Welcome to the Oberlin Department of Classics. With any luck, you'll see a navigation bar to the left, which will allow you to explore various aspects of our department, and to see recent photos of our talented students. (If you don't see the navigation bar, click here.)

We are a department of four professors -- this year joined by a post-doctoral fellow -- with a wide range of interests in ancient Greek and Roman literature and society. Our students are a diverse and interesting group; we offer three separate majors (Greek, Latin, and Classical Civilization), in which we have about 40 students declared.

The Department offers courses in Classical Civilization covering aspects of literary creation, historical and social process, and the Greek and Roman contribution to philosophy, religion, and government. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is required. These courses provide a broad background for all areas of literary and humanistic study.

We also offer courses in Greek and Latin Language and Literature for students who wish to develop a deeper understanding of the works and the capacity for making independent judgments about them. Acquisition of the languages is a prerequisite for

Kirk Ormand and his intrepid group of WT students visit Delphi, January 2006.

advanced work, but many students arrive here with no Latin or Greek, and begin their ancient language studies with us. Elementary courses in the languages are designed to enable students to approach significant material as soon as possible.

Our department has an excellent record for placing recent graduates in top-tier graduate programs in classics. Students who have not pursued graduate study in classics have had successful careers in law, medicine, social work, music, field anthropology, publishing, project management and many other professions.

Feel free to browse around our site. If you have any questions about the department or program, please direct them to the chair. We look forward to hearing from you.