Majors and Minors

The major in Ancient Studies is explicitly interdisciplinary in outlook. Students interested in focusing on the ancient Mediterranean or the Ancient Near East will normally take classes in a wide range of departments that focus on language, literature, mythology, material culture, history, religion, art history, philosophy, comparative literature, or indeed, other subjects relevant to their specific interests. Each student will develop a concentration in one geographical area or period but will also develop an appreciation for the cultural development of the region as a whole. Study abroad in Greece, Rome, Egypt, the Middle East, or in European universities with strong programs in their field of interest is encouraged. Students are also encouraged to explore internship opportunities at the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other institutions throughout New York City.

Each student, after consultation with the Barnard Chair, chooses an advisor whose field is closely related to her own and with whom she will plan her senior essay.

A total of 36 points are required in the major, including at least four courses in one geographical area or period; courses in at least three departments to ensure proper interdisciplinary training and expertise; the elementary sequence of a relevant ancient language; the appropriate history course; ANCS V 3995 The Major Seminar, and ANCS V 3998 (senior essay).

FALL 2025

In CLASSICS AND ANCIENT STUDIES
 

CLCV BC1001 Introduction to Greek Mythology
TR 10:10-11:25

The stories of the Greek and Roman gods and heroes are at the root of countless works of art, philosophy, literature, and film, from antiquity to the present. Many familiar phrases from the English language also derive from myth: an Achilles heel (and Achilles tendon!), a Trojan horse, Pandora’s box, and so forth. This course will introduce you to the broad range of tales that make up the complex and interconnected network of Greek and Roman mythology.

CLCV UN3010 Talking Animals and Other Worlds: The Fables
MW 4:10-5:25 / Stine, Brett
Fables have long been considered sources of popular wisdom and education throughout the entire ancient Mediterranean, marked by a diversity of literary, ethnic, geographic, political, and class associations. Further, fable traditions have rather complicated oral and written receptions, often connected to historical/authorial figures or fable collectors such as Ahiqar, Archilochos, Aesop, Callimachus, Jesus, Babrius, and Phaedrus. Offering various approaches to world building and sometimes contradictory ethical and social reflections, fables and their traditions serve as the ideal ground for exploring a variety of literary, methodological, and sociological questions from the Iron Age to late antiquity. This course offers an exploration in translation of the fable as a cross-cultural and multilingual discursive form that challenges assumptions around canon formation, authorship, the socio-historical conditions of the "literary," and Western literary narratives of cultural reception.

CLCV UN3059 Worlds of Alexander the Great
T 6:10-8
This seminar looks at the narrative and the historical context for an extraordinary event: the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander III of Macedonia, conventionally known as “Alexander the Great.” We will explore the different worlds Alexander grew out of, confronted, and affected: the old Greek world, the Persian Empire, the ancient Near East (Egypt, Levant, Babylonia, and Iran), and the worlds beyond, namely pre-Islamic (and pre-Silk Road) Central Asia, the Afghan borderlands, and the Indus Valley. The first part of the course will establish context before laying out a narrative framework; the second part of the course will explore a series of themes, especially the tension between military conquest, political negotiation, and social interactions. Overall, the course will serve as an exercise in historical methodology (with particular attention to ancient sources and interpretation), an introduction to the geography and the history of the ancient world (classical and near-eastern), and the exploration of a complex test case located at the contact point between several worlds and a watershed of world history.

CLCV UN3101 Archaeology of Ancient Egypt and Nubia
MW 1:10-2:25 / Morris, Ellen
Thanks to the pyramids of Giza, the treasure of Tutankhamun, and other remains of royal activity, pharaonic Egypt is justly famous for its monuments and material culture. Equally fascinating, if less well known, however, are the towns, fortresses, cultic centers, domestic spaces, and non-elite cemeteries that have been excavated over the past 200 years or so. The archaeology of Nubia is also little known but fascinating on many levels. This course will focus on what archaeology can reveal about life as it was experienced by individuals of all social classes. Through a combination of broad surveys and case studies of some of Egypt and Nubia’s most culturally indicative and intriguing sites, we will explore issues such as the origins of inequality, state formation and its effects, the uneasy mix of state-planned settlements and village life, urbanism, domestic and community worship, gendered spaces, ethnicity and colonialism, religious revolution and evolution, bureaucracy, private enterprise, and the effects of governmental collapse on life and death in ancient Egypt and Nubia.

