PRESENTATIONS

 

 

Conference papers

‘4,000 years of wages and well-being’

International Francqui Colloquium Quantification in the long run in Mediterranean ancient history, Brussels (Belgium), October 15-16, 2009

tbd

International conference on ancient maritime technology, American Academy, Rome (Italy), June 16-17, 2009

tbd

Conference on early empires and belief systems, Union College, Schenectady, NY, May 2009

‘Comparing Rome and China

International conference Tributary empire – comparative histories, Rome (Italy), April 26, 2009

‘Why and how to compare ancient empires’

Presidential panel Promises and pitfalls of comparative and crossdisciplinary histories of the ancient world, Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association, Philadelphia, PA, January 9, 2009

‘Interaction and peripheries: response’

International conference on Xiongnu archaeology, Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), October 17, 2008

‘The economic consequences of the Antonine Plague: further considerations’

International conference L’impatto dellapeste antonina, Rome and Anacapri (Italy), October 10, 2008 (in absentia)

‘Agriculture, settlement systems, and urban studies: comments on economic performance’

International conference Too much data? Generalizations and model-building in ancient economic history on the basis of large corpora of documentary evidence, Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Vienna, Vienna (Austria), July 17, 2008

Rome and Han China

International seminar Perspectives on empire: local power and global comparisons, Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen (Denmark), May 14, 2008

‘Monogamy and polygyny in Greece, Rome, and world history’

International conference Cross-cultural approaches to family and household structures in the ancient world, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, New York, NY, May 9, 2008

‘Cultural evolution and the historian’

Workshop The role of variation in cultural change: updates in cultural evolution, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, April 16, 2008

‘How to make ancient history programs less ancient’

Panel on Graduate training for the ancient historian: or how best to study ancient history in the 21st century?, Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association, Chicago, IL, January 4, 2008

‘The ancient economy since Moses Finley’

Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Diego, CA, November 18, 2007

‘Demography and human development in the Roman world’

Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Diego, CA, November 17, 2007

‘Empire and the Great Divergence’

Ancient and modern imperialisms: Workshop II, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, November 2, 2007

‘Epigraphy and demography: birth, marriage, family, and death’

Plenary lecture, XIII International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, Oxford (UK), September 4, 2007

‘Roman population size: the logic of the debate’

International conference Peasants, citizens and soldiers: the social, economic and demographic background to the Gracchan land reforms, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Leiden (NL), June 29, 2007

‘The monetary economies of the Roman and Han empires’

Annual Meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, May 4, 2007

‘Contextualizing disease in the ancient world’

Keynote address, International conference Disease in global environmental history, York University, Toronto (Canada), March 9, 2007

Rome and China: From the Great Convergence to the First Great Divergence’

Golden Jubilee Conference Aspects of empire, Classical Association of South Africa, University of Cape Town, Cape Town (South Africa), July 3, 2007

Berkeley-Stanford colloquium New approaches to ancient imperialism, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, CA, November 18, 2006

International conference Universal empire and historical sociology, Warsaw (Poland), October 13, 2006

‘Introduction: wages and costs’

International conference Approaches to quantifying the Roman economy, Oxford University, Oxford (UK), September 28, 2006

[with V. Skirbekk and H.-P. Kohler] ‘From large, wealthy families to childless success?’

Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association, Minneapolis, November 2-5, 2006

European population conference 2006, Liverpool (UK), June 22, 2006

‘Estimating population sizes’

International Studies Association workshop Measuring and modeling cycles of state formation, decline and upward sweeps since the Bronze Age, San Diego, CA, March 20, 2006

‘Republics between hegemony and empire: How ancient city-states built empires and the USA doesn’t (anymore)’

Conference Imperial republics? Ancient Rome and the USA, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, March 10, 2006

‘Towards a comparative study of monarchical succession and dynastic continuity’

International conference Royal courts and capitals, Sabanci University, Istanbul (Turkey), October 14, 2005

‘The monetary systems of the Han and Roman empires’

Third International Conference on Ancient History, Fudan University, Shanghai (China), August 19, 2005

International conference Institutions of empire: comparative perspectives on ancient Chinese and Mediterranean history, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, May 13, 2005

International conference The nature of ancient money, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, Columbia University, New York, NY, April 8, 2005

‘Military commitments and political bargaining in ancient Greece’

Workshop on Military organization and political regimes in classical Greece, Yale University, New Haven, CT, December 5, 2004

‘The economics of slavery in the Greco-Roman world: a comparative approach’

International conference Slave systems, ancient and modern, Centre for the Study of Human Settlement and Historical Change, National University of Ireland, Galway (Ireland), November 26, 2004

‘The demography of Roman state formation and culture change in Italy’

International conference Herrschaft ohne Integration? Rom und Italien in republikanischer Zeit, Technical University of Dresden (Germany), October 29, 2004

‘Is Darwinian history possible?’

Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Berlin (Germany), July 23, 2004

[with B. Rogers] ‘“Actually, no-wheeling is more my specialty:” why Buffy doesn’t drive’

Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nashville, TN, May 30, 2004

‘Coercion, capital, and ancient Mediterranean states’

European Social Science History Conference, Berlin (Germany), March 24, 2004

‘War-making and state-making in the ancient Mediterranean

International workshop on ‘Cosmic’ empire and the sociology of heterogeneous power, Department of History, University of Copenhagen (Denmark), March 22, 2004

‘The interdependence of demographic and economic development in the Greco-Roman world’

Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association, San Francisco, CA, January 4, 2004

‘Stratification, deprivation and quality of life’

International conference Poverty in the Roman world, Cambridge (UK), July 24, 2003

‘How to be incestuous: the emotional context of sibling marriage in Roman Egypt’

Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association, New Orleans, LA, January 6, 2003

‘Creating a metropolis: a comparative demographic perspective’

International conference Ancient Alexandria: between Greece and Egypt, Center for the Ancient Mediterranean, Columbia University, New York, NY, October 11, 2002

‘Demography’

International conference The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge (UK), September 7, 2002

‘How to be incestuous: towards an explanation of full sibling marriage in Roman Egypt’

Annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, June 20, 2002

‘Germs for Rome’

Annual Meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians, Savannah, GA, April 28, 2002

‘The scale of mobility’

Symposium on The corrupting sea, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, January 19, 2002

‘Demographic change and economic development: the case of Roman Egypt after the ‘Antonine plague’’

26th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association, Chicago, IL, November 16, 2001

‘The demographic background of the Greek expansion’

International workshop Griechische Archaik zwischen Ost und West: interne und externe Impulse, Innsbruck (Austria), November 9, 2001

‘The demography of the Spartan helots’

International workshop Helots and their masters in Laconia and Messenia: the history and sociology of a system of exploitation, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, March 17, 2001

‘Brother-sister and parent-child marriage in pre-modern societies’

International conference Human mate choice and prehistoric marital networks, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto (Japan), November 21, 2000

‘Money and finance in the Greco-Roman world: views and controversies’

25th Anniversary Meeting of the Social Science History Association, Pittsburgh, PA, October 29, 2000

‘Ancient empires and sexual exploitation: a Darwinian perspective’

International conference Empire and exploitation in the ancient Mediterranean, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, May 27, 2000 (revised versions Stanford, May 22, 2001, and University of Western Australia, Perth, August 20, 2002)

‘Death and disease in pre-modern Egypt

Médecine et démographie dans le monde antique: colloque international d’Arras, Université d’Artois, Arras (France), November 27, 1998

‘The slave population of Roman Italy: speculation and constraints’

International conference Comparative approaches to ancient slavery, Cambridge (UK), July 17, 1999

Journée d’Etude: Rôle des dépendants dans l’économie romaine antique, Université de Lille 3, Lille (France), November 21, 1998

‘Agriculture, health and population size in Egypt under the Romans and in the nineteenth century’

Incontro internazionale di studio: Demografia, sistemi agrari, regimi alimentari nel mondo antico, Università degli studi di Parma, Parma (Italy), October 18, 1997

‘When a free labourer is like a slave: Greece and America

International conference Kerdos: the economics of gain in the ancient Greek world, Cambridge (UK), May 30, 1997

[with P. Garnsey] ‘The demography of some ancient cemetery populations near Rome

International conference Population size and demographic structure in the ancient world, Cambridge (UK), May 24, 1997

‘The demography of Roman slavery and manumission’

International conference Population size and demographic structure in the ancient world, Cambridge (UK), May 24, 1997

Premier colloque international de démographie historique antique, Université d’Artois, Arras (France), November 22, 1996

‘Grain cultivation in the villa economy of Roman Italy’

International conference Landuse in the Roman empire, Danish Academy, Rome (Italy), January 26, 1993

Feldarbeit von Frauen in der antiken Landwirtschaft

Meeting of Austrian Ancient Historians, Vienna (Austria), October 26, 1989

 

 

Invited lectures

‘Rome, China, and the end of the past’

Istituto Italiano di Storia Antica, Rome (Italy), April 22, 2009

‘The wolf and the dragon: empire in ancient Rome and China

Settle-Cadenhead Memorial Lecture, Department of History, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, November 6, 2008

Fachwissenschaftlicher Kurs 2008: Antike Demographie

Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Munich (Germany), October 23-25, 2008

‘No laughing matter either: income, growth and inequality in the Roman economy, or why the Romans needed a sense of humor’

Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology Graduate Group, University of California – Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, October 2, 2008

‘Sex and empire, monogamy and polygyny

Department of Classics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, September 19, 2008

‘New currents in the study of the ancient economy’

Department of Economic History, Lund University, Lund (Sweden), May 13, 2008

‘Ancient demography and human wellbeing’

Department of Economics, Lund University, Lund (Sweden), May 12, 2008

‘Imperial state formation in eastern and western Eurasia 2000 BCE – 2000 CE’

Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, April 14, 2008

‘The relative durability of the Roman and Chinese empires’

