This May, UIUC’s Department of the Classics hosts the annual meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians. But what is “Ancient History?” According to its website, the Association caters to “historians of the Ancient Mediterranean.” That’s a common definition. But there were many “ancient” cultures around the world, from Sumerians and Scythians to Maurya India, Han China and the Chavín, Olmec and Hopewell cultures of the Americas, to name but a very few. How did Greeks and Romans become paragons of the “ancient” (not to mention the “classical”)? Why do we still uphold these categories? Can or should they survive? And what are the alternatives? Is it time for a global turn?
