SCS Panel 2025
“Hidden Labor and Precarity in the Roman World”
SCS Organizer-Refereed Panel, Philadelphia
Friday, January 3, 2-5 pm (Salon G)
Introduction (Lorenza Bennardo, University of Toronto)
- Bettina Reitz-Joosse (University of Groningen), “Non-Human Agency and Hidden Labour in Vitruvius’ De architectura“
- Sarah Levin-Richardson (University of Washington), “Enslaved Children’s Emotional Labor in Roman Culture”
- Stephen Blair (University College London), “Sub uoce: The text de uerborum significatu and the hidden intellectual labor of lexicography”
- Christopher Londa (Johns Hopkins University), “Last Words: Deathbeds, Dictation, and Dying ‘Alone’”
- Grace Funsten (University of Pittsburgh), “Underground Poetry: Verse Epitaphs in the Monument of the Statilii”
Response (Rebecca Moorman, Boston University)
General Discussion
Roundtable Discussion
This roundtable discussion will be held virtually on Saturday, January 4, 1-2 pm
Continuing recent online discussions highlighting contingent academic labor (e.g., “On the Precaritization of Academia,” #EOTalks 2022), this roundtable on hidden labor and precarity in modern academia will complement the organizer-refereed panel, “Hidden Labor and Precarity in the Roman World,” as we aim to highlight hidden labor both then and now. We plan to involve academics at all career stages, encouraging a constructive yet frank exchange about how to create more sustainable working environments. Topics of discussion include disproportionate burdens of service and mentorship for underrepresented faculty, increasing institutional reliance on contingent instructional labor, and imbalanced expectations for teaching and research.