Classical Languages

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2019-20 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Spring 2020 COVID-19 Measures

About the Program

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

The major in Classical Languages provides training in both ancient Greek and Latin, enabling students to encounter texts such as Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid in their original form. Students can begin their study of the languages in our department or build on knowledge acquired elsewhere.

Declaring the Major

The easiest way to declare a major is to meet with an undergraduate advisor, who will have all the necessary forms. Please also see the Letters & Science Advising site for a guide to declaring a major.

Honors Program

Students who are declared majors in Classical Languages and who have a GPA (both general and departmental) of at least 3.6 are eligible for honors in Classical Languages. The honors program consists of a two-semester course sequence, either GREEK H195A and GREEK H195B or LATIN H195A and LATIN H195B, that is designed to support the writing of a thesis. This thesis, which will be evaluated by an honors committee of three members, may either build on work in a previous upper division course used in fulfillment of the Classical Languages major or may be a newly conceived project. It is due the Monday of the 13th week of the semester in which the relevant H195B is taken.

Further details can be found online at Classics Undergraduate Honors. Please consult with a Classics undergraduate advisor to begin planning to participate in Honors.

Minor Program

There is no minor program in Classical Languages. Students who wish to pursue a classical language at the minor level should consider the Greek or Latin minors. See below.

Other Majors and Minors Offered by the Department of Classics

Classical Civilizations (Major and Minor)
Greek (Major and Minor)
Latin (Major and Minor)

 

Visit Department Website

Major Requirements

In addition to the University, campus, and college requirements, listed on the College Requirements tab, students must fulfill the below requirements specific to their major program.

General Guidelines

  1. All courses taken to fulfill the major requirements below must be taken for graded credit, other than courses listed which are offered on a Pass/No Pass basis only. Other exceptions to this requirement are noted as applicable.
  2. No more than one upper division course may be used to simultaneously fulfill requirements for a student's major and minor programs, with the exception of minors offered outside of the College of Letters & Science.
  3. A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 must be maintained in both upper and lower division courses used to fulfill the major requirements.

For information regarding residence requirements and unit requirements, please see the College Requirements tab.

Summary of Degree Requirements

Lower Division: Two courses8
Elementary Language: Two or four courses16-20
Basic Reading: Six courses24
Senior Reading: Two courses8
Total Units56-60

Lower Division

CLASSIC 10AIntroduction to Greek Civilization 14
CLASSIC 10BIntroduction to Roman Civilization 14
Total Units8

Elementary Language

Greek8-10
Select one of the following:
GREEK 1
& GREEK 2
Elementary Greek
and Elementary Greek
GREEK 15
The Greek Workshop [10]
Latin8-10
Select one of the following:
LATIN 1
& LATIN 2
Elementary Latin
and Elementary Latin
LATIN 15
The Latin Workshop [10]
Total Units16-20

Basic Reading

GREEK 100Plato and Attic Prose4
GREEK 101Homer4
GREEK 102Drama and Society4
LATIN 100Republican Prose4
LATIN 101Vergil4
LATIN 102Lyric and Society4
Total Units24

Senior Reading

Select two of the following:8
GREEK 115
Archaic Poetry [4]
GREEK 116
Greek Drama [4]
GREEK 117
Hellenistic Poets [4]
GREEK 120
Herodotus [4]
GREEK 121
Thucydides [4]
GREEK 122
Attic Oratory [4]
GREEK 123
Plato and Aristotle [4]
LATIN 115
Roman Drama [4]
LATIN 116
Lucretius, Vergil's Georgics [4]
LATIN 119
Latin Epic [4]
LATIN 120
Latin Prose to AD 14 [4]
LATIN 121
Tacitus [4]
LATIN 122
Post-Augustan Prose [4]
LATIN 140
Medieval Latin [4]
LATIN 155A
Readings in Medieval Latin [4]
Total Units8

College Requirements

Undergraduate students must fulfill the following requirements in addition to those required by their major program.

For detailed lists of courses that fulfill college requirements, please review the College of Letters & Sciences page in this Guide. For College advising appointments, please visit the L&S Advising Pages. 

University of California Requirements

Entry Level Writing

All students who will enter the University of California as freshmen must demonstrate their command of the English language by fulfilling the Entry Level Writing requirement. Fulfillment of this requirement is also a prerequisite to enrollment in all reading and composition courses at UC Berkeley. 

American History and American Institutions

The American History and Institutions requirements are based on the principle that a US resident graduated from an American university, should have an understanding of the history and governmental institutions of the United States.

Berkeley Campus Requirement

American Cultures

All undergraduate students at Cal need to take and pass this course in order to graduate. The requirement offers an exciting intellectual environment centered on the study of race, ethnicity and culture of the United States. AC courses offer students opportunities to be part of research-led, highly accomplished teaching environments, grappling with the complexity of American Culture.

College of Letters & Science Essential Skills Requirements

Quantitative Reasoning

The Quantitative Reasoning requirement is designed to ensure that students graduate with basic understanding and competency in math, statistics, or computer science. The requirement may be satisfied by exam or by taking an approved course.

