Classics is the original “interdisciplinary” subject, and members of the Cornell community engage in research across the whole domain of Classical Studies, from Greek and Roman literature and historical linguistics to ancient philosophy, historiography, archaeology, and art history.

Cornell classicists combine rigorous training in ancient languages with cutting-edge theoretical approaches, covering material from the Aegean Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, and regions from the Latin West to the Caucasus, though with a firm basis in the cultures of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.

We have strong ties to departments and programs in Philosophy, History, Near Eastern Studies, Medieval Studies, History of Art, Comparative Literature, and CIAMS (the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies).

Cornell’s cast of the Colonna Venus in the Vatican Museums, displayed as part of an installation in Klarman Hall.

Faculty Research

Some areas of strength are:

Carol Griggs (Senior Lecturer and Research Associate) inspecting a cross-section of a tree in the dendrochronology lab.

Classics Research Centers

The Cornell Tree Ring Laboratory builds multi-millennial scale tree-ring chronologies in the Aegean and Near East that throuigh the last 10,000 years of human and environmental history.
The American Research Center in Sofia (ARCS) was established in 2004 as both a center for research and a training institution, committed to training North American graduate students in the history, culture, and languages of the region. Cornell University hosts the US Office of ARCS.

— Caitlín Eilís Barrett, Associate Professor

The study of connectivity and cross-cultural exchange in the ancient Mediterranean offers new perspectives on crucial questions about globalization, colonialism, empires, and cultural entanglement.