CLCV BC3212 Topics in Ancient Drama
TR 2:40-3:55
This course is designed as an accompaniment to the Greek or Latin play that is put on by the Barnard and Columbia Ancient Drama Group each year, though it is open to any student interested in the aesthetics and politics of theater and drama. Course focus and some content will rotate year to year, calibrated to serve the play or plays chosen by the student director. We will read these and other relevant plays or similarly adjacent texts, as well as scholarly literature on topics centered around the body in performance, including ancient theaters and stage space, costumes and masks, deportment and gestures, proxemics, and so on. We will also explore aspects of ancient drama and theatricality that relate to translation and reception, as well as inflections of gender and status. Other topics may include the mythic background (e.g., in epic and/or lyric), politics of aesthetics in ancient Athens, and gender-genre dynamics. Each component will extend over three or four classes and consider the ancient plays through readings of primary texts (in translation) and conceptual/contextual backgrounds. There will be an additional class hour for those who wish to read the play in the original language (signed up for as a 1-point directed reading).

CLCV GU4106 Religions of the Roman World
W 4:10-6:00 / Martzavou, Paraskevi
The goal of this course is to convey an important amount of knowledge on the religious history of the Roman Empire, focusing both on paganism, Christianity, and Judaism and their interaction. We will study the religious space, the agents of cults and religions, rituals and networks, and dynamics of power. The course will also face the challenge to reconsider the points of view from which to think about the religious history of the Roman Empire, and therefore it will be an invitation to revise our intellectual tools and questions towards an awareness of what is at stake when an object of religious debate emerges.

CLGM UN3005 Dictatorships and their Afterlives
T 12:10-2:00 / Antoniou, Dimitris
What does the investigation of a dictatorship entail, and what are the challenges in such an endeavor? Why (and when) do particular societies turn to an examination of their non-democratic pasts? What does it mean for those who never experienced an authoritarian regime firsthand to remember it through television footage, popular culture, and family stories? This seminar examines dictatorships and the ways in which they are remembered, discussed, and examined, and gives rise to conflicting narratives in post-dictatorial environments. It takes as its point of departure the Greek military regime of 1967-1974, which is considered in relation to other dictatorships in South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. We will be drawing on primary materials including Amnesty International reports, film, performance art, and architectural drawings, as well as the works of Hannah Arendt and Günter Grass, to engage in an interdisciplinary examination of the ways in which military dictatorships live on as ghosts, traumatic memories, urban warfare, litigation, and debates on the politics of comparison and the ethics of contemporary art.

CLGM UN3937 The Culture of Democracy
R 12:10-2 / Gourgouris, Stathis
The point is to examine democracy not as a political system but as a historical phenomenon characterized by a specific culture: a body of ideas and values, stories, and myths. This culture is not homogenous; it has a variety of historical manifestations through the ages but remains nonetheless cohesive. The objective is twofold: 1) to determine which elements in democratic culture remain fundamental, no matter what form they take in various historical instances; 2) to understand that the culture of democracy is indeed not abstract and transcendental but historical, with its central impetus being the interrogation and transformation of society. Special emphasis will be placed on the crisis of democratic institutions in the era of globalization and, as a specific case study in point, the democratic failure in the Mediterranean region in light of the challenges of the assembly movements (Spain, Greece, Arab Spring) and the current migrant/refugee crisis.

CLGM GU4600 Multilingual Worlds: Translation, Gender and the Greek Diaspora
T 10:10-12:00 / Van Dyke, Karen
Moving between different languages and alphabets is a constitutive aspect of the diasporic experience. To remember or forget the mother tongue, to mix up two or more languages, and to transcribe one writing system onto another are all modes of negotiating geographical displacement. This course introduces students to literature about and by Greeks of the diaspora in Europe, the Balkans, and America over the past two centuries, exploring questions of migration, translation, and gender with particular attention to the look and sound of different alphabets and foreign accents – “It’s all Greek to me!” Authors include Benjamin, Broumas, Chaplin, Chow, Conan Doyle, Kafka, Kazan, Morrison, Papadiamantis, Queen, Valtinos, and Venuti.

