Past News

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.

Bernd Steinbock presented a paper entitled “Athenian Responses to the Disaster in Sicily as Indicators of a Social Trauma” at the International Workshop Emotions of Crisis at the University of Liverpool. As well, he attended the 9th Annual Meeting of the Memory Studies Association in Prague with a presentation on “Thucydides, LaCapra, and Empathic Unsettlement in Recounting Traumatic Events.”

Beth Greene has received a Western Research Excellence Award (Outstanding Scholar) for 2025. Congratulations on this incredible achievement! Read the Western News article here. 

Congratulations to Angela Weiler (HSP), the first Western student to receive the Archaeological Institute of America's Jane C. Waldbaum Field School Scholarship. The full announcement can be found here. 

Beth Greene is featured in a news story about the discovery of exceptionally large ancient Roman shoes along Hadrian's Wall near Vindolanda. This story has appeared across multiple news outlets globally, including CTV News and the BBC.  

Congratulations to Aara Suksi for winning the 2024-25 Edward G. Pleva Award for Teaching Excellence, the university's highest teaching award. 

Suksi’s nominators applauded her kindness and empathy for students and colleagues, noting, “Aara has something extra, without which education doesn’t truly matter – she brings her soul to her roles as administrator, teacher and mentor.” 

Bravo, Dr. Suksi! 

Classical Studies alumna Jenna Colclough (MA 2019) publishes Our Little Agonies, her debut poetry collection, which explores themes of love, loss and belonging. Summoning figures from Classical mythology, Jenna engages with personal loss through timeless narratives of descent and endurance. The result is an ode to survival and the persistence of memory. 

Congratulations, Jenna, on this achievement! 

Alexander Meyer is the winner of the 2024-2025 Faculty of Arts and Humanities Teaching Excellence Award! Congratulations, Dr. Meyer, on this well-earned accolade!