DOUGLAS BOIN

Speaker + Author + Acclaimed Historian + award-winning Archaeologist

Photo taken by Nicole Griffing

Photo taken by Nicole Griffing

LOCATED NEAR St. Louis, MO or Austin, TX

INVITE DOUGLAS BOIN TO SPEAK

EXPERTISE

  • Education, Technology, and Storytelling

  • Why Our Global World Needs the Classics

  • Classical Foundations of the American Republic 

  • Outsiders’ Perspectives on the History of Ancient Rome

  • Italy: Art, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

  • What Rome Can Teach Us about the Rise of AI

EVENT TYPES

KEYNOTES
LECTURES
Academic Conferences
Educational Seminars and Workshops
FIRESIDE CHATS
PANELS
BOOK TALKS & READINGS
VIRTUAL EVENTS
MODERATION
INTERVIEWS

Popular talks

  • Untold Civics Lessons from the Classical World

  • Erased Histories, How to Recover Them, and Why They Matter

  • The Power of Historical Storytelling in the Age of Big Data and AI

  • What Rome Can Teach Us about the Rise of AI

Douglas Boin’s Bio

 

Dr. Douglas Boin (B.A., Georgetown University; M.A. and Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is a historian, teacher, and author. His books analyze the past to help readers navigate and better understand the present. His latest work, Clodia of Rome (W. W. Norton, 2025), uncovers the previously misunderstood and thrilling history of one woman’s quest for justice in the midst of systemic erasure in the late Roman Republic.  Alaric the Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Romewas named by The Economist as one of the best books of 2020. He is also the author of Coming Out Christian in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity.

Raised in Park Ridge, Illinois, Doug has held teaching positions at the University of Texas, Georgetown University, and is currently a Professor of History at Saint Louis University. He credits his interest in history and in writing to his grandparents, who made it possible for him as a teenager to spend one summer month on a study tour of Greece and Rome, where the dusty places he and his high-school classmates had learned about from books–Athens, Italy, the Forum, and Vatican Museums–came to life, full color. The weirdness of the ancient world and its seemingly irrelevance to life back home had made it easy, growing up gay, to build an intellectual fort inside that space. Thirty years on, Doug regularly returns to those places for his research and introduces them to a new generation of students, sharing the lessons he’s learned about the people of the ancient past with audiences at home: stories of inclusion and exclusion, examples of how lawmakers have manipulated judicial and constitutional systems to stigmatize individuals and groups, times when men in power have limited people’s access to their due rights and privileges.

Today, when he is not directing an excavation in Umbria, Italy, or teaching undergraduates and graduate students in St. Louis, Doug remains committed to his roots as a writer–ensuring that Rome and all its stories remain accessible, compelling, and above all, unexpectedly relevant to all.

GET SOCIAL WITH DOUG BOIN

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Visit Doug at APL!


books by Douglas boin

 

Douglas boin in the media

This Roman Life, Ep. 1: Looking back at my two decades with the city and people of Rome.

Boshell Foundation Virtual Lecture: Douglas Boin

The Early Christians of the Roman Empire: SLU Expert Douglas Boin, Ph.D.

Doug Boin, Ph.D., Professor of History, discusses the importance of the Roman Empire

 

Recent Articles Featuring Douglas Boin:

Podcasts with Douglas Boin:

Douglas Boin on NPR’s 1 A | Who do we think gets to think about the Roman Empire?

 
 

Douglas Boin on The Colin McEnroe Show | Why the Roman Empire is worth thinking about

 
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