Registration is now open for the workshop “Woodworking in the Roman Imagination” at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) on the 18th and 19th of June, 2026.
This workshop examines how woodworking and human-wood interaction were imagined, described, and represented in artistic, literary and epigraphic media. Papers range from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity and consider themes such as human-tree relations, woodworking and the divine, the relationship between technological practice and imagination, or wood as a metaphor. The workshop highlights Roman ways of thinking about materiality and the cultural significance of working with wood in varied contexts. It forms part of the ERC-FACERE project which investigates discourses of making in the Roman world (https://facere.site/). We look forward to welcoming Roger B. Ulrich and Carole Newlands as keynote speakers. See the full program below.
We have a limited number of spots available. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to FACERE.ERC@gmail.com. Registration costs: 40 EUR (free for students). Keynote lectures are open to all.
Program
Thursday 18 June 2026
9:00 – 9:45 Welcome & Introduction by the organisers
9:45 – 12:15 From Tree to Timber
9:45 – 10:30 Matthew Westermayer (Brooklyn College): After the Tree, Wood: Roman Ecological Thought
10:30 – 10:45 Coffee break
10:45 – 11:30 Andrew Fox (University of Liverpool): Tree Literacy: Understanding Timber in the Roman World
11:30 – 12:15 Daniel Falkembach Ribeiro (Federal University of Bahia): An Amphitheater Made of Trees: Human-Wood Relations in Calpurnius Siculus’ Eclogue 7
12:15 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 16:00 Practicum (speakers only)
16:15 – 17:30 Roger B. Ulrich (Dartmouth): Pulcher in Ligno: Did the Romans Consider Wood Beautiful?
Friday 19 June 2026
9:00 – 10:30 Woodworking and the Divine
9:00 – 9:45 Marco Formisano (Ghent University): Quamvis sim ligneus: wooden poetics in the Carmina Priapea
9:45-10:30 Marietta Horster (Mainz University): Silvanus and the wood(s)
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30 Mediating Woodworking in Vernacular Practice
11:00 – 11:45 Myrto Malouta (Ionian University): Wooden doors and gates in the papyri from Roman Egypt
11:45 – 12:30 Maxime Duval (Université Libre de Bruxelles): Challenging depictions: domestic and occasional practice of woodworking in the civitas Treverorum, from archaeological instrumentum to regional organisation
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 15:00 Woodworking and Literary Practice
13:30 – 14:15 Giulia Dovico (University of Groningen and Leiden): Composing, Polishing, Joining: woodworking metaphors in the literary-critical discourse
14:15 – 15:00 Frances Foster (University of Cambridge): Literary woodworking in the late Roman classroom
15:00 – 15:30 Discussion
16:15 – 17:30 Carole Newlands (University of Colorado Boulder): Writing with Wood