About

Source: https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/about Parent: https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/

The Harvard Classics Department is home to the study of the diverse cultures and histories of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.

Our department is interdisciplinary, encompassing archaeology, art history, history, history of science, language, linguistics, literature, philosophy, reception studies, and religion. As such, we employ many different methodologies for studying ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and for tracing their afterlives through to the present. We are concerned with understanding both the complexities of the ancient materials themselves and the ways in which they have been used in the literatures, art, and thought of other cultures and time periods, from Constantinople to the Caribbean. Our faculty’s expertise ranges from Homeric poetry to Roman archaeology, Byzantine literature, and Black classicisms.

We embrace an expansive view of Classics as a discipline. Our department includes Medieval Latin, Byzantine Greek, and Modern Greek, meaning that our students can study the languages and literatures of Greek and Latin from their beginnings to the modern era. Our work in ancient history extends far beyond the boundaries of Greece and Italy to include, for example, Roman Egypt and the Seleucid Empire, which at its height extended all the way to the Indus River. We host regular talks and workshops on a wide range of topics. The department is also an active participant in Ancient Studies, Harvard’s interdisciplinary community of scholars working on ancient civilizations.

We offer a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. The curriculum is enriched by the unparalleled collections in the Harvard Art Museums, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, and the Harvard Library, including the papyri, manuscripts, and early printed books in Houghton Library. Our students can make tangible connections with the peoples of the past through handling ancient artifacts.

Our undergraduate program welcomes students who have not studied classics before, including those with no prior knowledge of Greek or Latin. The program includes two Concentrations (“Classical Civilizations” and “Classical Languages and Literatures”), Classics as the Primary or Allied Field in a Joint Concentration, and the Secondary Field in Classical Civilizations. Our concentrators have gone on to successful careers in fields as diverse as medicine, law, business, tech, journalism, film, teaching, and publishing.

We offer seven graduate programs: Ancient History, Byzantine Greek, Classical Archaeology, Classical Philology, Classical Philosophy, Medieval Latin, and Modern Greek. Many of our graduate students go on to become leaders in the field; some pursue very successful careers beyond academia. You can see their various career paths in our list of PhD recipients.

Welcome to our department and please don’t hesitate to get in touch! We look forward to meeting you.