Whither Global Antiquity? Retrospection and Future Directions

Thursday, April 10–Friday April 11

Royce Hall 314 & 306

Global Antiquity convened its second annual symposium at UCLA, and live-streamed on Zoom, on April 10–11, 2025. Whither Global Antiquity? Retrospection and Future Directions aimed to assess the state of ancient studies, its relevance to the Humanities today, and its future directions.

Over the span of two days, the fields of Classics, ancient Near East, ancient East Asia, and ancient Americas were explored critically and new approaches presented. These included the experience of ancient worlds with race and ethnicity, the entangled relationships between ancient history and modern states, the expansion and re-centering of areas of inquiry, and indigenous ontologies and histories.

In providing a forum for interdisciplinary conversations, the goal of the symposium was to identify a shared vocabulary for the study of the ancient worlds that extends across traditional fields of inquiry to encompass the achievements of the whole of antiquity as humanity’s common patrimony.

This event was graciously co-sponsored by the following departments, programs, institutes, and centers at UCLA: Art History, Asian Languages and Cultures, Classics, The CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, The UCLA/Getty Interdisciplinary Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, The Program in Indo-European Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, The Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World, The UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture, and the Yarshater Center for the Study of Iranian Literary Traditions.