Classics
DPhil & Msc(Res) courses
Photo by Sebastien Betrand via Wikimedia Commons
Wadham is one of the colleges most committed to Classics and Ancient History. Wadham has an excellent tradition of integration across courses and years, promoted through regular social and academic events. The college has a distinctive commitment to outreach; our students are regularly involved in teaching Latin in local schools through the Iris project, and we host the East London Classics Summer School.
The Courses
We admit graduates for the one-year MSt and two-year MPhil courses in Greek and/or Latin Languages & Literature, in Greek and/or Roman History, and in Classical Archaeology, as well as for DPhils in all three subject areas.
Wadham has broad coverage of ancient Greece and Rome, and the different ways of studying them. In addition, because of the strength of the college in Oriental Studies and the presence of experts in medieval history and English, the college is a particularly appropriate home for those working on geographical or historical boundaries of the Classical world. It is close to the Bodleian Library, the Ioannou Centre, the Ashmolean Museum, the Sackler Library, and the Faculty of Archaeology.
The Tutors
Prof Peter Thonemann
Peter teaches Greek and Roman history; he is particularly interested in ancient social and economic history, with a focus on the Greek-speaking East, from the Aegean to Afghanistan and from Homer to Muhammad; as a student of Greek epigraphy (inscriptions on stone) he continues a strong Wadham tradition.
Prof Sarah Cullinan-Herring
Sarah supervises graduate students working on Epic, Greek Tragedy, Greek Comedy, Lyric poetry and Classical Reception with particular focus on interesctions with queer theory, disability studies and eco-critical readings of ancient texts.
Prof Stephen Heyworth
Stephen concentrates on Latin literature, and particularly on the Augustan poets: his Oxford Classical Text of Propertius was published in 2007. His major current projects are an investigation of the manuscripts of Ovid’s Fasti, which will lead to an edition of the whole poem, and a commentary on book 3.