Classics

Professor Richard McKirahan, department chair

Professors McKirahan, Wolf, Finkelpearl (SC)
Associate Professor Roselli (SC)
Assistant Professors Chinn, Keim, Bjornlie, (CM), Berenfeld (PZ)

The Classics Department offers a major and a minor in Classics and a major in Late Antique-Medieval Studies (LAMS).

Classics is the study of the ancient Mediterranean world, including Greece, Rome, the Near East, and North Africa. The study of the Greco-Roman Classics was the original liberal arts curriculum, and is the original interdisciplinary scholarly endeavor. Classicists are trained in the ancient languages as well as textual and literary criticism, history, archaeology, religion, and philosophy. The study of ancient Greek and Latin constitutes the foundation of an education in the Classics. These two “dead” languages provide the medium through which Western literature, history, science, mathematics, and philosophy were originally formulated. The material record of the ancient Mediterranean is equally rich, providing insights into the origins of, among other things, religion and urban life.

Late Antique-Medieval Studies (LAMS) is the study of the Mediterranean and Near East in the periods known as Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, that is, from the third to the fifteenth centuries. Late Antiquity witnessed the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rise of the “barbarian kingdoms” in the west, and the emergence and spread of Islam in the east and south. Despite the competing political and religious claims, the ties between the greater Latin, Greek, and Arabic cultures that shared the Mediterranean basin in the Middle Ages remained strong. Not only did each of these cultures identify with an Abrahamic religious tradition, but each saw itself as an heir to the rich secular traditions of the Greek and Roman, as well as the Persian empires. Students of LAMS explore these fertile cultural encounters from a fresh, multi-disciplinary perspective with appropriate attention to the original languages: Greek, Latin, and Arabic.

Classics and LAMS are both cooperative intercollegiate programs. Classics and LAMS courses taught at any of The Claremont Colleges count as Pomona courses. Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Classical Hebrew may be taken to fulfill the Pomona College foreign language requirement. Courses taken P/NC may not be counted toward either major or the minor.

• Classics Major
   
• Classics Minor
   
• Classics Courses
   
• Late Antique-Medieval Studies Major
   
• Late Antique-Medieval Studies Courses
    

Read more about our learning objectives:
www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/learning-objectives