School of Arts and Sciences
Department of Classical Studies

Department Highlights

2025-2026

New Courses

Nature and the Environment in Greek Mythology (CLS 105/ENV 106)
This new course rounds out the department’s offerings in ancient mythology and religion while supporting our growing expertise in Environmental Humanities. The course examines natural elements in Greek mythology—including animals, plants, weather, and minerals—and explores the integration of humans and human activity within the natural environment, as well as spiritual and religious understandings of nature in ancient and contemporary Western culture.

Ancient Natural Disasters (CLS 035/135, ENVS 035, ARCH 035)
This course examines relationships between natural catastrophes and human societies in the ancient Mediterranean world, exploring how communities were impacted by, survived, and adapted to environmental crises. Topics include volcanic eruptions and their effects on towns and climate systems, severe weather and prolonged drought, agricultural disruption and famine, destructive earthquakes, and major disease outbreaks that reshaped settlement and demographic patterns.

The Roman Economy (CLS 172)
This new permanent course builds on a special topics seminar previously offered by Bruce Hitchner. It explores new approaches to the study of the Roman economy, using archaeological evidence, written records, and paleoscientific data to address questions about economic growth, technological development, urbanization, capital investment, the state as an economic actor, production, trade, and the role of cities in economic progress.

Reading in a Digital Age (DH 150)
The Digital Humanities program, hosted by the Department of Classical Studies, is offering a new course on the use of artificial intelligence in humanities research. Students will engage with current research on using AI to work with languages and texts beyond those they might otherwise be able to study and to explore research questions that were previously inaccessible.

Research and Grants

Beyond Translation: Opening up the Human Record
In January 2026, the Perseus Digital Library began work on Beyond Translation: Opening up the Human Record, funded by Schmidt Sciences’ Humanities Artificial Intelligence Virtual Institute. The project develops open datasets and automated tools that use large language models to help users engage with texts in unfamiliar languages through translation and word-by-word explanation. The project brings together researchers from Tufts, Northeastern University, and the University of Regensburg. At Tufts, Charles Pletcher joins the department as a full-time postdoctoral researcher, while Schmidt Science funding supports Computer Science PhD student Sarah Abowitz.

A Digital Edition of Aristotle’s Poetics in Greek, Arabic, and Latin
A new grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Scholarly Editions and Translations Program is supporting Professors Gregory Crane and Riccardo Strobino in developing a born-digital edition of Aristotle’s Poetics in Greek, Arabic, and Latin. The project will provide richly annotated translations aligned with the original texts and will focus particularly on the tenth-century Arabic translation by Abū-Bishr Mattā and the thirteenth-century Latin translation by William of Moerbeke. The edition will be hosted on the Perseus Digital Library.

The Nemencha Project
Support from the Tufts Innovation Fund continues to support Bruce Hitchner and his collaborators on the Nemencha Project, a collaborative digital research initiative investigating the interaction between the Roman Empire and the political economy and landscape of the Nemencha region of east-central Algeria and the Tunisian high steppe. The project brings together archaeological, historical, and digital methods and involves undergraduate and graduate students in Classical Studies.

Marie-Claire Beaulieu and the Egée Project
Marie-Claire Beaulieu is co-investigator with Marcello Vitali Rosati on Egée: éditions grecques, épistémologies et environnements numériques, a project funded by SSHRC at $198,269 CAD and running from 2026–2029.

Archaeological Fieldwork

In summer 2025, the department completed its fourth field season at the archaeological project co-led by Bruce Hitchner at the Greco-Roman port settlement on the coast of Küçükçekmece Lagoon in Istanbul, Turkey. Three Tufts Classical Studies master’s students—Matthew Titzler, Estill Loyd, and Mitch Schiffer—participated in the excavation alongside Turkish students.

The project returned to Istanbul in July 2026 for a season focused on analyzing material finds and stratigraphic documentation from the previous four seasons. Classical Studies student and ceramics specialist Estill Loyd returned to assist with pottery analysis.

Digital Humanities and Computer Science

Classical Studies continues to develop its collaboration with Computer Science. In January 2026, Sasha Spala, a PhD student in Computer Science, began work on a dissertation applying natural language processing to historical texts, with an initial focus on changing meanings of concepts such as “freedom,” “liberty,” and “happiness.”

