discussion.
This event aims to explore some of the opportunities and challenges involved in bringing work on ancient Greek and Latin literature into dialogue with research in ecocriticism and the environmental humanities. It also aims to explore the prospects for increased interaction between ecocritical and archaeological/scientific approaches to ancient environments. Oliver Rackham 25 years ago criticised anachronistic ascriptions of ‘environmental consciousness’ to ancient authors based on credulous readings of ancient literary evidence insufficiently informed by scientific approaches (for example in relation to J. Donald Hughes’ work on deforestation). Our starting assumption is that that image of the relationship between literary and scientific perspectives on ancient environments needs to be reassessed given the very rapid developments in both ecocritical and scientific engagement with ancient environments over the last two decades. We envisage a series of work-in-progress papers covering a range of different genres, authors and approaches. Contributors are invited to address some or all of the following questions:
- How do you see the current state of play in ecocritical/environmental study of the authors and texts you work on? What new prospects/possibilities do you envisage for the future?
- How should we best articulate the value of ecocritical approaches to ancient literature to those who work on archaeological and paleo-scientific approaches to ancient environments, or to those who work in the environmental humanities outside Classics? What opportunities do you see for bringing these different fields more into dialogue with each other?
• • •
Events sponsored by the Centre for Landscape Studies
8 November 2019: ‘Mount Olympus: The archaeology and imagination of a mountain’ – Achim Lichtenberger (Münster)
Hosted by the Centre for Landscape Studies.31 August-1 September 2020: Workshop on ‘Defining Late Antique Space’
co-hosted by the Centre for Landscape Studies and Centre for Late Antique Studies4-5 December 2018: ‘Mountains in the Classical Tradition’
Workshop hosted by the Centre for Landscape Studies.6 December 2018: ‘Making an Impression: Pietro Bembo, Mount Etna, and the Venetian Printing Press’, Gareth Williams (University of Columbia).
Public lecture co-hosted by the Centre for Landscape Studies and Centre for Late Antique Studies5 March 2019: ‘Love, Hatred, and Madness: The Emotional Lives of the Capitolium’, Jason Moralee (Massachusetts).
Co-hosted by the Centre for Late Antique Studies and the Centre for Landscape Studies.15 March 2019: ‘Rome is not a space on a map. Intersections and thresholds within the unmapped historical landscape of place’, Elena Isayev (Exeter).
Centre for Landscape Studies Annual Lecture.8 November 2017: “Mythic Topographies in the Periegesis of Pausanias”, Professor Bill Hutton (William & Mary)
This lecture was part of the academic exchange between the University of St Andrews and the College of William and Mary, stemming from the BA International Honours degree programme.Wednesday 15 November 2017: Alistair Moffat with The Hidden Ways in St Andrews
16-17 November 2017: Cultivating Perspectives on Landscape
Conference organised by Chloe Bray, Anahit Behrooz, Laura Donkers17 November2017: ‘Lively Nature’, Dr Katharine Earnshaw (Exeter).
Annual Lecture of the Centre for Landscape studies11-14 July 2018: Approaching Landscape, panel at the 11th Celtic Conference in Classics. Read more details and a full panel report .
External events
Thursday 9 November 2017: Into the Mountain: A Life of Nan Shepherd in St Andrews
29-30 April, 17 June – 18 September 2016: Exhibition, ‘Through a glass darkly: perceptions of artefact, art and context: exhibition and events’, (MUSA Learning Loft) (Leventis Funded)
18 November2016: ‘Landscape approaches and settlement archaeology in post-Roman central Greece’, Dr Athanasios Vionis, Associate Professor, University of Cyprus.
Inaugural Lecture of the Centre for Landscape studies25-27 May 2017: ‘Landscapes of Movement’
Organised by Rebecca Sweetman & Erica Morais Angliker.8-9 June 2017: ‘Mountains in Antiquity’
Organised by Jason König and Nikoletta Manioti.External events
22 November 2016: Screening of Pathfinder (1987) followed by panel discussion.
