Graduate Program Classics

Our doctoral program fully promotes an interdisciplinary approach to the ancient world. We offer all students an opportunity to develop a comprehensive course of study within one of our five concentrations: ancient history, ancient philosophy, classical archaeology and art, classical literature and philology, and Greek and Latin languages and linguistics.

During the week preceding the first week of classes of the Fall term, all entering students take a diagnostic test designed and evaluated by the First-Year Committee. It serves to guide the Committee in advising entering students on their curriculum for the first year.

By the end of the second semester a student should have chosen his or her own Special Committee, a group of at least three members (a Special Committee chair and two minor members). Two or more of these members should be in the Graduate Field of Classics as required by the individual concentration.

The following requirements are common to the five concentrations:

For the requirements of the individual concentrations, click here.

Eric Rebillard: Roman history, Early Christianity and Late Antiquity.

Tad Brennan
: Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophers, Late Platonists, and Pre-Socratics.

Charles F. Brittain
: Hellenistic epistemology and ethics, Platonist psychology and ethics, Augustine.

Rachana Kamtekar: Pre-Socratics, Hellenistic philosophy, Plato, Aristotle.

Annetta Alexandridis: Greek myth and iconography; Roman portraiture and funerary culture; archaeology and its media, gender studies, animal studies.

Benjamin Anderson: Late antique and Byzantine art, architecture, and visual culture; archaeology and architectural history of late antique and medieval Anatolia.

Caitlín Barrett: Hellenistic Mediterranean; Greco-Roman Egypt; Egyptian archaeology and language; religion and ritual; long-distance trade; identity and ethnicity; coroplastic studies; wall painting; Delos; Campania.

Kathryn L. Gleason: gardens and designed landscapes of the Roman world; environmental archaeology, landscape archaeology; methods of ancient design, construction, water management; ancient cultivation.

Lori Khatchadourian: Anthropological archaeology, Near Eastern archaeology, the archaeology of empires, materiality, landscape.

Sturt W. Manning: Aegean, Cypriot, and east Mediterranean prehistory; archaeological science; dendrochronology; dendroclimatology; dendrochemistry; climate change science; radiocarbon dating.

Verity Platt: Art and religion; image and text; Roman wall-painting and funerary art; Greek culture in the Roman empire; historiography of ancient art.

Astrid Van Oyen: Roman archaeology; socio-economics of the Roman empire; materiality; ancient innovation.

Michael Fontaine: Latin Literature, Republican Drama, Augustan Poetry.

Verity Platt: Hellenistic and Second Sophistic Literature, Art and Text

Eric Rebillard: Late Antique Latin Literature and Early Christian Texts.

Courtney Roby: Latin Literature, Scientific and Technical Literature.

Jeffrey Rusten: Greek Literature and Historiography, Greek Comedy.

Alan J. Nussbaum: Indo-European Linguistics, Greek and Latin Language and Linguistics, Homer, Old Latin.

Michael Weiss: Indo-European Linguistics, Historical Phonology and Morphology of Greek, Latin, and the Sabellic Languages.

Check in the concentrations' requirements which are the relevant lists for each concentration.

All graduate students in the Field of Classics are admitted with five years of guaranteed support, including tuition, health insurance, as well as an annual stipend, and summer stipend after the first through fourth years.

Two years of this support (ordinarily the first and the fifth) take the form of fellowships provided by the Graduate School. The other three years are derived from fellowships controlled by the Department and from teaching assistantships.

The Department of Classics, with the support of the Graduate School, makes available from the Townsend Endowment financial support for a sixth year. This sixth year funding is awarded at the discretion of the Department to students demonstrating excellent progress.

The Townsend Fund also enables the department to offer travel grants to graduate students. We encourage students to spend some time at other universities in North America and Europe in order to study with scholars whose work would complement and enrich their individual research interests.

Complete the application online at Apply Now no later than December 15. Applications are evaluated in January, and applicants are usually notified of their status at the beginning of February.

In addition to all Graduate School requirements, including the TOEFL Exam for Non-Native English Applicants, the Field of Classics requires the following:

We strongly recommend that you choose as a writing sample work that shows your ability to work closely with ancient texts in the original language. Ideally your writing sample should also demonstrate research abilities and critical use of secondary sources. If you are writing an undergraduate Honors Thesis a chapter from it would be a good choice.

If you are applying for the concentrations in Ancient History, Ancient Philosophy, Classical Archaeology, or Indo-European Linguistics it is particularly important that you submit a sample that will enable us to evaluate your work in that area.