Classics

Department Overview

The study of Classics is a dynamic, multifaceted discipline engaged in the exploration of a remarkably multicultural part of the world—the ancient Mediterranean—from early pre-history to Late Antiquity.

Our goal is to fully understand the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, in the context of the wider Mediterranean basin—an area of religious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity. As a deliberate strategy, Classical scholarship engages with literature, drama, art, politics, philosophy, archaeology, and history. We are therefore inherently interdisciplinary and inclusive in our approach to understanding the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome as completely as possible.

At the same time, we are keenly aware of the role that Classical culture and the scholarship that surrounds it has played in the production of modern institutions, forms of power, and aesthetic standards in the modern West.  We regard it as our particular challenge to both recognize the enduring value of the cultural productions of ancient Greece and Rome and to question their deployment in the modern world. By studying ancient Greece and Rome in all their complexity, we can better understand—and critique—the structures of power that have claimed them as ancestors.