Sarah Abowitz is completing a dissertation on automated and quantifiable commentary systems through the Schmidt Sciences-funded Beyond Translation project. She presented related work at the Science and Technology for Augmenting Reading (STAR) workshop at the CHI Human Factors in Computing Systems conference in Barcelona.

Undergraduate Research

In February 2026, Sue (Beining) Wu and Alessandro Carleton presented their research at the Fourteenth Annual Undergraduate Classics Research Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Alessandro presented “Virgil’s Eclogue to Nowhere,” examining Virgil’s use of allusion to Greek and Latin sources in the Ninth Eclogue.

Sue presented research on the use of large language models to translate Sophocles’ Antigone into Mandarin and explain its poetic language and meter for a Chinese audience. Her research also earned her a Tufts Summer Scholars award for continued work in summer 2026.

The Department’s 36th Undergraduate Medical History Seminar Lecture Series took place on April 18, 2026, with five students presenting capstone research on topics in ancient medicine connecting the Humanities and Sciences.

Graduate Student Research

Spring 2026 was a particularly strong year for Digital Humanities, with six MA thesis projects.

Ivan Montalvo is developing Project Minerva, an AI-powered Latin tutor that generates tailored Latin exercises using Retrieval-Augmented Generation and Classical Roman treebanks.

Zoe Spriggs and Mitch Shiffer are developing Juno Reader: A Digital Annotation Tool for Classical Language Learning. Zoe focuses on system development, while Mitch is studying how digital tools can support students transitioning to reading authentic Latin and Greek texts.

Jessica Thorne’s thesis, Visualizing Classical Philology: A Quantitative Study of Named Entities, Authorial Networks, and Territorial Extent, applies quantitative textual analysis and Geographic Information Systems to Greek and Latin texts.

Matt Smith is developing a Historical French Reader: Medieval Period, using natural language processing to annotate Old French sources and integrate them into the Perseus Digital Library.

Ayub Nur combines traditional isnād-cum-matn analysis with AI-based semantic similarity methods to study the historical development of Medina’s sacred status in early Islamic hadith.

Matthew Titzler is completing an MA thesis, Rus Numidiae, a digital survey and investigation of the Bahiret el Oussera valley in northeastern Algeria based on his work with the Nemencha Project. He will enter the PhD program in Classics at the University of North Carolina in fall 2026.

Estill Loyd presented research from her MA thesis on the votive likna from the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Acrocorinth at the 2026 annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Midwest and South.

Graduate News

This year we bid farewell to 12 graduating students whose contributions have enriched our graduate community.

We are also delighted to welcome 18 new graduate students from around the world, whose research spans fields including linguistics, archaeology, and Late Antiquity.

The department is also organizing its first Graduate Conference, to be held in Spring 2027. The conference will provide a forum for graduate students to present their research, engage in scholarly discussion, and connect with peers and faculty.

Publications

Marie-Claire Beaulieu

  • “Birds of a Feather: the Halcyon, Penelops, and Aithyia.” Classical Philology (accepted).
  • “Aquatic Birds and the Liminality of the Sea in Greco-Roman Mythology.” Preternature 15.1 (2026): 75–100.

Gregory Crane

  • Abowitz, S. and G. Crane. “Tompkinsia: A Data-Driven Commentary Augmentation.” CHI ’26 STAR: Proceedings of Science and Technology for Augmenting Reading (in press).
  • Abowitz, S. and G. Crane. “Tompkinsia: Data-Driven Commentary Augmentation for Critical Thinking.” Hypertext 26 (accepted).
  • Berti, M., G. Crane, and A. Babeu. “Philology and Digital Texts.” In The Oxford Handbook of Digital Classical Studies. Oxford University Press, 2026.
  • Crane, G. “Classical Greek in the Open Greek and Latin Project” (in press).
  • Crane, G. The Sixth Generation of the Perseus Digital Library and a Workflow for Open Philology. Transformations: A DARIAH Journal 1 (2026).
  • Crane, G. and A. Babeu. “Humanities Data Reuse: Humanity First.” Harvard Data Science Review 7.1 (2025).
  • Crane, G., A. Babeu, and F. Shamsian. “Greek, Latin and Augmented Intelligence: The Other AI.” The Classical Review 75.1 (2025): 7–22.
  • Crane, G. and S. Kazmierski. “Towards a Smart Edition of Apollodorus’ Library.” Digital Classics Online 12.1 (2026).
  • Nadel, P. and G. Crane. “Evaluating Large Language Models with a Word-Level Translation Alignment Task between Ancient Greek and English.” CHR Expanding the Toolkit: Large Language Models in Humanities Research (2025).

