Foreword

This book is the collective work of many people. It began as a series of readings for CLST360E, UnRoman Romans, a class in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies at the University of British Columbia, and then was added to by scholarship produced by students in that class. It would not exist without help from the AMS Student Society, CTLT, UBC Library, and the Public Humanities Hub, who provided a course release for the instructor, so the project could be finished.

This is not a comprehensive look at stigma and outgroups in Rome and the Roman Empire. We made some choices about what to focus on and to write up. During the course we also used a  (highly recommended) collection of primary sources, Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World, edited by Rebecca F. Kennedy, C. Synder Roy, and Max L. Goldman (2013), which is why we did not focus on many ethnic groups and looked to add to its contents rather than replace them.

We hope you find this book useful. We would say we hope you find it enjoyable but the Romans were frequently quite appalling in their treatment of those they considered outsiders or different, and this book does contain a number of very disturbing passages. We have tried to put those behind ‘read more’ cuts and content warnings to give you some warning.