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This seminar examines the entanglement of Roman-period literature with enslavement. It explores the involvement of enslaved workers (secretaries, performers, teachers et al.) in the production, reception, and circulation of Latin and Greek literary texts. It also asks how literary texts represent enslavement and how enslavement inflects Roman literature’s aesthetic and political projects. Participants will gain exposure to research methods in connected subfields (e.g. epigraphy, papyrology, book history) and will discuss recent interventions in archival theory. The seminar will also give special consideration to the relationship between enslavement and the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum’s collection of one hundred fifty Latin inscriptions from the Roman period.