Welcome

The pioneer of the interdisciplinary approach, the field of Classics encompasses the languages, literature, philosophy, and history of the Mediterranean from the second millennium BC to the fifth century AD. The Department of Classics presents as wide a range of courses as possible in this diverse but fundamentally unified field. In each of the course offerings in the Department of Classics students explore cultural phenomena which lie at the root of our own experience. Modern Western languages, literature, philosophy, and history have carried within them the deep grain of a classical past, which is at once surprisingly familiar and intriguingly alien. In courses in ancient history, culture, and literature based on texts in translation, students use a wide range of sources and methods to work towards an understanding of the ancient Mediterranean both on its own terms and in its relation to later cultures.

The Department of Classics also offers courses in Latin and ancient Greek each year. Students learn the sounds and structures of the language and a basic reading vocabulary in introductory courses; in intermediate and advanced courses they work towards fluency and accuracy in reading and an appreciation of style, rhetoric, and nuance. In all Latin and Greek courses, students will also use the languages as a way of entering the heart of the vibrant world of classical antiquity. As an added bonus, students should gain from their study of either language valuable insights into the substance and structure of English and the modern European languages.

Students who complete a major or minor in Classics will progressively build a more complex and comprehensive understanding of the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome by studying them from a variety of angles, and by bringing a growing body of knowledge to bear on their studies.