Events

New Visions of Ancient Peace

Inaugural workshop for the Ancient Peace Studies Network

January 20th-22nd, 2026, University of St Andrews

Bringing together a mix of ancient-world researchers with experts in later peace history, modern peace and conflict studies, social anthropology and psychology, and war/peace storytelling, this workshop will facilitate dialogue between scholars working in ancient and non-ancient fields, and between Humanities and Social Science approaches, both to establish rigorous foundations for the development of a new field of ancient peace studies and to provide modern peace studies with a theoretically-informed ‘pre-history’ of peace imaginaries and peacebuilding approaches that went on to influence later periods. We will particularly consider the following questions:

• How was peace understood, experienced and represented across antiquity by ordinary people in diverse contexts and communities? 
• Which discourses of peace and approaches to peacebuilding became particularly dominant in different periods/communities, and why? 
• Whose perspectives were marginalised in the process, and with what consequences? 
• How did/do prevailing habits of visualising the whole spectrum of peace (from personal peace to interstate conflict resolution and post-conflict recovery) inform everyday life, and vice versa? 
• What can both ancient-world scholarship and contemporary peace studies gain from a more inclusive study of ancient experiences of peace and its absence? 
• And how can an enhanced understanding of ancient cultures of peace contribute to peace literacy in the 21st century?

The programme of speakers is available here.

To register to attend, please complete this form. Registration closes on 9th January 2026.

For more information, please contact Prof. Alice König at [email protected]. 

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Performing Peace

If these questions pique your interest, email [email protected] to sign up! You can read more about the workshop, and NMT Automatics’ new ‘peace play’, here.

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Teaching Ancient War and Peace

As outlined here, an enhanced approach to teaching ancient war and peace is desirable for many reasons, not only to equip students of Classics to visualize ancient warfare and peacekeeping/peacemaking in more holistic ways but also to contribute to wider war and peace literacy. Our series of online workshops aims to bring together experts on war and peace (working within and beyond Classics) with experts on pedagogy (from the school sector, peace education institutes, and pedagogic studies) to set the agenda for a five-year research and impact project, which will produce publications, develop training materials, design and pilot new teaching resources, and contribute to curriculum development and policy-making within Classics and other related disciplinary areas. Ranging across primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors, it aims to lay the groundwork for more focused research in subsequent years.

To register for Teams links for these online workshops, please contact Prof. Alice König at [email protected].

26^th November 2025, 2-5pm GMT

• 2-2.30: Everyday Militarisms in Children’s Learning Worlds (Jana Tabak, State University of Rio de Janeiro)
• 2.30-3: Approaches to Teaching Violence in the University Classroom (Fiona McHardy, University of Roehampton)
• 3.30-4: Peace Education: key tenets (Isabel Cartwright, Peace Education Programme Manager, Quakers in Britain)
• 4-4.30: Teaching Conflict Resolution through Ancient Texts: A Peacebuilding Approach in the Colombian and Amazonian Context (Ronald Forero-Álvarez and Rafel Uribe-Neira, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia)

1^st December 2025, 2-5pm GMT

• 2-2.30: Thucydides: if it’s not broken, don’t fix it (Steve Matthews Royal Grammar School High Wycombe)
• 2.30-3: Foregrounding Memnon and Modern Eritrea (Mai Musié, Swansea University)
• 3.30-4: How to teach gods of war differently (Susan Deacy, Bristol/Institute of Classical Studies)
• 4.30-5: Ancient Warriors, Modern Cemeteries (Matthew A. Sears, University of New Brunswick)

10^th December 2025, 2-5pm GMT

• 2-2.30: The Battle of Marathon in Modern Young People’s Literature (Sonya Nevin, Hughes Hall, Cambridge) 
• 2.30-3: Teaching ancient violence and trauma: two case studies from epic and historiography (Elina Pyy, University of Helsinki and Benjamin Jerue, San Jorge University) 
• 3.30-4: Teaching sexual violence in ancient warfare (Hannah-Marie Chidwick, University of Bristol)
• 4-4.30: The girl went all unwilling: what Briseis can teach us about survival (Caroline Bristow, University of Cambridge)

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