Classics and Ancient Studies

In the department of Classics and Ancient Studies, our course offerings focus on the cultures of ancient Egypt, Nubia, the Levant, Greece, and Rome. In our lectures and seminars, we take an interdisciplinary approach, privileging the study of language, literature, archaeology, religion, philosophy, and cultural reception. We are particularly invested in exploring ethnicity, gender, class, and differential power dynamics as they existed in the past. Understanding how Greco-Roman and Egyptian antiquity has been used and abused in later eras – including our own – is also of vital concern. Indeed, given that “the Classics” have served as the basis of a particularly privileged brand of Western education until the present day, the study of ancient ideas and of modern intellectual history concerning these ideas aids analytical thinking about the present. Moreover, through learning ancient languages, students are able to directly access the written ideas of a wide variety of philosophers, poets, political theorists, playwrights, and graffiti-scribbling wall defacers, at the same time as they gain a greater comfort with the grammar, syntax, and etymology of English and other modern languages. Close cooperation between Barnard and Columbia ensures that – no matter where in the ancient Mediterranean world a student’s intellectual interests reside – she should emerge from the program having been encouraged to explore them in depth and well prepared to pursue graduate studies or a wide variety of other professional opportunities.

Please note: our department endorses the activist agenda of Black Lives Matter. The study of ancient Africa matters, as do the contributions of individuals of color to the ancient world generally. The hiring of a diverse faculty and the training of a diverse student body are vital for the intellectual well-being of Classics and Ancient Studies, and we are committed to working to diversify our field, department, course offerings, and syllabi. Black lives have not always mattered in our disciplines. We acknowledge this and vow to both continue and to amplify efforts to make the study of the ancient world more equitable, accessible, and inclusive at Barnard and at Columbia.

Majors

Queen Amanishakheto and the goddess Amesemi

The department offers two majors. The majors in Classics (Greek, Latin, or Classics) center on work in the original languages, whereas the major in Ancient Studies has an interdisciplinary focus. All members of the department are available for major advising and students ideally choose an advisor who can help them develop their required senior essays.

Fulfilling the Language Requirement

Pompeii scholar

Students may fulfill their language requirement at Barnard and have it count towards the Classics and Ancient Studies degree by taking a year's worth (or one intensive class) of Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, or Aramaic.

Careers

Andrea Achi sorts pottery

Our majors graduate well prepared for graduate careers in Classics, Egyptology, and related academic fields such as museum work (Andrea Myers Achi, pictured above, is an Assistant Curator of Medieval Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), history, philosophy, archaeology, art history or comparative literature. They also enter successful careers in secondary school teaching, arts administration, as well as law, medicine and biological sciences, business, politics, public service in both the government and non-profit sectors, journalism and creative writing, publishing, library science, and the arts (especially theater, film and dance).

Greek or Latin play

Production of Herakles

The Classics Department is the beneficiary of the Matthew Alan Kramer Fund, whose principal purpose is to support the production of plays in Ancient Greek or Latin. Students of the department have produced Antigone, Medea, Alcestis, Persians, Eumenides, Cyclops, Electra, Clouds, Trojan Women, Rudens, Helen, Trachiniae, Bacchae, Hippolytus, Heracles, Birds, and Persa, which have provided an exciting and different learning experience for the participants.

Classics and Ancient Studies in New York

Class trip to the Met

Every effort is made to introduce students to considerable resources for the study and influence of the Classics in New York City, including plays, films, and museum and gallery visits.

Head of a Man with Tight, Curly Hair, late 2nd century B.C.E. Marble, "Bigio Morata", 11 x 7 11/16 x 7 1/2 in. (28 x 19.5 x 19 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 70.59.

Race and Ethnicity in the Ancient World: Methods, Sources, and Assessments

Our students are involved in compiling an annotated bibliography of texts, media, and scholarship relevant to the study of race and ethnicity in the ancient world. The bibliography is organized along methodological lines and serves as a broad and productive entry for individuals interested in race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism in antiquity.

Macte hac gloria, Brit!

Congratulations to Brit Zak ’21 (double major in Classics and Jewish Studies) for receiving The Ingeborg, Tamara, and Yonina Rennert Prize in Jewish Women’s Studies for her senior thesis, "Exegesis in Translation: Sicubi dubitas, Hebraeos interroga.” In this thesis Brit investigated Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin and the extent to which Jerome used differences between Hebrew and Latin pronoun systems to weave in early Christian and/or Jewish exegetical material.

Don't miss Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides on April 17!!

The Barnard Columbia Ancient Drama Group's much anticipated production of Iphigenia in Aulis (performed in ancient Greek with subtitles), will be released online on Saturday, April 17th.

The video and a link to a live talkback afterward with director, Elizabeth McNamara '21 (Classics major and veteran performer of many past productions), can be found at this event page.