The Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati is delighted to be the host of the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians (AAH), which will be held Wednesday, April 16th – Friday April 18th 2025.

We invite abstracts for papers of 15-20 minutes in length. All sessions will be plenary and in-person. Speakers should be members of the AAH. If you are not already a member, information on joining the organization can be found here:  https://associationofancienthistorians.org/membership.html

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words on the following themes. Details for submission will be provided soon. The deadline for submission is 1 December 2024. All abstracts will be blind reviewed. Please direct any questions to aah2025@uc.edu.

 Subvention funding is available through application to the AAH Subvention Fund. Applicants must be members of the AAH, but need not be presenting at the meeting to apply.

Digital Directions 

 Ancient history is not lacking in excellent digital resources and projects, but the world of computers is developing continuously and at an ever-faster pace. What are current trends in digital humanities and ancient history, and what is next? What is the role of quantitative modelling and analysis in the study of the ancient world? How do we deal with uncertainty? What is the role of AI? How might gamification help research and teaching? We invite talks that showcase current and nascent digital projects and serve as a springboard to discuss the future of digital humanities, especially its role in (graduate) education.

Firsthand History: Claims of Autopsy in Ancient Historiography

 This panel will explore autopsy as a literary motif in Greek and Roman historiography, with special consideration for how claims of firsthand observation by the ancient historians affects their value for modern scholars of ancient history. Eyewitness testimony of an event, whether on the part of the historian himself or reported to him by others who were present, is but one form of “proof” in the historian’s toolbox. When compared with others (e.g. source citation, collating alternate traditions), is autopsy always considered the best kind of “proof”? We can sometimes identify moments when an ancient historian asserts firsthand observation of something it is known or suspected he did not or could not have witnessed, or of something that appears outlandish or fantastical. How do such “incorrect” or implausible claims of autopsy affect our understanding of the authorial persona’s authority?

Material Culture, History, and the People of the Mediterranean: New Models, New Thoughts (co-sponsored by the Diversity Committee) 

 Historiography of the Ancient Mediterranean is interdisciplinary by nature, drawing on an unusually rich textual and material record. That said, scholarship centering on the written word can produce historical narratives with a profoundly urban, elite focus. As scholarship on antiquity becomes more inclusive and attuned to nonelite experiences, ancient historians have sought to decenter writing and to build histories of people less well represented in the texts by using material culture. Sometimes the written and material evidence conflicts. How can we reconcile or manage conflicting evidence? 

Talks should explore the histories of nonelite or indigenous people of Classical Antiquity for which both written and material evidence exists. We welcome papers that apply methodologies or frameworks that introduce new methodologies to the evidence. For example, approaches might be gleaned from pre-modern historiography beyond the Mediterranean such as the study of precontact Mesoamerica.

The Graeco-Roman Ancient Near East

 For about two millennia the Ancient Near East including Egypt interacted with, or was a part of, the Graeco-Roman world. We need a broad overview of the history of such interactions and of the active participation of non-Greeks-and-Romans from the Ancient Near East in Graeco-Roman history. The Bronze Age, the Archaic Period, the Hellenistic World, the Roman Conquest of the East, and Late Antiquity are only the most obvious time periods where we expect such interactions, but various types of interactions (e.g., movement of goods and of people, not to mention of ideas and other cultural “artifacts") can also be traced throughout the two millennia. We may also reconsider the relation between the training of Greek and Roman historians, usually in PhD-granting Classics departments, and the training of Ancient Near Eastern historians, usually in their own department - if a university has one.

Public ancient history and history pedagogy 

Public history makes history relevant to non-historians. The National Council on Public History focuses on professional public historians outside of academia. Their training, up to a point, is the same as that of academic historians. Ancient history cannot leave its responsibility to the public to local historical societies and only to some extent to museums and such, at least not in North America. Instead, it is up to us, professional academic ancient historians, to spread the word to the general public. In what ways do we currently engage the public - and in what other, novel ways can we engage the public - so that its perception of ancient history can inform the present responsibly or at least can no longer be manipulated to help shape it in a partisan way? How visible are we, or should we be, in society? What difference can it make to the way we train the next generation of professional academic ancient historians?

Infrastructure and Social Change

Ancient societies invested heavily in physical infrastructure, such as roads, walls, and waterworks. In fact, Dionysios of Halikarnassos claimed that roads, aqueducts and sewers were the most signal accomplishments of the Roman empire. These works were often constructed for pragmatic reasons: cities needed defending, armies needed roads, and urban communities needed water. But all of these interventions in the built environment affected local societies. People were separated by walls, towns and countryside connected by roads, and communities formed and reformed around the availability and effort of retrieving water. What were the social consequences of infrastructural development in the ancient world? How cognizant were ancient states of these consequences? And to what extent did awareness of these consequences motivate and shape the investments that were made?

