News

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.

For nearly three millennia, Homer has been captivating Greek, Mediterranean, and Western societies. By tapping into the rich traditions of the ancient Near East and diving deep into tall tales of his own time, his epics struck more than one cord with his contemporary and future audiences.

There is more exciting news about the Institute’s Executive Committee. We are honoured that Dr. Mustafa Adak has accepted our invitation to join our executive council. His work on the Athenian polis gained him his MA (1995) and PhD (1999) in Ancient History at the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg. After teaching as lecturer in the Department of Ancient Languages and Cultures at Akdeniz University in Antalya (1999-), he became Professor of Greek Language and Literature in 2005. For a quarter century, he has been working incessantly on the history of ancient Asia Minor especially based on the Greek inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. His surveys along the ancient roads of Lycia, Pisidia, and Pamphylia have yielded several discoveries, most famously the Stadiasmus Patarensis (published with the subtitle Itinera Romana Provinciae Lyciae, Istanbul 2007, together with Sencer Şahin). His recent focus has shifted to the even richer epigraphic record of Ionia, especially Teos (cf. Teos and Abdera. Two Cities in Peace and War, Oxford 2022, with Peter Thonemann). He is the editor of the journal Philia, a title well chosen to express his outstanding qualities as a team player, always enthusiastic to share the latest inscriptions that may elucidate Hellenistic Anatolia, and to assist scholars and students towards publishing their findings at the highest level. Please, join us in welcoming Mustafa Adak!

We are very grateful that our colleague from Wilfried Laurier University (also in Waterloo), Dr. Scott Gallimore, has accepted our invitation to the work of the Institute’s Executive Committee. Scott is Associate Professor of Archaeology. He has a long-standing research focus on Crete, with a particular interest in the transition from the Hellenistic to the Roman period (cf. his 2015 monograph An Island Economy: Hellenistic and Roman Pottery from Hierapytna, Crete). And since 2013, he has been part of the excavations at the Hellenistic and Roman city-state of Sikyon, which is located in the northeast Peloponnese just to the west of Corinth. He is now the Assistant Director of those excavations, which is currently concentrated on exploring the periphery of the Agora, with a specific focus on finding Hellenistic-period activity. It is great to have his support!

The study of the Seleukid dynasty and its multiethnic kingdom stretching from the Aegean over the Levant and Babylonia to the eastern Iranian territories has been one of the core initiatives of WIHS from its inception until Seleukid Study Days IV: Seleukid Royal Women (Montreal 2013, published 2016). The conference series continued until Seleukid Study Days VII: The Seleukid Army (Sopot, Poland, 2019, published as The Seleukids at War, 2024). When the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down international collaboration, the near-monthly Seleukid Lecture Series (2021-2025) kept the loosely-defined Seleukid Study Group together. We are pleased that the Seleukid Study Days are now being revived, with WIHS among its co-sponsors and Utrecht University as its local host.

The international workshop ‘Female Roles in Ancient Foundation Legends’ (Oct. 6, 2025) provided the ideal opportunity to introduce Dr. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Professor of Classical Studies at Macquarie University, as the new member of the WIHS Executive Committee to a wider Waterloo audience. 

After a period of transition, the Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies is ready to resume its active role in facilitating and stimulating collaborative and interdisciplinary research in Hellenistic studies. Appointed Director to the Institute by the Dean of Arts Dr. Alexie Tcheuyap in September, Dr. Altay Coskun (Professor and Associate Chair of Classical Studies) convened the new Executive Committee.

Please join us for the Power, Royal Agency, and Elite Women in the Hellenistic and Roman World Conference which will run from September 2021-June 2022.  

A call for abstracts for a “distributed conference” scheduled to run over the fall and winter of 2021/22, seeking to gather together individuals interested in the question of royal power in the ancient world. The current call – for papers on the subject of “Power, Royal Agency, and Elite Women in the Hellenistic and Roman World” – is the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series of events exploring the meaning and manifestations of royal power.

The Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies, in association with the Hellenic Heritage Foundation, is pleased to announce a new lecture series, which will annually feature a distinguished international Greek scholar. The HHF-WIHS Hellenic Discoveries Lecture Series will deepen knowledge and foster pride and understanding about the importance of Greece and the role its leaders and peoples have played around the world.