In ANTHROPOLOGY
 

ANHS GU4001 THE ANCIENT EMPIRES (+ discussion section)

MW 11:40-12:55, Prof. Terence D’Altroy 

In ART HISTORY
 

AHIS UN1001 INTRODUCTION TO ART HISTORY I

MW 2:40-3:55, Prof. Greg Bryda

In ENGLISH
 

ENGL UN3597 OVID’S METAMORPHOSES AND THEIR LITERARY…

W 11:00-12:50, Prof. Jhumpa Lahiri

In HISTORY
 

HIST UN1007 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORY, 800-146 BC (+ discussion section)

TR 11:40-12:55, Prof. Richard Billows

HIST GU4607 RABBIS FOR HISTORIANS

R 10:10-12:00, Prof. Seth Schwartz

In MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES
 

MDES UN1033 HISTORY OF ANCIENT ISRAEL AND JUDAH (+ discussion section)

MW 4:00-5:30, Prof. Nathaniel Shelley

In PHILOSOPHY
 

PHIL UN2101 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY I

TR 11:25-12:55, Prof. Dhananjay Jagannathan

In RELIGION
 

RELI GU4637 TALMUDIC NARRATIVE

T 2:10-4:00, Prof Beth Berkowitz

In INTRODUCTORY LANGUAGES
 

EGYP OC1101 ELEMENTARY ANCIENT EGYPTIAN I --- a.k.a. Hieroglyphs, only offered every other year!

F 2:00-5:00, Prof. Marc LeBlanc (Note: NYU class, contact  sc758@columbia.edu)

GREK UN1101.001 ELEMENTARY GREEK I

MWF 1:10-2:25, Prof. TBA

GREK UN1101.002 ELEMENTARY GREEK I

TR 6:10-8:00, Prof. TBA

GREK UN1121 INTENSIVE ELEMENTARY GREEK

MWF 1:10-2:25, Prof. TBA

LATN UN1101.001 ELEMENTARY LATIN

TRF 10:10-11:25, Prof. TBA

LATN UN1101.002 ELEMENTARY LATIN

TR 6:10-8:00, Prof. TBA

LATN UN1121 INTENSIVE ELEMENTARY LATIN

TRF 10:10-11:25, Prof. TBA

Student Learning Objectives in Ancient Studies

1. Read, analyze, and write about ancient texts persuasively and locate texts in their historical and cultural contexts.
2. Achieve familiarity with the methodologies and critical approaches and research tools deployed in classical scholarship and in related disciplines studied by each individual student that is demonstrated in the successful completion of a senior research project.
3. Achieve familiarity with the work of a variety of ancient writers on a range of interdisciplinary topics.
4. Engage in detail with the methods needed to analyze the range of fragmentary evidence, both written and material, required in an interdisciplinary study of the ancient Mediterranean world.
5. Demonstrate familiarity with one geographical area or period in the Greek, Latin or related ancient Mediterranean worlds.
6. Assess differences among and relations between ancient cultures and analyze the use and abuse of evidence about the ancient world by later cultures.

THINKING OF MAJORING IN ANCIENT STUDIES?

Regularly offered classes that count towards Ancient Studies include (but are not limited to) the list below. Be sure to check relevant departments for additional classes.

IN CLASSICS AND ANCIENT STUDIES

CLCV UN3111: PLATO AND CONFUSCIUS: COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHIES
CLLT UN3132: CLASSICAL MYTH
CPLS UN3160: TRAGIC BODIES
CLCV UN3059: THE WORLDS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
CLCV UN3230: CLASSICS AND FILM
CLCV UN3158: WOMEN IN ANTIQUITY
CLCV UN3244: GLOBAL HISTORIES OF THE BOOK
CLLT GU4115:  TRAGEDY AND PERFORMANCE
CLLT UN3132: COMEDY PAST AND PRESENT
CLLT UN3135: THE ANCIENT NOVEL
CLLT GU4300: THE CLASSICAL TRADITION
CLCV GU4190: PHILOSOPHY IN CLASSICAL ROME
CLCV UN3535: IDENTITY AND SOCIETY IN ANCIENT EGYPT
CLCV UN3101: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPT AND NUBIA
CLCV GU4411: EGYPT IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD
CLCV UN3992: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SOUTHERN LEVANT