Mobility, Networks, and the Production of Scientific Knowledge 

 Modern science is often thought of as a static, stationary activity unfolding in fixed and dedicated spaces. This vision perhaps colors perceptions of ancient scientific actors (broadly construed) laboring in isolation and in discrete spaces and immobile tools (think: Democritus’s anatomical explorations at his home; Aristotle in his lagoon; Ptolemy with his astrolabe). This panel invites papers that explode this image to consider the mobilities which lay underneath the production of various forms of scientific texts and the networks along which its agents and objects of study flowed. We are especially interested in papers that explore how these scientific networks interact or overlap with other sorts of networks—like the sacred or economic—which have recently been more closely described. What are the marked nodes and hubs? Can we identify weak links that productively connect disparate networks to create novel ideas? Ultimately, then, we seek papers that more thoroughly embed scientific practice and production in the world of movement and exchange.

Epigraphy and the Ancient Historian: New Challenges, New Directions

Inscriptions are a major tool for ancient historians to uncover and engage with topics, people, and places that lay outside the main focus of our literary sources, such as the histories of non-elite actors. The volume of epigraphic documents is continually increasing, and numerous digital and scientific tools have been introduced that allow scholars to use epigraphic texts in new ways. This panel seeks to explore current trends and new approaches to the study of epigraphy and its role in the historical scholarship on the ancient world. What sorts of information can be gleaned from epigraphic texts? What methods can be used to integrate inscriptions with other forms of historical evidence? What pitfalls lay in wait to trap the unwary historian? While all aspects of epigraphic inquiry are valuable, in particular we are interested in papers that engage with new approaches to epigraphic texts and/or papers which illuminate new areas of inquiry for ancient historians.

We have reserved blocks of rooms at the Marriott and at the Graduate, two hotels on the edge of campus.

The Graduate: Association of Ancient Historians Block

For reservations by phone: 1-800-991-5028. Mention that you are with the Association of Ancient Historians group.

Fairfield Inn by Marriott: Group Rate for Association of Ancient Historians

Please note this link will work best if opened in Firefox or Chrome.  

Group rates will expire March 15, 2025, so please make your travel plans before that date.

Safety

In the event of an emergency, call 911 or the Department of Public Safety at (513) 556-1111 or (513) 558-1111.

University of Cincinnati Title IX Sexual Harassment Policy

The University of Cincinnati’s Title IX Sexual Harassment Policy can be found at the following link:https://www.uc.edu/about/equity-inclusion/gender-equity/title-ix/title-ix-sexual-harassment-policy.html

As the conference is taking place on UC property, attendees will be expected to adhere to these policies.

AAH Standards of Professional Conduct

According to Article 17 of the Association of Ancient Historians’ Constitution pertaining to the Standards of Professional Conduct:

“The Association of Ancient Historians (AAH) adopts and adheres to the AHA Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct and Code of Professional Conduct at Officially Sanctioned AHA Activities, and shall adopt and adhere to amendments and changes to these policies by the American History Association in the future.

In addition, the Association of Ancient Historians acknowledges the particular ethical issues arising from the study of material culture and urges all members to follow the ethical guidelines established by the disciplinary body most closely aligned with the material studied, including but not limited to the AIA’s Code of Ethics, ANS statement on Cultural Property, and the ASP Resolution Concerning the Illicit Trade in Papyri.

Where these policies refer to reporting, intake, and investigation of alleged misconduct, such duties will be handled in our organization by a Standing Committee on Professional Conduct… If a report concerns a member of the Standing Committee on Professional Conduct, it may be made instead to the President. Any member or officer who is named in a report shall recuse themselves from portion of the intake, investigation, and decision-making process. Any member or officer who has a close personal or professional relationship with anyone named in the report shall recuse themselves from portion of the intake, investigation, and decision-making process…

The Standing Committee on Professional Conduct shall check for and respond to any and all emails during and immediately following the annual meetings within twelve hours; during the remainder of the year responses may take up to five business days.”

Article 17 can be found in its entirety in the AAH constitution.

You can find here the Code of Professional Conduct at Officially Sanctioned AHA Activities (2023) and the AHA Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct (updated 2023).

Where these policies refer to reporting, intake, and investigation of alleged misconduct, such duties will be handled in our organization by the Committee on Professional Conduct. The Committee members in 2025 are:

C. Denver Graninger (Chair (2022-2027)

Bret Devereaux (2022-2027)
Leanne Bablitz (2024-2029)
Jeremy LaBuff (2022-2027)

Jinyu Liu (2024-2029)

Georgia Tsouvala (ex-officio)

Concerns and complaints pertaining to Article 17 may be reported at complaints@associationofancienthistorians.org.

Finally, since the AAH Annual Meetings are solely organized by and held at a host institution (in accordance with article 12 of the AAH constitution), as guests of that institution, we adhere to its policies.