Conference bringing together PhD students and early-career researchers to examine the definition, practices and structures of work in the Graeco-Roman world.
Rethinking Work in the Graeco-Roman World runs across Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 January 2027 at the Old College Quad in the Edinburgh Law School. It's a two-day conference focused on labour and employment in the Graeco-Roman world, covering the period from the sixth century BC to the sixth century AD.
The whole thing is built around PhD students and early-career researchers coming together to look at how work was defined, practised and structured in antiquity. They're approaching it from both socio-economic and legal angles, and the aim is to push for a transhistorical, interdisciplinary and intersectional way of looking at it. The organisers describe it as a chance to rethink the assumptions we've inherited about how ancient societies constructed, valued and represented labour.
That means the papers will cover a fair bit of ground. There'll be talk of the lived realities of production and how workshops were organised, alongside the legal frameworks that governed labour relations. The cultural side gets a look too, with professional associations and the identities that grew around them. It's less a single topic and more a broad conversation about what working for a living actually looked like across those twelve centuries.
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The conference is part of the Edinburgh Law School's Roman Law Group events, and the Centre for Legal History has a long history in the field: the Chair of Civil Law was founded in 1710, and the subject has been taught here continuously since. It's a two-day affair, Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 January 2027, at the Old College Quad.
Date
12 January – 13 January
Recommended Age
+18 years
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