IN HISTORY

HIST UN1004: ANCIENT HISTORY OF EGYPT
HIST UN100?: HISTORY OF ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
HIST UN1010: ANCIENT GREEK HISTORY, 800-146 BC
HIST UN2004: THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN THE SECOND CENTURY BC
HIST UN1020:  THE ROMANS AND THEIR EMPIRE

IN ART HISTORY

AHIS GU4155:  ART & ARCHAEOLOGY OF MESOPOTAMIA
AHIS UN2108:  GREEK ART AND ARCHITECTURE
AHIS UN2109: ROMAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE

IN RELIGION

RELI UN3501:  INTRODUCTION TO THE HEBREW BIBLE
RELI UN3340: EARLY CHRISTIANITY

IN PHILOSOPHY

PHIL UN2101: HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY I: PRESOCRATICS TO AUGUSTINE
PHIL UN3121: PLATO
PHIL GR4089: ARISTOTLE

IN ANTHROPOLOGY

ANTH UN1008: RISE OF CIVILIZATION, Prof. Terrence D’Altroy

The minor in Ancient Studies requires five courses that focus on Ancient Mediterranean or Ancient Near Eastern civilizations. At least one history course is required. Four other courses will compliment that course to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of a specific region and/or time period.

Classics majors develop a knowledge of Greek and Latin as a gateway to the study of the literature, history, and culture of Greece and Rome. Students can start Greek and Latin at Barnard or build on skills acquired in high school. Second year courses introduce students to original texts in Greek or Latin by authors such as Homer, Plato, Herodotus, or the Greek orators or Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, Caesar, Livy or Sallust. A range of advanced courses in Greek or Latin focus on prose or poetic texts drawn from ancient epic, lyric poetry, philosophy, drama, history, rhetoric or the novel and introduce critical approaches and literary and historical scholarship. Students are encouraged to take more courses in ancient history and classical literature and civilization than the three required for the major. Students planning to go on to graduate work in Classics and related fields are advised to undertake at least three years in both languages as well as to begin acquiring the ability to read scholarship in French, German, or Italian. Study abroad for one semester in either Greece or Rome is common and encouraged. The major in Greek or Latin requires a minimum of eight courses above the elementary level.

Greek

The major in Greek is fulfilled by taking Greek  UN3996 Major Seminar, one term of Greek UN3998 (senior thesis); either Greek W 4139, Elements of Greek Prose Style or one term of Greek W 4105-6, History of Greek Literature, *as well as five other courses above the elementary level in Ancient Greek.
 

Latin

The major in Latin is fulfilled by taking Latin UN 3996 (Major Seminar), one term of Latin UN 3998 (senior thesis), either Latin W 4139 Elements of Latin Prose Style or one term of Latin W 4105-6, History of Latin Literature, * as well as five other courses above the elementary level in Latin.

*Students planning to go on to graduate study in classics are strongly urged to take both semesters of W 4105, W 4106. Majors in Latin, especially those who have begun their study in high school, are strongly advised to take at least two semesters of Greek.

In addition, one semester of ancient history appropriate to the major and two relevant courses in ancient art, classical civilization or literature, ancient philosophy, or religion are required for either the Greek or the Latin major. Students who do not opt to take a term of either Greek or Latin W4105-6 are required to take CLLT W4300, The Classical Tradition, as one of their three required courses in translation.

A student may elect to major in both Greek and Latin by completing the major requirements in one language and five courses above the elementary level in the other.

Student Learning Objectives in Classics

1. Translate a range of Greek or Latin texts at a moderately advanced level and demonstrate an understanding of the grammar and syntax of ancient languages.

2. Read, analyze, and write about ancient texts persuasively and locate texts in their historical and cultural contexts.

3. Achieve familiarity with the methodologies and critical approaches and research tools deployed in classical scholarship that will be demonstrated in the successful completion of a senior research project.

4. Demonstrate familiarity with the work of a variety of ancient writers, literary styles, genres, and periods and their later influences.

The minor in Greek, Latin, or Modern Greek requires five courses above the elementary level.

The courses in the Hellenic Studies program are designed to develop the student’s proficiency in aspects of Modern Greek culture, language, and history. The Minor in Modern Greek requires five courses above the Elementary Language Level.

Opportunities exist for study abroad in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey for the summer or an academic term for credit. Students work closely with the concentration advisor on the selection of the foreign schools and the transfer of credit. For more information, please contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Nikolas P. Kakkoufa (nk2776@columbia.edu)