News

Kelly Olson and Il-Kweon Sir have discussed Christopher Nolan's Odyssey with various media outlets. Listen to Dr. Sir's radio interview here, and watch Dr. Olson on CBS News and CHCH-TV. 

The Study Tour to Italy is on! Follow the adventures on Instagram @westerninrome . 

The Department of Classical Studies applauds Marina Schmidt on the successful completion and defense of her PhD thesis, entitled Out of the Shadows: Roman Imperial Women and Power in Late Antiquity. Congratulations, Dr Schmidt!

Beth Greene has co-curated an exhibition on the Roman shoes from Vindolanda for the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. The visiting exhibition titled "Unearthing Vindolanda" will open on May 7th 2026 and will remain for 18 months until September 2027. The exhibition was organized by the Bata Shoe Museum in partnership with The Vindolanda Trust and co-curated by Barbara Birley (Curator of The Vindolanda Museum) and Elizabeth Greene (Associate Professor in Classics).

In conjunction with the exhibition Beth has written a new book on The Roman Footwear from Vindolanda, published by Amberley Publishing in the UK. It will be available to purchase online from April 2026 and can be found in the museum shops at The Bata and the Vindolanda Museum.

Bernd Steinbock gave a presentation on the long-standing question of how best to understand the Attic orators’ references to the past in the Online Lecture Series Exploring Graeco-Roman Oratory and Rhetoric from a Cross-Cultural Perspective. The title of his talk was “Rhetorical Exploitation, Social Memory, and the Attic Orators’ Treatment of the Past: Historical Allusions to the Sicilian Expedition.” The program can be found here. 

Hannah Borotsik, a PhD student, shares in a fieldwork report her experiences excavating at the Athenian Agora in 2025 with the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, with whom she was a P.E. MacAllister Fellowship Recipient.

Beth Greene is co-investigator on a project researching the Roman Empire's leather economy. The three-year study has received £1.3m grant funding through a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) award. Congratulations, Dr. Greene!

Read the full Western News article here.