Bruce Hitchner

  • Parochial Altruism and Roman Expansion: From the Punic Wars to the Incorporation of Africa. American Historical Review (submitted).
  • “Ksar el Guellal: Biography of a Small Roman Period Agricultural Town in West Central Tunisia.” In Festschrift in Honor of David J. Mattingly (in press).
  • “A Possible Monument à Auges at Kasserine Survey Site 225.” In Hommage Jean-Pierre Brun (in press).
  • “The Cult of Saturn in Africa under the Roman Empire.” Review article in Journal of Roman Archaeology (accepted).

Brandon McDonald

  • Stephan Korom and Brandon McDonald, “The Medical File of Alexander the Great.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 56.4 (2026).
  • Brandon McDonald, Andrew Wilson, and Arietta Papaconstantinou, “The Environmental Context for the Outbreak of the Justinianic Plague in the Mediterranean.” In Catastrophes in Context (Brepols, 2026).
  • Brandon McDonald, “Contextualizing Late Antique Natural Disasters: The Elements and Effects of the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Justinianic Plague.” In Catastrophes in Context (Brepols, 2026).

Andreola Rossi

  • “Asinius Pollio.” Trends in Classics – Greek and Roman Humanities Encyclopedia. De Gruyter Brill.
  • “The Ideology of War in the Ancient World.” Trends in Classics – Greek and Roman Humanities Encyclopedia. De Gruyter Brill.

Riccardo Strobino

  • Concedere, Negare, Dubitare: Peter of Mantua’s Treatise on Obligations. Leiden: Brill (forthcoming 2027).
  • Themistius: On Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (translation, introduction, and notes; in progress).
  • “Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī’s Logic.” In Interpreting Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī: Critical Essays. Cambridge University Press (in press).
  • “Insolubles.” In The Cambridge Guide to Ockham’s Summa Logicae. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
  • “Averroes: Logik – al-Burhān.” In Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie in der islamischen Welt II/2. Schwabe, 2025.

Media

Marie-Claire Beaulieu

  • “From ancient goddesses to modern peace activists – Mother’s Day celebrates women’s political power.” The Conversation, May 5, 2026.
  • “The beach wasn’t always a vacation destination – for the ancient Greeks, it was a scary place.” The Conversation, July 28, 2025.
  • Interview with La Croix L’Hebdo for a feature on Greek mythology, July 2026.
  • Interview with National Geographic for “The original sirens in mythology weren’t the seductresses we know today,” July 2025.
  • Interview with ABC Australia’s Nightlife, August 2025.

Department Events

Classical Tradition in America

On April 7, Carl J. Richard gave a talk on the Classical Tradition in America at Fung House. Students and faculty were invited to attend a dinner following the talk.

Previous Years

Looking at Ancient Roman Plagues through an Environmental Lens 
The Rumsey Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Classical Studies, Brandon McDonald builds a better understanding of antiquity by looking at the interplay of climate, environment, and disease.

Rethinking Ancient Rome and Its Colonies in Africa 
Chair of the Classical Studies Department Bruce Hitchner confronts the colonial legacy of archaeology in North Africa, and presents a new understanding of antiquity.

Reconstructing the Large Scale Olive Oil/Agricultural Economy of North Africa in the Roman Empire 
R. Bruce Hitchner’s project to employ remote sensing, deep learning models (AI), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with archaeo-historical documentation to produce a new inventory and analysis of archaeological sites in the Algerian Nemencha and Tunisian high steppe in North Africa, a region of mass olive oil production in the Roman Empire, has been awarded a Springboard grant of $34,788.08 from the Office of the Provost. Hitchner will head a team comprised of Magaly Koch (SOE, BU), Abigail Kosnik (A&S), Carolyn Talmadge (TTS), and Uku Uustalu (TTS).

Professor R. Bruce Hitchner is the editor of the forthcoming (November 2021) Wiley Blackwell Companion to North Africa in Antiquity. 
See the book cover/back design.

Digital Approaches to Teaching the Ancient Mediterranean 
Read about Professors Beaulieu and Bucci's approach to teaching computational methods to Humanities students.

