Rens Tacoma is a university lecturer at the Institute for History.

More information about Rens Tacoma

Spreekuur / Hours

Na afspraak / by appointment

Biography

Laurens Ernst (Rens) Tacoma studied History at Leiden University, where he graduated cum laude in 1994 in Ancient History. Having spent a year as visiting fellow in Columbia University, New York, he became a PhD at Leiden University in 1995, a position he combined later onwards with a position as Researcher at the Leiden Papyrological Institute. From 2002 to 2005 he was Director of Studies of the Institute for History at Leiden University. He defended his PhD-thesis on the urban elites of Roman Egypt in 2003. In 2003/2004 he was also lecturer in ancient history at Groningen University. From 2010 to 2014 he worked in the the project Moving Romans. Urbanisation, migration and labour in the Roman Principate, for which he stayed in the year 2013/4 as a Fellow at the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome. He is currently lecturer in Ancient History at Leiden University, working and teaching in the field of Roman social history.

Fields of interest

The social and economic history of the ancient world, including demography, the city, mobility and migration, and slavery, all with an emphasis on the first three centuries A.D., though extending occasionally into Late Antiquity as well.

Research

Tacoma has concluded a large research project devoted to Roman migration in the Principate, aiming to offer a comprehensive overview on the basis of a study of migration to and from the city of Rome in the first two centuries A.D. This research formed part of the project Moving Romans. Urbanisation, migration and labour in the Roman Principate. He is currently working on a new book project provisionally entitled ‘The end of politics? Studies in Roman political culture from the 1^st to the 6^th cent A.D.’

Publications

Moving Romans. Migration to Rome in the Principate (Oxford University Press, 2016)

Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire (Brill, Leiden, 2016)

Fragile Hierarchies. The Urban Elites of Third-Century Roman Egypt (Brill, Leiden, 2005).

Publications