Enter Antiquity
The classical tradition is good to think with. Engaging with the remains of the ancient world offers you a way to think productively about issues that are timeless: mortality, desire, the nature of political communities, the differences between the human and the divine, the impact of the past on the present, and those qualities that are part of our humanity, including ethnicity and gender. Because classicists study whole cultures, they engage with many modern academic fields, and Classics is among the most comprehensive and flexible disciplines in the humanities.
Why Study Classics? Classics is the study of the civilizations that flourished in and around the ancient Mediterranean Sea — a world characterized by extraordinary ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity. Traditionally, Classics has centered on the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it includes the many civilizations they came into contact with and learned from. To study Classics is to engage with the rich variety of the remains of these vibrant cultures: their languages, art and architecture, literature, philosophy, music, theater, politics and law, which have been, and remain, deeply influential on the cultures of today. These have survived the millennia because of their enduring power to inspire thought.
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Sample Courses
If you study Classics, you can read major authors such as Homer, Euripides, Vergil, and Ovid, in the original; and you can learn about ancient cultures in such courses as “Diversity and the Classical Western Tradition,” Politics in Ancient Rome,” “Athens in the Age of Democracy and Empire,” “Approaches to Myth,” and many more.
The Languages
An excellent way into the ancient civilizations is through Latin and/or classical Greek. Studying the languages helps you develop your linguistic and analytical skills and become a better thinker and user of your native language. These skills will also serve you well in a variety of professional contexts.
Classics and Your Life
You can use a Classics major or minor as a base for exploring a great variety of subjects. Majoring or minoring in Classics can make you a better lawyer, doctor, investment banker, writer, or web designer, but also, like all fields in the humanities, the study of the ancient world has unlimited potential to make you a more thoughtful, articulate, and critically astute human being.
The Major and Minor
Students majoring in Classics can choose among three tracks: 1. Classical Languages and Literatures. You will gain proficiency in both Greek and Latin and read and analyze major literary, historical, and philosophical texts in the original, while also becoming acquainted with the broader cultures. 2. Classical Humanities. You will learn about the legacy of Greek and Roman antiquity (texts, ideas, objects) and come to understand the relevance of classical civilizations to other cultures or disciplines or to the contemporary world, while becoming acquainted with one of the ancient languages.
3. Ancient Civilizations. You will understand Greek and Roman civilizations in a broader Mediterranean context while learning about the major texts, ideas, and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome. No language study is required, although students are encouraged to fulfill the USC language requirement with Greek or Latin. A Classics minor makes an ideal companion to majors in a huge variety of fields. For more information contact us at 213-740-3676 or classics@dornsife.usc.edu.
CONTACT OR VISIT US USC Department of Classics Taper Hall of Humanities (THH) Room 256 213-740-3676 classics@dornsife.usc.edu dornsife.usc.edu/clas/