Ville Vuolanto

My primary research focus is everyday life in the premodern period, especially in the Roman World, early Christianity, and the early Middle Ages. I am particularly interested in interpersonal relationships, both in terms of lived experience and in relation to continuity and tradition. Attention to social context and gender is central to my work. I have approached these themes especially in my research concerning the life course. My recent research topics include strategies of continuity, the history of hope, slavery, grandparenthood, and children’s agency and experiences. As an academic teacher, I have supervised 110 BA theses, 13 MA theses, and 2 PhD theses. Most of my teaching is curretly directed to Latin language and methodology in studying the Roman world. 

• Social and cultural history of the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity (esp. families, children, old age, and slavery)
• History of Children and Childhood more generally
• Grandparents and grandparenthood in the Roman world
• History of experiences and emotions in Ancient World (esp. hope; communities of experience).
• History of the idea of 'Lapland' (1840-1960)
  
   

• Director of Trivium – Tampere Centre for Classical, Medieval, and Early Modern Studies (2023 - )
• Finnish Historical Society, chair 2024-2025 (member of the board 2020-2025) 
• Academic Board ("Konsistori") of Tampere University 2025
• Finnish Network for Ancient Studies (chair 2023-2024)
• Board of Education, Tampere University (ordinary member, 2019-2021)
• Working group for University values (ordinary member, 2019) 

‘Searching for Hope in Roman Antiquity: Changing Patterns of Discourses and Agency’, in Pursuing Hope in the Premodern World, ed. V. Vuolanto & O. Cojocaru. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan 2025.

Antiikki ja me. Miksi antiikintutkimusta tarvitaan. [Antiquity and Us. Why Classics Matter] Toim. yhdessä M. Ahosen ja M. Perälän kanssa. Helsinki: Gaudeamus 2024. 

A Cultural History of Youth in Antiquity, ed. with Christian Laes. London: Bloomsbury 2023.

'Enslaved Children in Roman Egypt: Experiences from the Papyri', with A. Pudsey, in C. De Wet, M. Kahlos & V. Vuolanto (eds.), Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150 - 700 CE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2022, 210-223 p.

Varhaiskristilliset lapsuusevankeliumit (Antti Marjasen ja Ulla Tervahaudan kanssa) [Early Christian Infancy Gospels]. Suomen eksegeettinen seura 2020

’Single life in Late Antiquity? Virgins between the Earthly and the Heavenly Family’, in S. Huebner and C. Laes (eds), Singles and Single Life in Antiquity. Cambridge University Press 2019, 276-291. 

‘Grandmothers in Roman Egypt’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017), 372–402. 

‘Experience, Agency, and the Children in the Past: the Case of Roman Childhood’, in C. Laes and V. Vuolanto (eds), Children and Everyday Life in the Roman and Late Antique World. Ashgate 2016, 11–24. 

Children and Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Continuity, Family Dynamics and the Rise of Christianity. Ashgate 2015. 

Lapsuus ja arki antiikissa ja keskiajalla (with Sari Katajala-Peltomaa). Gaudeamus 2013 [A 300 pages monograph on children's everyday life in ancient and medieval world]. 

'Tutkimusprosessi, metodit ja historiantutkimuksen ominaislaatu [Research process, methods, and the characteristics of the historical research]'. Historiallinen Aikakauskirja [Finnish Historical Journal] 105 (3), 304-16. 

'Selling a Freeborn Child: Rhetoric and Social Realities in the Late Roman World'. Ancient Society 33 (2003), 169-207. 

In total 147 publications linked with research, of which 88 refereed. For a full list, see here.