School of Global Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, April 10, 2008

‘Continuity and change in human demography: the contribution of ancient history’

Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, January 23, 2008

Rome and China: from convergence to divergence’

Department of Classics, University of Texas, Austin, TX, March 4, 2009

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA, November 7, 2007

Department of Classics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, August 23, 2007

Department of Classics, New York University, New York, NY, March 27, 2007

‘The ‘Golden Age’ of Roman Italy’

Departement Klassieke Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven (Belgium), February 13, 2006

Instituut voor Geschiedenis, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Leiden (NL), February 10, 2006

‘The nature of money in ancient Rome and China

Department of History, University of Tokyo, Tokyo (Japan), November 1, 2005

Department of History, Beijing University, Beijing (China), August 24, 2005

‘Brother-sister and parent-child marriage in world history’

College of History and Culture, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an (China), October 25, 2002

Department of History, Fudan University, Shanghai (China), October 22, 2002

‘Disease and demography in the ancient world’

College of History and Culture, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an (China), October 24, 2002

Department of History, Fudan University, Shanghai (China), October 21, 2002

[with R. Saller] ‘Biology or culture? Understanding the ancient family’

Harper Lecture, University of Chicago Alumni Association, San Francisco, CA, May 4, 2002, and Palo Alto, CA, May 5, 2002

‘Death on the Tiber

Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington (New Zealand), August 5, 2002

Department of Classics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, April 4, 2002

Department of History, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, Berkeley, CA, January 29, 2002

‘How to be incestuous’

Human Genetics Society of Australasia, Perth (Australia), August 20, 2002

Community and Identity in Greco-Roman Egypt, Annual colloquium of the Chicago Consortium in Ancient History, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, October 6, 2001

‘Sex and empire: a Darwinian view’

Ancient Societies Workshop, Department of Classics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, April 24, 2001

‘Continuity and change in Mediterranean demography from antiquity to the modern period’

Department of Demography, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, Berkeley, CA, March 19, 2003

Demography Workshop, Population Research Center, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, April 19, 2001

‘“The most excellent thing of all“: brother-sister and parent-child marriage in the ancient world’

Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, April 17, 2003

Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, October 14, 2002

Classical Society of Otago, Dunedin (New Zealand), August 8, 2002

University of Canterbury, Christchurch (New Zealand), August 7, 2002

Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington (New Zealand), August 5, 2002

University of Auckland, Auckland (New Zealand), August 2, 2002

Department of Classics, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, September 20, 2001

Departments of History, Classics, and Sociology, and Initiative in Population Research, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, April 10, 2001

Modelling Roman slavery’

Ancient Societies Workshop: Ancient slavery, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, May 4, 2000

‘Demography and statistics in ancient history’

Department of Classics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham (UK), March 2, 1999

‘Death on the Tiber, death on the Nile: disease and demography in the Roman world’

Department of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, March 23, 2000

Department of Classics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, March 21, 2000

Department of History, Columbia University, New York, NY, March 20, 2000

Departments of Classics and History, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, November 16, 1998

Komparative und interdisziplinäre Ansätze in der Alten Geschichte’

Habilitationskolloquium Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Graz (Austria), April 30, 1998

‘Future, what future? Evidence and models, fashions and choice’

Ancient Societies Workshop: The ancient economy, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, November 11, 1999

Dutch National Seminar in Ancient History, De toekomst van de antieke economie The future of the ancient economy, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Leiden (NL), September 22, 1997

‘Brother-sister and parent-child marriage in Roman Egypt and Zoroastrian Iran

Bloomsbury Summer School, Department of History, University College London, London (UK), August 5, 1999

Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, Cambridge (UK), February 3, 1997

‘Incest in biology and history’

PCT Society, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (UK), December 5, 1996

Sexualität, Ehe und Sklaverei: zu einem zentralen Aspekt persönlicher Unfreiheit

Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz, Mainz (Germany), Kommission für Geschichte des Altertums, October 9, 1996

‘Darwinian history, or History as sex’

Humanities and Social Sciences Group, Darwin College, Cambridge (UK), June 11, 1996

‘Papyri, Magi, and genes: an interdisciplinary view of brother-sister and parent-child marriage in the ancient world’

Department of History, University of Manchester, Manchester (UK), March 6, 1996

Centre for Research in East Roman Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry (UK), March 4, 1996

Department of History, York University, Toronto (Canada), November 29, 1995

Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, October 5, 1995

Departments of Classics and History, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, September 21, 1995

‘Rural labour and the stereotype of women’s life in the Graeco-Roman world’

Department of History, University of Odense (Denmark), October 6, 1994

Department of History, University of Copenhagen (Denmark), October 4, 1994

‘Die wirtschaftlichen Funktionen von Sklavinnen

Institut für Alte Geschichte, Universität Salzburg (Austria), June 6, 1994

‘Die Stellung der Frau in der antiken Landwirtschaft

Department of History, University of Wroclaw (Poland), December 5, 1991