Seminar Polis: A new history of the ancient Greek city-state from the early Iron Age to the end of antiquity

11 May 2026

Meeting with John Ma (Columbia University)

View from Philopappos Hill in Athens (Attica, Greece) — Acropolis of Athens

How to partecipate

Free admission - Seats available: 100

Program

Discussion of the volume Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity with the author John Ma (Columbia University)

Seminar for the PhD Programme in Historical and Archaeological Sciences Memory, Civilisations and Heritage, “Classics and Beyond” track

Open teaching seminars, MA Programme in Historical and Oriental Studies

Participation is open to all

Speakers

  • John Ma

    Professor of Classics ,Faculty Advisor, Postbaccalaureate Program in Classics, Department of Classics, Columbia University
    ohn Ma joined the Department in 2015, after working at Corpus Christi College and the Faculty of Classics at Oxford for fifteen years. Before that, he worked in the Classicss Department at Princeton (during which period he lived in New York). He received a B.A. (Literae Humaniores) and D.Phil. (Ancient History) from Oxford University. His main interests lie in the history of the ancient Greek world and its broader context (including the ancient near-east). Within Greek history, he is particularly interested in the handling of epigraphical and archaeological evidence, historical geography, and the complexities of the Hellenistic world. His research tries to combine philological attentiveness (especially in the case of Greek inscriptions), interpretive awareness (for literary but also documentary evidence), groundedness in materiality and concrete space, and a feeling for legal, social and economic realities.

Contacts