Foreign Language

The Foreign Language requirement may be satisfied by demonstrating proficiency in reading comprehension, writing, and conversation in a foreign language equivalent to the second semester college level, either by passing an exam or by completing approved course work.

Reading and Composition

In order to provide a solid foundation in reading, writing, and critical thinking the College requires two semesters of lower division work in composition in sequence. Students must complete parts A & B reading and composition courses by the end of their second semester and a second-level course by the end of their fourth semester.

College of Letters & Science 7 Course Breadth Requirements

Breadth Requirements

The undergraduate breadth requirements provide Berkeley students with a rich and varied educational experience outside of their major program. As the foundation of a liberal arts education, breadth courses give students a view into the intellectual life of the University while introducing them to a multitude of perspectives and approaches to research and scholarship. Engaging students in new disciplines and with peers from other majors, the breadth experience strengthens interdisciplinary connections and context that prepares Berkeley graduates to understand and solve the complex issues of their day.

Unit Requirements

  • 120 total units

  • Of the 120 units, 36 must be upper division units

  • Of the 36 upper division units, 6 must be taken in courses offered outside your major department
Residence Requirements

For units to be considered in "residence," you must be registered in courses on the Berkeley campus as a student in the College of Letters & Science. Most students automatically fulfill the residence requirement by attending classes here for four years. In general, there is no need to be concerned about this requirement, unless you go abroad for a semester or year or want to take courses at another institution or through UC Extension during your senior year. In these cases, you should make an appointment to meet an adviser to determine how you can meet the Senior Residence Requirement.

Note: Courses taken through UC Extension do not count toward residence.

Senior Residence Requirement

After you become a senior (with 90 semester units earned toward your BA degree), you must complete at least 24 of the remaining 30 units in residence in at least two semesters. To count as residence, a semester must consist of at least 6 passed units. Intercampus Visitor, EAP, and UC Berkeley-Washington Program (UCDC) units are excluded.

You may use a Berkeley Summer Session to satisfy one semester of the Senior Residence requirement, provided that you successfully complete 6 units of course work in the Summer Session and that you have been enrolled previously in the college.

Modified Senior Residence Requirement

Participants in the UC Education Abroad Program (EAP), Berkeley Summer Abroad, or the UC Berkeley Washington Program (UCDC) may meet a Modified Senior Residence requirement by completing 24 (excluding EAP) of their final 60 semester units in residence. At least 12 of these 24 units must be completed after you have completed 90 units.

Upper Division Residence Requirement

You must complete in residence a minimum of 18 units of upper division courses (excluding UCEAP units), 12 of which must satisfy the requirements for your major.

Student Learning Goals

Mission

The learning goals should be understood in the context of the mission statement of the Department of Classics. The first two components of that statement are especially relevant to undergraduate teaching and are repeated here:

  • To give students across the University access to the literature, history, archaeology, mythology and philosophy of the ancient Greek and Roman world through an array of undergraduate courses on classical culture in translation. These courses introduce students to texts, artifacts, and ideas that are worth studying both in their own right and as abidingly influential elements in the imagination and history of later cultures. Such study deepens students' understanding of present-day issues by inculcating a sense of historical perspective that takes account of both the differences and the continuities between contemporary and ancient cultures.

  • To enable undergraduates to immerse themselves in the language and culture of ancient Greece and Rome through its majors in Greek, Latin, and Classical Civilizations. These majors equip students with knowledge and analytical skills that can be applied in many areas (e.g., law, politics, business, biosciences, computer science and media) as well as providing essential preparation for graduate study in Classics, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and other fields.

Learning Goals for the Major

  1. Acquire a basic grounding in the vocabulary, morphology, and syntax of classical Greek and Latin.
  2. Practice the skills needed to use dictionaries, grammars, and other resources to read intermediate texts accurately and to deal comfortably with at least some advanced texts in the original language(s).
  3. Learn to identify and understand key events, institutions, personalities, places, and concepts of ancient Greek and Roman culture.
  4. Gain a critical awareness of continuities and differences between and within cultures and of ideologies of gender, group identity, social status, and political organization.
  5. Demonstrate the ability to interpret texts and material culture and to understand the implications of interpretive methods.
  6. Demonstrate the ability to synthesize a well-organized argument from textual or other evidence and to express it in formal English prose.

Courses

Classical Languages

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Susanna Elm, Professor. History of the Later Roman Empire, pagan - Christian interactions, ancient medicine, slavery and the evolution of Christianity, leadership and empire, reception of antiquity.
Research Profile

Giovanni R. F. (John) Ferrari, Professor. Classics, ancient philosophy, Greek culture, ancient poetics and rhetoric.
Research Profile

+ Mark Griffith, Professor. Gender and sexuality, Greek literature and performance, Greek and Roman education, Greek tragedy and comedy, Hesiod and wisdom literature, ancient music.
Research Profile

Christopher Hallett, Professor. Classics, Roman art, visual culture, portraiture, Hellenistic art, Roman Asia Minor, Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
Research Profile

Todd Hickey, Associate Professor. Classics, papyrology, Greek, Egyptian, social and economic history, late antiquity.
Research Profile

+ Leslie V. Kurke, Professor. Classics, Greek literature and culture, archaic Greek poetry, Herodotus.
Research Profile

Duncan MacRae, Assistant Professor. Classics.
Research Profile

Sara Magrin, Associate Professor.

