On July 21st-22nd, 2024, SASA held its fourth annual virtual conference, Opening the Ancient World. This free, live-streamed conference brought together scholars from around the world to present where they may not otherwise have the chance and support independent researchers worldwide. With the theme Representations of the Past in Ancient and Modern Times, chosen to expand upon the growing idea of the reception of the ancient world, the conference aimed to broaden the idea of reception achieving this with an interdisciplinary exploration of how different societies across time have interacted with their historical roots.
Across the two days of live-streaming, with the help of SASA’s partners, 25 individual talks were held with a combined attendance of 24,000 people attending the conference. SASA was able to support a wide range of diversity in this audience with individuals tuning in across the world from Australia to France, India to the United States. This diversity extended through to education level and age with an age range of 13-60+ and education ranging from High School diplomas to PhDs.
One of the partners who helped make this event possible was the New Classicist, an online academically peer reviewed journal aimed at providing a publication platform for postgraduate students and early career researchers in fields related to antiquity. Funded and supported by the Institute of Classical Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and publishing both continual articles and yearly complete issues this is a vital resource for those interested in the ancient world.
SASA is excited to announce that we are working with the New Classicist to create a special edition journal after the success of this year's conference, giving our amazing speakers the chance to expand on the work already done for the conference and further the goal of the conference to reach more people. Set to be published at the end of 2025 and with a majority of the speakers from the conference already expressing interest in this brilliant opportunity, the edition is shaping up to be a brilliant example of SASA’s work to bring more people to the forefront of this conversation. Further SASA is taking an active role in the edition of this work with SASA’S David Danzig, Julie Levy, and Anh Nguyen thrilled to be working with the team at New Classicist towards this completion of the journal.
SASA would like to also thank the other partners who helped make this event, and now this publication possible. Each of these organizations; Digital Hammurabi, Voices of Ancient Egypt, World History Encyclopedia, World of Antiquity, Per-Hay Studio, History in 5 minutes, and History with Kayleigh have been crucial in their help advertising and streaming the conference. And, with the generous grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, SASA was able to reach a more diverse audience with the inclusion of live interpretation during the conference in both Spanish and Arabic.
Without such crucial help, SASA would not have been able to reach our record breaking audience, helping to spread the message of ancient studies across the world and would not be able to expand this reach further with this amazing opportunity.
So, keep your eyes peeled for updates and more information to come in the new year and beyond!
Comments