Events & Initiatives

Updated by the year and as needed, this page will serve as a collection of exciting events and initiatives both past and present.


Upcoming Events

Coming Soon!


Ongoing Initiatives

Plebeian

This is the undergraduate research journal of the Classics Students’ Union, which is, as of Fall 2020, entering its seventh edition. To find out more about the journal, where it circulates, and how to get involved, visit the Plebeian page for more details.

Academic Seminar

Hosted bi-annually, join pre-eminent professors and grad students in Classics as they present diverse and interesting new research and discussion. See “Past Speakers” below for a comprehensive list of previous speakers and topics.

Ancient Food Day

Hosted bi-annually, join us for an afternoon of food, friends, and fostering community. Featuring a variety of dishes from translated Greek and Roman recipes and open to all regardless of program, come sample the taste of the past with us!


Past Events

October 27th: First-Year Orientation

September 8th, 2023: Ancient Food Day
In our third iteration, this event once again allowed undergraduate students from inside and outside the Classics program to socialize and enjoy cuisine sourced from Ancient Greek and Roman texts. Garnering our biggest turn-out in recent memory (COVID will do that to a course union), we hope to recreate this success in following years.


Past Speakers

This list will be updated shortly to feature speakers from 2018 to present.

Professor Kenneth Yu, University of Toronto, Why Are Bones Good to Think With? February 2023

Professor David Sutton, University of Toronto, Three Tickets to Sexy Town? Martial’s Martial, Flaccus, and the Erotic Meaning of ‘Baiae’ in Epigrams 11.80, November 2022.

Professor Peter Heslin, Durham University, Can Computers Be Taught to Translate Latin and Ancient Greek? 20 November 2020.

Dr. Chiara Graf, University of Toronto, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Surface Reading. 20 November 2020.

Prabhjeet Johal, University of Toronto, Unswept Emotions: Floor Mosaics. 13 February 2020.

Ted Parker, University of Toronto, Athenian Democracy and Philanthropy. 13 February 2020.

Professor Sarah Murray, University of Toronto, Analogy, Ethnography, and the History of Greek Art: The Case of Early Iron Age Ceramic Style. 22 November 2019.

Professor Kenneth Yu, University of Toronto, How Did Ancient Greeks Read Homer and Why Does It Matter? 22 November 2019.

Professor Carrie Fulton, Naomi Neufield, Justin-Hamblin Yule, University of Toronto, Archaeology and Oracles. 14 March 2019.

Professor J. Oliver and Chiara Graf, University of Toronto, Queering the Stoic Sage. 16 November 2018.

Catlin Hines, University of Toronto, Role-play and Class Blindness: a Resistant Reading of Servitium Amoris in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. 2 March 2018.

Drew Davis, University of Toronto, Rooted in Our Own Needs:’ Classics at the University of Toronto, 1843–1947. 2 March 2018.

David Wallace-Hare, University of Toronto, Fugientes Silvae Texerunt: Aquitanian Theonyms and Industrial Memories in the Central Pyrenees. 2 March 2018.

Professor Jarrett Welsh, University of Toronto, The Effects of Agriculture on Latin Semantics. 17 March 2017.

David Wallace-Hare, University of Toronto, The Fascination With The Bear As Revealed By Roman Onomastics In The Western Provinces Of The Roman Empire. 18 November 2017.

Drew Davis, University of Toronto, Suppressing the Aliens? CIL IV.9918a and the Problem of the Pompeiian incolae. 18 November 2017.

Professors Christer Bruun, Chair of Classics, and Nicholas Terpstra, Chair of History, University of Toronto, A Tale of Two Cities: The Urban Form in Ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence. 26 February 2016.

Prof. Alison Keith, University of Toronto, Wine and Vergil. 27 November 2015.

Matt Watton, Department of Classics Grad Student, Plato and Comedy. 30 Oct. 2015.

John Fabiano, Department of Classics Grad Student, CIL VI, 37118: A Prosopographical Analysis and Historical Study of Senatorial Munificence in Early Fourth Century CE Rome. 30 Oct. 2015.

Dr. Elizabeth Greene, University of Western Ontario, The Military Community at Vindolanda: Current excavations and past finds from a Roman frontier fort. 13 March 2015.

Marion Durand, Graduate Student in the Department of Classics, Suicide in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. 30 January 2015.

Bradley Hald, Graduate Student in the Department of Classics, A Man without Place: Turnus in Vergilian Simile. 30 January 2015.

Prof. Kevin Wilkinson, University of Toronto, Imperial Policy and Linguistic Impurity in the early 4th Century AD, or, How Palladas of Alexandria nearly lost his Lunch. 21 November 2014.

Prof. Alison Keith, University of Toronto, Wine and Vergil. 28 March 2014.


Past Initiatives

Peer Mentorship Programme

Until its dissolution in 2019 due to low rates of registration, this programme aimed to connect more experienced U of T students with their recently-arrived colleagues by pairing willing mentors with compatible lower-year mentees.

Anti-Calendar

Also discontinued in 2019 due to lack of interest, this programme, which had emerged from two separate traditions (namely the CLASSU Handbook and the ASSU Anti-Calendar), aimed to create a student-run and student-driven collection of yearly course evaluations pertaining to the Department of Classics specifically.