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CANE Summer Institute

The Classical Association of New England Summer Institute (CSI) brings together students, educators, and lifelong learners for an intensive week of lectures, mini-courses, reading groups, professional development workshops, and special events. Each institute considers the literature, history, and arts of the ancient Mediterranean world, and how we engage with those cultures today.

CANE Summer Institute 2019 seminar group

CSI Returns in 2026--July 6, 10 @ BC High

CSI 2025 ended up as an all virtual offering.  We are excited to announce that the 2026 edition will take place in-person at Boston College High School July 6-10, 2026.  There will still be an online component as well.


The theme for 2026 is Xenia, Community, and Solidarity in the Ancient World.  What makes up a polis or a res publica?  Who gets included, who gets excluded?  Can that boundary of inclusion and exclusion be crossed, and how?  What other kinds of communities do we see in the ancient or late antique world, like churches, mystery cults, or patronage networks?  How big is the gap between an ideal community and the nitty gritty every-day workings of it in practice?  How does a community get created, and what is necessary for that to happen?

About CSI

The Institute was founded in 1983 by Edward Bradley, Phyllis Katz, and Matthew Wiencke of Dartmouth College and Gloria Duclos of the University of South Maine. After being based at Dartmouth from 1983 until 2011, the institute moved in 2013 to Brown University, under the leadership of Jeri DeBrohun, and continued to convene there through 2022 (save 2020 and 2021).  In 2025 the Institute moved to Stonehill College, which we hope will be its next long term home.

 
  • July 7-11, 2025, Virtually via CANE Zoom
    •  “The Time of Monsters”: Discord, Collapse, and Renewal in the Ancient World
  • July 10-15, 2023, RISD and CANE Zoom
    •  “Classical Antiquity”: A Global Phenomenon in Local Contexts
  • July 11-16, 2022, Brown University and CANE Zoom
    • Maiores a(n)d Posteriores: Imagining “Classical Antiquity” into the Future
  • July 13-15 and 20-22, 2021, Virtually via Zoom
    • Power and the Individual in the Ancient Mediterranean World
  • July 8-13, 2019, Brown University
    • E Pluribus Unum
  • July 9-14, 2018, Brown University
    • Empires Ancient and Modern: Reactions to Imperial Power from Athens to the Americas
  • July 10-15, 2017, Brown University
    • The View from a Distance: Perspectives on the Greeks & Romans from across Space and Time
  • July 11-16, 2016, Brown University
    • Quid Sub Sole Novum? Imitation, Innovation, and Creation in the Ancient World
  • July 13-18, 2015, Brown University
    • Exegi Monumentum. Creating the Everlasting in the Ancient World
  • July 14-19, 2014, Brown University
    • “On the Shoulders of Giants:” Greco-Roman Giants and their Modern Emulators
  • July 15-20, 2013, Brown University
    • America’s Founding Fathers and the Classics of Greece and Rome
  • July 11-16, 2011, Dartmouth College
    • Spectacles in and of the Ancient World. spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsae.
  • July 12-17, 2010, Dartmouth College
    • “Not Athens But the World.” Why America is Still Listening to Ancient Voices
  • July 6-11, 2009, Dartmouth College
    • Expanding the Map: Cultural Exchange and the Peripheries of the Classical World.
  • July 7-12, 2008, Dartmouth College
    • Revolution and Reaction: Radical Changes and Continuities in the Ancient World
  • July 9-14, 2007, Dartmouth College (25th Annual)
    • Beyond Antiquity: The Legacy of the Classical World

Please note that lectures and courses at the institute are given in English; participation in the institute does not require knowledge of the ancient languages. CANE welcomes interested individuals who are new to the study of the ancient Mediterranean world and its modern legacy to attend the Institute, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. Participants may board on site or commute to campus for the week.

Questions? Please contact Mark Wright, the director of the CANE Summer Institute, at summerinst@caneweb.org.

Mark Thatcher, Boston College

Multiculturalism in the Roman Empire

 

How did the Romans incorporate the various peoples of their empire into one Roman community? Or did they? We’ll explore the various peoples and provinces of the empire, from Germany to Greece and from Britain to Egypt, with a particular eye towards Roman perceptions of them: both negative stereotypes and positive thinking. How did contrasts with “others” shape what it meant to be Roman, and how did the different cultures included within the empire transform who “the Romans” were? We’ll use a combination of written sources, archaeological evidence, and visual art to explore these questions and the ever-expanding melting pot of the Roman world.

Timothy Joseph, College of the Holy Cross

Community and Crisis in the Odyssey and its American Receptions

 

This course will explore the dynamics and complications of xenia / hospitality in Homer’s Odyssey and its reception in American literature and art. Alongside a reading of the Homeric epic, we will look at how 20th- and 21st-century writers and artists such as Margaret Atwood, Romare Bearden, Joseph Brodsky, Dorothy Parker, and Ocean Vuong compel us to think anew about the Odyssey‘s focus on hospitality and community-building. The course will be taught in English, with flexibility allowing for connections to any number of curricula in the humanities (such as, English, Art History, and Latin curricula).

