Boris Chrubasik

Biography and Research:

Boris Chrubasik is Associate Professor of Greek History and Classics at the University of Toronto. He currently serves as the co-editor of Phoenix, a Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, and also Chair of the Department of Historical Studies.

Currently, Dr. Chrubasik’s research focuses on the political, cultural, and social history of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Achaemenid to the late Hellenistic periods. He has a particular interest in questions of social power, ranging from ideas of kingship in the Seleukid empire—the largest of the successor states that emerged after the death of Alexander the Great—to the relationship between local power-holders and larger empires. He also works on questions of cross-cultural exchange between Greek and non-Greek communities in the regions of southern Asia Minor and the Levant, and is leading a collaborative international team with colleagues in Canada, the UK, and Israel to conserve, edit, and publish a provate archive of seal impressions from Hellenistic Maresha (Israel).

In the Classical Civilization program in the Department of Historical Studies he teaches Greek history courses from the second millennium to the second century of our era. Recent course offerings include: Introduction to Classical Civilization (CLA101H5); Introduction to Greek History (CLA230H5); Early Greece (CLA360H5); Classical Greece (CLA361H5); The Persian Empire (CLA359H5); The Hellenistic Period (CLA362H5); and Roman Asia Minor. He also enjoys supervising undergraduate students through Independent Reading Courses and the Research Opportunity Program (ROP).

Dr. Chrubasik also teaches and supervises graduate students at the tri-campus graduate Department of Classics. His most recent course offerings included Introduction to Greek Epigraphy; Hellenistic Jewish History through Josephus’ Antiquities; and Cities, Imperialism and Historical Approaches: 500 BCE - 300 CE. He would be delighted to hear from potential graduate students interested in working with him.

Originally from Germany, he took two degrees in Greek history at the University of Oxford (MSt, DPhil). After his graduation, he taught for a year at Oxford and was a research fellow at the University of Exeter (UK) before he joined the University of Toronto in 2013. 

Specialization:

• Greek History
• Ancient History

Publications
Monographs and edited collections:

• Kings and Usurpers in the Seleukid Empire: The Men who would be King, Oxford: OUP (2016). 
• Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean, 400 BCE–250 CE, edited with Daniel King, Oxford: OUP (2017).

Articles:

• Co-written with Kathryn Stevens, ‘The Seleucid Era and Early Hellenistic Imperialism’, Historia 71.2, 150–87.
• ‘Sanctuaries, Priest-Dynasts and the Seleucid Empire’, in Honigman, Sylvie, Oded Lipschitz and Christophe Nihan (eds). Times of Transition: Judea in the Early Hellenistic Period, 'Mosaics: Studies in Ancient Israel', University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns (2021), 162–76.
• 'Power and Politics', in Dignas, Beate (ed). A Cultural History of Memory in Antiquity (800BC-AD 500), London: Bloomsbury (2020), 17–36
• ‘The Epigraphic Dossier Concerning Ptolemaios son of Thraseas, and the Fifth Syrian War’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 209, 2019: 115-30. 
• ‘From pre-Makkabaean Judaea to Hekatomnid Karia and back again’, in: Chrubasik, Boris and Daniel King (eds.), Hellenism and the LocalCommunities of the Eastern Mediterranean, 400 BCE–250 CE, Oxford: OUP (2017), 83-109.
• ‘Hellenism? An Introduction’, in: Chrubasik, Boris and Daniel King (eds.), Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean, 400 BCE–250 CE, Oxford: OUP (2017), 1–11. 
• ‘The Attalids and the Seleukid Kings, 281-175 BCE’, in: Thonemann, Peter (ed.), Attalid Asia Minor: Money, International Relations, and the State, Oxford: OUP (2013), 83-119.
• ‘Tyrants or Kings: The Communication between Usurpers and Cities in the Seleukid Empire’, in: Feyel, Christophe, Julien Fournier, Laetitia Graslin and François Kirbihler (eds.), Communautés locales et pouvoir central dansl’Orient héllenistique et romain, Paris: De Boccard (2012), 65-83.

In progress:

• ‘Succession Seleukid Style’, in: Gotter, Ulrich, Steffen Dieffenbach and Wolfgang Havener (eds.), The Arts of Succession, Studies in Ancient Monarchies 3, Stuttgart: Steiner (submitted to the editors).

For reviews and accessible papers, please visit his Academia.edu page.