Breaking Ceilings, Shattering Silos

The Global Late Antiquity Society (GLAS) is an international association dedicated to scholarly innovation and reflection on global Late Antiquity that questions and expands on received models and methods. We understand Late Antiquity as an era of transformation, one in which people’s activities, ideas, relationships, and creations bridged the religious, intellectual, political, economic, and social structures of the ancient and medieval worlds broadly conceived. Because it is necessary to understand the arc of these transformations, the interests of GLAS members extend across the first millennium of the common era. Primary points of interest include interconnections between the Mediterranean and Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Asia Minor, Iran, the Caucasus, the Baltic, Scandinavia, the Irish and British Isles, China, India and all of Asia. We want to disrupt the often assumed connection between the late ancient/Christian Mediterranean and modern “western” Europe, while attending to the many ways in which the culture and values of Late Antiquity both haunt and enrich the contemporary world.

We are committed to being a democratic organization that embraces inclusivity, serves its members and the larger scholarly community, advances the ethical study of our interests and materials, advocates for and engages in necessary institutional reform, and imagines and brings about new ways for our members to pursue their interests, effectively teach their students, educate the public, and earn a living wage.

We welcome scholars, writers, students, and teachers who pose unusual questions, draw new connections through comparative approaches, reflect on methodology, propose revisions to received models, or integrate theories and methods from a wider range of disciplines than are customarily included in historical, theological, or philological approaches. These include queer, feminist, and post-colonial scholarship. GLAS seeks to open doors to collaboration and exchange across disciplinary, geographical, and institutional boundaries. 

Fields and topics we address include, but are not limited to, Archaeology, Cultural Geography, Cartography and Digital Humanities, Disability, Economics, Environmental History, Ethnography and Race, Gender and Sexuality, Historical Demography, History (including Cultural and Textual History), History of the Arts (including Architecture, Art, and Music), Law, Literature and Rhetoric, Material Culture (including Codicology, Epigraphy, Numismatics, and Papyrology), Migration Studies, Philology, Philosophy, Reception, Religion, Science (including Medicine and Technology), and Historical Theology. We are also interested in comparative approaches that put late ancient Afro-Eurasia in dialogue with the Americas and Australasia as well as the reception of late ancient ideas, practices, and values in later periods and other regions.

The association meets annually for annual conference workshops; GLAS also sponsors ad hoc conferences throughout the year touching on one or more of our themes.

The 2021 Tracing Christians in Global Late Antiquity conference is the first ad hoc conference GLAS is sponsoring. In 2023 we aim to hold our first official annual conference. At that time, we will discuss and determine governance (including voting procedures and bylaws) and membership requirements (including dues [if any]), and where and when to hold conferences. We will also determine how to document decisions reached at the meeting. Please consult the GLAS website for further information.

Charter Members, in alphabetical order:

Ryan R. Abrecht, University of San Diego

Evan Axel Andersson, University of California, Santa Barbara

Camille Leon Angelo, Yale University

Tara Baldrick-Morrone, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Jennifer Barry, University of Mary Washington

Todd Berzon, Bowdoin College

Chance E. Bonar, Harvard University

Sarah E. Bond, University of Iowa

Elizabeth Castelli, Barnard College

Cavan Concannon, University of Southern California

Jeremiah Coogan, University of Oxford

Alexander D’Alisera, Boston College

Krista N. Dalton, Kenyon College

David J. DeVore, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona 

Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, University of California, Santa Barbara

Paul Dilley, University of Iowa

Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley

Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos, Amherst College

Diane Shane Fruchtman, Rutgers University

Gregory Given, Harvard Divinity School

Susan R. Holman, Valparaiso University

Kelly Holob, University of Chicago 

Cornelia Horn, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg

Lee Jefferson, Centre College

Lisa Johnson, University of California, Santa Barbara

Young Richard Kim, University of Illinois at Chicago

Katie Kleinkopf, University of Louisville

Jennifer Knust, Duke University

Maia Kotrosits, Denison University 

Matthew Larsen, University of Copenhagen

Victoria Leonard, Coventry University and the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London

Mark Letteney, University of Southern California

Liv Ingeborg Lied, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society

Christine Luckritz Marquis, Union Presbyterian Seminary

David Maldonado Rivera, Kenyon College

Peter Anthony Mena, University of San Diego

Michael Motia, University of Massachusetts Boston

Ellen Muehlberger, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Shaily Shashikant Patel, Virginia Tech

Aaron Pelttari, University of Edinburgh

John David Penniman, Bucknell University

Daniel Picus, Western Washington University

Sarah F. Porter, Harvard University

Michael Pregill, Chapman University

Travis W. Proctor, Wittenberg University 

Carl R. Rice, Yale University 

Sarah E. Rollens, Rhodes College

Charles J. Schmidt, Rice University

Karl Shuve, University of Virginia

Blossom Stefaniw, MF Norwegian School of Theology

Bradley K. Storin, Louisiana State University

Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College

Arthur P. Urbano, Providence College, Providence, RI

James E. Walters, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

Colin M. Whiting, Dumbarton Oaks