Roberta Stewart, Dartmouth College (with Rachel Dubit)

Delusion and Disillusion: Fracture and Community in Sophocles and Lucan

 

In this course we study two ancient literary works and one modern film—all created in moments of political and social crisis—to explore ruptures of community norms and values. Writing towards the end of the Peloponnesian War and after the oligarchic revolution of 411, Sophocles Philoctetes treats the turmoil of a mythic war hero betrayed by his military community and the path forward for his return from a communally imposed exclusion.  

 

Lucan’s De Bello Civili, composed at the height of the Neronian regime, looks back to the Roman Civil War as a paradigm of social and political collapse. Lucan employs graphic violence, body horror, and imagery of the natural world to illustrate the totality of disaster and destruction the war wrought. His epic and its metaphors underscore the fragility of Lucan’s Rome and its concentrated imperial power structure.

Both Sophocles and Lucan explore facets of social and personal disintegration and ways forward.

 

“In the Valley of Elah” engages with military values and the breakdown of community norms in the U.S. military and the communal effects of war crimes.

 

Engaging with Greek theatrical production, Roman poetry, and American film, we will consider the power of the arts to open critical discussions about social and political rupture, its human costs and (re)solutions.

Matthew Aumiller, Boston College High School

Latin Teacher Idea Exchange

“This mini-course will be a bit different from a normal CSI course.  Aimed at teachers and Latin pedagogy, we will focus on exchanging best practices, teaching tips for teaching Latin from introductory to AP/IB level.  Teachers of all levels are welcome and encouraged to give the course a try.  Participants should come prepared with a few sample lessons or things they’d be interested in trying.  “

Maureen Lamb, Miss Porter’s School–This workshop will be asynchronous

Jacqui Carlon, UMass Boston, Ret. This workshop will be in person.

Details Coming Soon

Lectures From

 

 

Hanne Eisenfeld Boston College

Thomas R. Martin College of the Holy Cross

Kathleen Coleman Harvard University

Caitlin Gillespie Brandeis University

Peter Machinist Harvard University

Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University

Registration Information

 
  • All are welcome: Participation in the institute does not require knowledge of the ancient languages. CANE welcomes interested individuals who are new to the study of Classics to attend the Institute as well as graduate and undergraduate students.  High school students are welcome, but we must ask that they enroll in the virtual option.
  • Enrollment in CSI requires membership in CANE. Your registration for CSI 2026 is not complete until your membership status has been verified. As you register for CSI, please join or renew your membership. The link brings you to the membership page of caneweb.org, which also outlines all the benefits of membership. Choose regular membership ($50) or student membership ($15). Thank you for your support of CANE!
  • Registration periods: The regular registration period runs until June 10th. The late registration fee will be waived!
  • What tuition covers: one morning and one afternoon mini-course, plus optional participation in professional development workshops, and Greek & Latin reading groups. Commuter Tuition is $860.  Virtual Tuition is  $580 Lectures are free, open to the public, and will be available both in person and virtually via livestream.
  • Both mini-courses must be in the same instructional mode: either in-person or virtual. Workshops and reading groups will accommodate both in-person and virtual participants. CANE welcomes people under 18 years old in the virtual format only.
  • Workshops and reading groups: professional development workshops and Greek and Latin reading groups are offered to CSI students. Workshops run Tuesday-Friday. Reading groups run Tuesday-Friday.
  • In-person participants can find lodging near by, see links and information below.
  • Deposit: A non-refundable $250 deposit is due at registration. The balance is due by June 10th for all registrants.
  • Accommodation requests: All CSI facilities are handicapped accessible. Please indicate your need for special accommodations for mobility, auxiliary communication aids, dietary needs, or other forms of assistance in a note with the registration form, or in an e-mail to the CSI Director Mark Wright (summerinst@caneweb.org).
  • Code of conduct: By registering for the CANE Summer Institute, participants promise to abide by the CANE Code of Conduct.

Hotel and Lodging Accomodations

Please look at the following local lodgings near BC High.

 

CANE has reserved a small block of 10 rooms at the DoubleTree by Hilton near BC High at 240 Mt. Vernon St.  The group code is CDT911.  If you are reserving rooms here, keep in mind the cut off date is 5/21/26.

 

 

You can also look at:

 

 

Home2 Suites by Hilton at 15 Jan Kurski Way, Boston MA.

 

 

Best Western Adams Inn Quincy/Boston, 29 Hancock St Quincy MA

 

 

Comfort Inn and Suites, Logan Airport 85 American Legion Way Revere MA

 

 

AirBNB options in the Dorchester Area.