UCSB Santa Barbara Department of History logo

New Discoveries in the Jewish and Early Christian Catacombs of Rome

The catacombs of ancient Rome form the single most important source of information concerning the rise of Christianity from an archaeological point of view. This lecture focuses on exciting new results produced by a science-based approach to these materials, as performed within the framework of a recently concluded international project based at Utrecht University in […]

From Imperial Capital to Polis: Sardis from the Lydians to the Hellenistic Period

Nicholas Cahill is Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Sardis Expedition. During the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, the Lydians, a native Anatolian culture located in what is now western Turkey, established the first empire in this region since the Bronze Age. As they conquered Greek cities along […]

The Excavations at Sardis

Nicholas Cahill is Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Sardis Expedition. Please RSVP by March 6th by contacting Ryan Abrecht: ryanabrecht(at)umail.ucsb.edu Participants may wish to read the following article in preparation for the roundtable: N. Cahill "Mapping Sardis," in Love for Lydia: A Sardis Anniversary Volume Presented to […]

Theories and New Developments in Learning in History

Susannah McGowan, a Ph.D. candidate in Education, will be leading a discussion on teaching on Wednesday, March 14, at noon in HSSB 4020. Susannah will describe the some key theoretical ideas in the education literature that can be applied to history, and then discuss how how digital technology can be used to enhance learning in […]

In Search of King Midas: New Discoveries and Reinterpretations at Gordion (Turkey)

For over half of a century, the University of Pennsylvania Museum has conducted excavations at the ancient site of Gordion in central Turkey. The site is best known as the capital of the Iron Age kingdom of Phrygia and the home of the semi-legendary King Midas, who ruled around 725 BC and whose enormous wealth […]

The Archaeology of Shipwrecks: Treasuring the Past?

To the media and in the minds of the general public ‘maritime archaeology’ often suggests the study of shipwrecks, perhaps because of the prominent role they played in the development of the subject over the last half century. In reality maritime archaeology encompasses all past human activity relating to seas, interconnected waterways and adjacent locales. […]

“Close to Jedenew”

Kevin Vennemann will be delivering an introduction to and a lecture from his widely acclaimed debut novel Close to Jedenew, published in German by the prestigious Suhrkamp Verlag 2005 and in English, by Melville House in 2008. A group of children from the rural village of Jedenew, which might or might not be located in […]

The Non-Aligned Movement and the Cold War, 1961-1973

The Non-Aligned Movement was created to stand apart from the Cold War. Lorenz Luthi argues, however, that the Non-Aligned Movement was a product of the Cold War and was almost torn apart by it during the 1961-1973 period. From the start, Cold War issues--such as the division of Germany, nuclear weapons, the Middle East conflict, […]

Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust

In January 1942, three years before Americans arrived at Buchenwald and Dachau, Jewish photographers working for the Soviet press became the first liberators to photograph the unprecedented horror we now call the Holocaust. These photographers participated in a social project in which they were emotionally and intellectually invested; they had been dispatched by the Stalinist […]