We are excited to announce a CfP for the conference ‘Writing from the Margins: New Approaches to Ancient Authorship’, to be held at Durham University, 13^th-15^th of May, 2026.

This conference seeks to re-envision ancient authorship by exploring the roles played by socially marginalised and overlooked groups in the creation, preservation, and dissemination of ancient texts. It contests traditional views of ancient authors as elite individuals working independently to compose texts for elite audiences. Instead, we approach authorship as a collaborative, shifting, and multilayered enterprise that, we feel, better fits the social realities of the ancient world. Key questions for the conference include:  1) how were slaves, freedmen/freedwomen, and non-citizens involved in the creation of ancient texts and 2) how can we better appreciate texts’ dissemination and preservation by anonymous or uncredited intermediaries such as scribes, pedagogues, graffitists, and performers in the theatre? Building on recent contestation of rigid identity categories, we see ‘status’ itself (in terms of class, race, ethnicity, (dis)ability, citizenship) as fluid and moveable, with individuals moving between enslaved/free, elite/non-elite, citizen/foreigner, disabled/abled during their lifetime or, in some cases, depending on the eye of the beholder. 

Although authorship has long been a contested category in literary and cultural theory, e.g. in the work of Barthes and Foucault, it has not received adequate treatment as a socio-cultural phenomenon in the ancient world. We are interested chiefly in the historical conditions of textual production, and how acknowledging the involvement of marginal authors/authorship can affect our interpretation of extant texts. Given the challenges of ancient evidence, where marginal voices are likely to be elided or downplayed, we are particularly keen to explore new methods and theoretical frameworks for uncovering non-elite authorship and appreciating its significance.

Confirmed conference participants include Dr Tom Geue (ANU); Prof Kristina Milnor (Barnard/Columbia); Dr Lilah Grace Canevaro (Edinburgh); Dr Katherine Backler (Leeds); Prof Peter Kruschwitz (Vienna); and Dr Robin Kreutel (HU Berlin).

We invite abstracts of 300 words for 20-minute papers on any aspect of non-elite authorship in the ancient world. The deadline for abstracts is Friday 30^th of January, 2026. Please send your submissions and any enquiries to Dr Erica Bexley, erica.m.bexley@durham.ac.uk

Please see our webpage on PhD applications for full details of three fantastic funding opportunities: 

• Transformative Humanities studentships. Each award will offer a tuition fee waiver, a stipend for 3.5 years (full time) or 7 years (part time) at the level set by UKRI, additional funding opportunities, and access to training and placement resources.
• Edna Jenkinson Studentship in Classics. This award is offered in affiliation with St Mary’s College, Durham. It covers home fees plus catering and accommodation at St Mary’s, with a modest additional stipend of approx. £1,400 per annum for travel and/or research expenses. Award duration is 3.5 years, and the award holder would be expected to take up residence at St Mary’s by Oct 1st, 2026.
• Chinese Scholarship Council. The Chinese Scholarship Council is a university-wide competition offering funding to applicants from mainland China who wish to undertake a PhD at Durham. The maximum funding duration is 48 months.