SASA Is Hosting Its Fifth "Opening the Ancient World" Virtual Conference

Join us for SASA’s fifth annual “Opening the Ancient World” virtual conference! This year’s theme is “Body and Medicine in Antiquity: Health Care, Knowledge & Practice,​” and will be live streamed here on July 20th & 21st, 2025. Anyone may sign up for this public event – plus, it’s free! You can also catch the livestream of this event on SASA’s YouTube and Facebook pages. The event will also be made available on any of our streaming partners’ pages, such as History with Kayleigh and Digital Hammurabi.

Here at SASA, we are always committed to making ancient scholarship accessible to all that are interested in antiquity. Our goals for this conference are to present excellent academic information from scholars around the world and researchers who did not follow a traditional career path, as well as to foster discussion and action towards inclusivity.  

Joining us will be two distinguished keynote speakers, Bronwen L. Wickkiser and Dr. Casey L. Kirkpatrick. You can find out more about them, their accolades, and published works on the official virtual conference page, where you can also see our full schedule of talks from scholars around the world working on anthropology, archaeology, religion, and ancient healthcare.

We also have two special sessions this year: “Snake Oils and Magic Herbs: The Art of Ancient Quackery” and “Close Reading Workshop: How to Diagnose a Text”.. The first special session (Jul 20, 2025, 1:00 PM EDT – Jul 21, 2025, 2:30 PM EDT) will focus on the creative ways, both alien and familiar, that ancient civilizations sought to treat illnesses. This discussion will go beyond just the medicinal practices employed and delve deeper into the cultural, religious, and political implications of these remedies. The second special session (Jul 21, 2025, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM EDT) is a workshop on how to analyze both modern and ancient texts the way a doctor might, paying careful attention to elements such as tone, word choice, and structure. This workshop will include guided presentations by scholars before leading into a hands on experience with a set of English texts. 

Registration is open on our conference page, and if you’d like to participate in the Close Reading Workshop, you can register for that too!  Please sign up ahead of time so that you will have access.

Perhaps the subject of ancient medicine excites you, or maybe you’re hungry for more pointers on how to closely read texts and form better arguments. No matter the reason, this year’s conference has a little bit of something for everybody to look forward to. We here at SASA sincerely hope to see you there!