Expanding the Ancient World Workshop

This workshop will take place online; a Zoom link will be provided via email to registered participants.

Registration is required at THIS LINK.

Expanding the Ancient World is a series of professional development workshops and online resources for teachers. Keyed to the NYC Department of Education Social Studies Scope and Sequence, this program is designed to offer K-12 educators opportunities to develop their knowledge of the ancient world and to provide classroom-ready strategies for teaching the past with reliable sources. Featuring inquiry-based workshops, flexible lesson plans, and up-to-date research, Expanding the Ancient World aims to equip teachers with information and skills that they can share with their students. CTLE credits will be offered to New York State teachers.

The workshop invites teachers to further incorporate Roman slavery into ancient history curricula. From transactional papyri, to clever slaves on stage, to the tombstone of a child miner, we will examine slavery both as a ubiquitous legal phenomenon and as a varied spectrum of experience across the Roman world. That is, we will engage with not just the testimonies of the literary elite—largely that of enslavers—but also traces of enslaved people's lives in material and visual culture. Grounded in a series of concrete case studies, we will discuss how to present primary sources that will require students to confront some of the most challenging, and fascinating, aspects of ancient history.

We will focus on several questions: What was slavery in the Roman Empire? Who was enslaved, and how did they become enslaved? How can we learn about them? What can studying Roman slavery contribute to our understanding of both slavery and Roman history? We will also analyze together how the ancient phenomenon differed from more recent slavery, such as the Transatlantic slave trade, because of the nature of different practices, evidence preservation, and conceptions of race and ethnicity. However, the legacy of ancient slavery had a profound impact on enslavers' worldviews in the Antebellum South and beyond; we will untangle historians' anachronistic assumptions to effectively, and critically, think across periods. Ultimately, the aim is to present students with an even deeper and more accurate understanding of everyday life and human experience in the ancient world.

Workshop led by Charlotte Mandy (PhD Student, Columbia University Classical Studies).

Participants will receive 1.5 CTLE hours.

If you have any questions regarding the Expanding the Ancient World program please email ETAW@nyu.edu.

Please check isaw.nyu.edu for event updates.

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