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Late Antiquity Multi-Campus Research Group

The Multi-Campus Research Group on "History and Culture of Late Antiquity" was constituted in 1999, with funds from the UC President's Office. It unites the greatest concentration of scholars in this field on the West Coast, and currently has 20 graduate students writing dissertations and over 50 who select Late Antiquity as a field in their qualifying exams. The MRG creates a regular infrastructure of academic exchange between UC campuses for graduate students and faculty. It instructs graduate students in a variety of sub-disciplines and provides them with pre-professional training for the academic job market. It encourages shared and collaborative research of faculty and graduate students through regular meetings. And it addresses undergraduate students and the larger community through lectures and outreach activities. The following opportunities are offered through the MRG:

Intercampus Student Exchange: This quarter students from UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and UCLA are participating in a seminar together on the the historiography of late antiquity. To see the syllabus and photos from the meetings, visit the web site. The MRG in Late Antiquity provides funding up to a maximum of $5000 (plus $500 travel funds) to enable two or three graduate students per year to spend a quarter or semester at another UC campus.  The student may participate in a graduate course at the host campus and/or engage in research under the guidance of a faculty member.  

Call for Papers: The First Annual University of California Conference on Late Antiquity :  Beginning this year, the Late Antiquity graduate conference is being transformed to a more inclusive faculty-graduate student conference.  We are sad to see the graduate conference end after ten years of success, but we hope that future meetings of the University of California Conference on Late Antiquity will continue to attract interest.  Abstract submittions for the conference this year are limited to faculty and students in California and are currently closed; however, contact Walter Ward if you are still interested in participating.  We will be uploading a tentative schedule for the conference soon.. We are pleased to welcome to the conference special guest Bryan Ward-Perkins, author of the recent "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization" ( Oxford).  Contact Walter Ward for further information or visit the web site.

International Conference in Late Antiquity: Meeting bi-annually on alternating UC campuses, this conference brings together scholars from throughout the world. The last conference on "Elites in Late Antiquity" was held at UCLA in February 1999.  Papers from this conference were published as a special issue of the journal Arethusa in September, 2000. In March, 2003 the conference on  "Violence, Victims and Remedies in Late Antiquity" was held at UC Santa Barbara.  Proceedings of this conference are being published by Ashgate.  Edited by Hal Drake, the book is entitled Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices.  Click here to see the flyer.

LARES/PENATES Reading Groups: Regular research workshops are held at least twice a year in Northern California (LARES, centered at UC Berkeley) and in Southern California (PENATES, centered at UCLA). Faculty and graduate students gather for half a day of discussion, led by a participant on the basis of pre-circulated readings. The two branches hold a joint meeting once a year.

Guest Speakers: Several scholars of international reputation are invited to present lectures at participating campuses every year.

Course Offerings: Course descriptions at participating UC campuses are available from several of the MRG Faculty.  Please select this link to see the current listings.

For comments or questions about the web site or mailing lists, contact: ltantiqu@humnet.ucla.edu

last updated 4/11/2006