Student Kenny Huang gave the Twentieth Dr. Joseph C. Cremone, Jr. Lecture titled "Digesting Disease: Maggots in Medicine" 
Kenny Huang, a Junior majoring in Chemistry and a member of J. H. Phillips' Medical History Seminar, recently on December 5, 2018 gave the Twentieth Dr. Joseph C. Cremone, Jr. Lecture at Lawrence Memorial Hospital (Medford, MA). The title of his lecture: "Digesting Disease: Maggots in Medicine."

Professors Bruce Hitchner and Matthew Harrington lead a J-term program 
Professors Bruce Hitchner and Matthew Harrington along with French Colleague, Dr. Guillaume Durand, of the American College of the Mediterranean in Aix-en-Provence, France, lead a J-term program: Mediterranean Basin Traveling Seminar in France, Italy and Greece.

R. Bruce Hitchner awarded Research Grant 
R. Bruce Hitchner has received a grant from the Mac Jannet Foundation in support of the Talloires Abbey Digital humanities Project

Interview with Marie-Claire Beaulieu 
Watch 'Why Ancient Myths Remain Relevant Today', Tufts Magazine's April 2018 interview with Prof. Marie-Claire Beaulieu, about her research on the meanings of birds in Greek Mythology.

Gregory Crane featured in German Magazine 
Gregory Crane was featured in the German U15 special issue on higher education on June 22, 2017.

Riccardo Strobino awarded Research Fellowship 
Riccardo Strobino has been awarded the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fellowship and will be spending the 2017-18 academic year at the Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.

Ioannis D. Evrigenis awarded Research Prize 
The Renaissance Society of America has awarded the 2016 RSA-TCP Article Prize in Digital Renaissance Research to Ioannis D. Evrigenis for his article, "Digital Tools and the History of Political Thought: The Case of Jean Bodin"

Marie-Claire Beaulieu's New Book is Available 
"The Sea in the Greek Imagination", Marie-Claire Beaulieu's new book is available! Check it out through UPenn Press, 2016. Professor Beaulieu proposes that the sea marks the boundary between mortals, immortals, and the dead. A copy is also on display in the Classical Studies Department.

Marie-Claire Beaulieu Selected as This Year's Recognition of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence (ROUTE) Award Winner 
The ROUTE Award is presented to junior full-time faculty members in Arts, Sciences, and Engineering who have demonstrated excellence in teaching and advising, concern for students' academic and personal growth, and the ability to convey a passion and enthusiasm for their field of study. The award was presented to Professor Beaulieu at the last faculty meeting this year, on May 13 at 2:45 p.m. in the Balch Arena. 

Professor Beaulieu has also been awarded a Mellon grant to further her work on the Perseids project.

Perseus Digital Humanities Project 
Recently, an article was written in Tufts University's Arts and Sciences News on the Perseus Digital Humanities Project at Tufts.

Department Welcomes Dr. Riccardo Strobino to the Position of Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor 
The Classical Studies Department is delighted to welcome Dr. Riccardo Strobino to the position of Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor in Greco-Roman and Arabic Traditions.  Currently a research associate at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge, Dr. Strobino's interests lie in the history of philosophy and logic in Antiquity, the Latin Middle Ages, and the Arabic-Islamic tradition. In his capacity at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Dr. Strobino has worked in particular on the reception of Aristotelian epistemology in Avicenna (d. 428/1037) and the Post-Avicennan tradition. Recently, he taught courses in Arabic-Islamic and Medieval philosophy as a visiting lecturer at UCLA and co-organized the 20th European Symposium of Medieval Logic and Semantics at the University of Cambridge.  As part of his current research, Dr. Strobino is writing a monograph on Avicenna's scientific knowledge from his Kitāb al-Burhān (Book of Demonstration), while also translating it into English.

Dr. Strobino's first course at Tufts, CLS 0189-01/PHL 0191-05: "Philosophy in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic Traditions," will introduce students to a comparative overview of philosophical concepts from Antiquity to the Arabic tradition.  Focusing on specific themes and their transmission in the context of various translation movements, students will consider a range of topics relating to metaphysics, natural philosophy, epistemology, and ethics.

Drama Professor Publishes a New Translation of Euripides' Bacchae 
Laurence Senelick, Professor of Drama at Tufts University, has published a new translation of Euripides' Bacchae through Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. Called "Crazed Women," the play was performed by Tufts students in the 2000-2001 season.