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Classics is the original interdisciplinary academic field at the heart of both European/western civilization and today’s Liberal Arts education. We teach and research the languages (Greek, Latin), literature, history, philosophy, science, art, and material culture that survive from the worlds of ancient Greece, Rome, and Late Antiquity. Through archaeology and art history we investigate and analyze the material record and environment of these civilizations and their neighbors – accessing a past beyond the texts of the elite and their mostly male voices to explore fully this world from top to bottom.
The Department is delighted and grateful that a Pucci Prize has been established in honor of Piero Pucci - and we thank the generous supporters who have helped to start a fund towards creating this prize - (of $1000) to be awarded to the best Cornell graduate paper presented in those academic years a CorHaLi conference is held, and otherwise the best Cornell classics graduate essay or other conference paper given that academic year. We hope others will want to support this prize fund making it a long-term annual award in honor of Piero.
Fred Ahl Prize. The Department would also very much like to honor the extraordinary contribution of Fred Ahl over 52 years at Cornell. If possible, we would like to create a prize fund from which to award an annual Ahl Prize for undergraduate achievement - reflecting Fred's long involvement and achievements in teaching and enthusing undergraduates at Cornell with his love of literature and drama and so much else.
If you would like to make a gift towards either or both prize funds, and wish to do on-line, please use the donation link below or the QR code. PLEASE specify which (or both) Prize Fund you wish to give money to. Please do this EITHER in the "In Honor/Memory" section OR in the "Other Designation or Special Instructions" section. Of course, old-fashioned checks are also very welcome mailed to the Classics Department (made out to "Cornell University" and again clearly indicating your choice of purpose please). Thank you very much for all and any support to help sustain and to create these prizes in honor of Piero and Fred from all the Department!
Click here to make a contribution to the Pucci and/or Ahl Prize Funds.
Cornell, the only institution offering regular multilevel instruction in all six of the major Southeast Asian languages – Burmese, Indonesian, Khmer, Filipino (Tagalog), Thai and Vietnamese – will host a conference on the teaching of these languages on Sept. 19-21.
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"Cornell alumni are generous with their time and efforts to assist students, to answer questions from students, or connect them to people and places."
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The Humanities Scholars Program welcomes Verity Platt, professor of classics and history of art in the College of Arts & Sciences, as the program’s incoming director
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Peter John Loewen says he's excited to support faculty in their research, meet students and showcase the value of a liberal arts education.
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Assistant professor Toni Alimi traces the connections between Augustine’s understanding of slavery and his broader thoughts.
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More students can afford to stay on campus to work in faculty labs during the summer thanks to generous alumni.
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This month’s feature titles include an ancient guide to romance and “the first book authored by a geological formation,” both by A&S faculty.
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The Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory identified the likeliest timeline of the Hellenistic-era ship's sinking as between 296-271 BCE, with a strong probability it occurred between 286-272 BCE.
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Neither language is spoken today, but hundreds of world-historical masterpieces were written in those two languages. Ancient Greek is the key that unlocks Homer, philosophy, tragedy, comedy, history, particle physics, and half the Bible. Latin is the key that unlocks epic poetry, stage drama, fables, rhetoric, law, and the reawakening of the West in the Renaissance. The two languages together allow you to observe, like a firsthand witness, the downhill slide of Rome’s thousand-year civilization from an American-style democracy to an authoritarian empire. Studying them, and the voices of the women and men who spoke them, reveals more than just the mindset of a people that built the Coliseum and the catacombs. Those voices also reveal the foundations of the modern world order—from secular humanism to religious orthodoxy. They’re also a lot of fun!
Classics doesn’t just involve learning your Latin principal parts (important though they are!). Our students and faculty engage with the Greco-Roman world in multiple ways, whether speaking “living Latin” in Rome, taking part in archaeological digs or traveling seminars to Europe, curating exhibitions, or putting on performances of ancient plays. From experiments with ancient technology to the use of myth in contemporary art, we celebrate and explore the enduring relevance and reinvention of the Classical past within the 21st century.