The Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies (WIHS) supports international research, outreach, and pedagogy focused on the history, cultures, and intellectual traditions of the Hellenistic world. Through conferences, publications, and collaborative networks, WIHS brings together scholars, students, and the public to explore the ancient Mediterranean in global context.
The Hellenistic world was an age of profound transformation, defined by movement across borders, encounters between cultures, and new ways of understanding power, identity, and belonging. Emerging from the conquests of Alexander and extending across the Mediterranean, Near East, and beyond, it was a world in which ideas, peoples, and practices circulated with unprecedented intensity. Cities rose and fell, empires were negotiated as much through diplomacy as through force, and local traditions were reshaped through sustained contact with wider political and cultural horizons.
The Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies exists to explore this complexity in all its dimensions. Bringing together scholars from history, archaeology, literature, philosophy, religious studies, and related fields, the Institute fosters interdisciplinary research that connects texts, material culture, landscapes, and lived experience. Through collaborative projects, international conferences, publications, and teaching initiatives, WIHS advances a global conversation about the ancient world—one that foregrounds nuance, diversity, and methodological rigor while remaining attentive to the human realities behind historical change.
We invite you to explore the work of the Institute throughout this website. Learn more about upcoming lectures, workshops, and conferences; discover publications produced by WIHS scholars and collaborators; and engage with the people and ideas that shape our research community. Whether you are a scholar, student, or interested member of the public, we welcome your curiosity—and encourage you to connect with us, support our work, and take part in the ongoing study of the Hellenistic world.
The acquisition of a knowledge of history is of the greatest utility for every conceivable circumstance of life.
News
WIHS Visiting Scholar 2026: Dr. Rik van Wijlick
The Waterloo Classics Community welcomes the WIHS Visiting Scholar Dr. Hendrikus van Wijlick, Associate Professor at Peking University (Beijing), during his stay from October to December 2026.
Symposium on Classical Reception in Germany Brought International Scholars to Waterloo
WIHS welcomed scholars from Germany, Italy, Belgium, the US and Canada to explore how the ancient Greeks and Romans were remembered and studied in the German speaking countries since the 18th century.
WIHS Supports International Hermes Conference in Naples
This international conference hosted at the Università di Napoli L’Orientale focused on the writings and legacy of the pseudonymous figure Hermes Trismegistus and brought together over 30 scholars from 10 different countries. It was a fascinating update on the conference on the same theme held at the same location in November 2001, several participants of which were also present at this year’s iteration. The conference was also the occasion to launch a new book by WIHS Executive Committee member David Porreca (in collaboration with UW graduates Dan Attrell and Brett Bartlett, as well as our Italian colleague Matteo Stefani) entitled “The Latin Hermes in Translation - Asclepius, Glosses on Trismegistus, Book of Six Principles of Things, Book of 24 Philosophers”, published by Brepols in their Corpus Christianorum in Translation series. Conference proceedings will be published as an upcoming volume of the journal Micrologus. Conference organizers expressed their gratitude for the the financial support provided by WIHS that helped make the event possible.