Maria Mavroudi, Professor. Byzantine studies.
Research Profile

+ Kathleen Mccarthy, Professor. Classics, Roman literature and culture, slavery.
Research Profile

Trevor M. Murphy, Associate Professor. Ethnography, classics, Roman prose authors.
Research Profile

Ellen Oliensis, Professor. Latin Literature, Ovid.
Research Profile

Nikolaos Papazarkadas, Associate Professor. Greek epigraphy, Greek history.
Research Profile

J. Theodore Pena, Professor. Roman archaeology, Roman and pre-Roman Italy, city of Rome, Pompeii, ancient economy, ceramic analysis, material culture studies.
Research Profile

James Porter, Professor. Classical Studies, philosophy, critical theory, aesthetics, Nietzsche, Auerbach.
Research Profile

Dylan Paul Sailor, Associate Professor. Rhetoric, classics, Greek literature, Latin Literature, ancient Greek, Latin, historiography, ancient Rome, ancient Greece.
Research Profile

Kim S. Shelton, Associate Professor. Ceramics, classical civilization and archaeology, Aegean prehistory, religion/mythology.
Research Profile

+ Andrew F. Stewart, Professor. Archaeology, classics, Greek sculpture, ancient art and architecture, the Hellenistic east after Alexander, the Renaissance reception of antiquity.
Research Profile

Mario Telo, Professor.
Research Profile

Affiliated Faculty

Timothy Clarke, Assistant Professor.
Research Profile

Klaus Corcilius, Associate Professor. Ancient philosophy.
Research Profile

+ Andrew Garrett, Professor. Linguistics, English, California, language change, Indo-European languages, historical linguistics, northern California Indian languages, linguistic structure, typology, ancient Greek, Latin, Irish, Oceanic languages.
Research Profile

Kinch Hoekstra, Associate Professor. History of political, moral, and legal philosophy, ancient, renaissance, and early modern political thought.
Research Profile

Gary Holland, Professor. Linguistics.
Research Profile

Emily Mackil, Associate Professor. History.
Research Profile

Ramona Naddaff, Associate Professor. Rhetoric, aesthetics, theory of the novel, ancient Greek philosophy and literature, history of philosophy, contemporary French thought.
Research Profile

+ Carlos Norena, Associate Professor. History.

Martin Schwartz, Professor. Near Eastern studies, Iranian studies.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Lisa Pieraccini, Lecturer.

Tom Recht, Lecturer.

Yasmin Syed, Lecturer.

Emeritus Faculty

William S. Anderson, Professor Emeritus. Classics, Latin Literature.
Research Profile

David J. Cohen, Professor Emeritus. Human rights,war crimes and trials,Indonesia and East Timor, Guantanamo and Abu Grahib,Sierra Leone Special Court,International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and Former Yugoslavia,Classics,ancient rhetoric and history, classical Greek law,political/legal theory.
Research Profile

William Fitzgerald, Professor Emeritus.

+ Erich S. Gruen, Professor Emeritus. Classics, Greek and Roman history, Jews in the Greco-Roman world.
Research Profile

Ralph J. Hexter, Professor Emeritus.

Robert Knapp, Professor Emeritus.

Anthony A. Long, Professor Emeritus . Professor of the Graduate School, Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Classics and Irving G Stone Professor Emeritus of Literature, Affiliated Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric: Classics, Greek literature, ancient philosophy.
Research Profile

Donald Mastronarde, Professor Emeritus. Professor of the Graduate School and Emeritus Melpomene Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature: classics, Greek literature, Greek drama, Greek textual transmission, Greek literary papyrology, Greek palaeography.
Research Profile

Stephen G. Miller, Professor Emeritus. Archaeology, classics, Greek and Roman art, ancient architecture, Greek athletics .
Research Profile

Ronald S. Stroud, Professor Emeritus. Classics, Greek history and literature, Greek epigraphy.
Research Profile

Leslie L. Threatte, Professor Emeritus.

Contact Information

Department of Classics

7233 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-4218

Fax: 510-643-2959

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Ellen Oliensis

7211 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-9207

http://www.classics.berkeley.edu/people/ellen-oliensis

eolien@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Student Affairs Officer

Cassandra Dunn

7228 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-3672

cassandrajj@berkeley.edu

Classics Undergraduate Faculty Advisor

Kim Shelton

7209 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: (510) 643-2959

http://www.classics.berkeley.edu/people/kim-shelton

sheltonk@berkeley.edu

Classics Undergraduate Faculty Advisor

Trevor Murphy

7220 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: (510) 642-4120;

http://www.classics.berkeley.edu/people/trevor-murphy

tmmurphy@berkeley.edu

Back to Top