The Carleton Classics Department offers courses in the histories, cultures, and literatures of Ancient Greece and Rome, for which no knowledge of the ancient languages is required. We also offer courses in Ancient Greek and Latin languages, with the aim of enabling students to read ancient authors in the original as soon as possible.
Classics is the study of the ancient Greek and Roman world. That world, centered on the Mediterranean sea, was a complex place with a vast diversity of peoples, languages, religions, and cultures spread over three continents—from India to Britain and from Germany to Ethiopia—as full of contention and difference as our world is today. Its medieval and modern influence is wider still. Classics today belongs to all of humanity.
The Carleton Classics department, therefore, strives to include all groups among those who study the ancient world and encourages understanding of antiquity by all. As scholars and teachers, we condemn the use of the texts, ideals, and images of the Greek and Roman world to promote racism or a view of the Classical world as the unique inheritance of a narrowly-conceived western tradition. All are welcome in our department and courses. (Adapted from the Public Statement of the Society for Classical Studies Board of Directors, November 28, 2016)
“From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension.”
— W.E.B. Du Bois, “Of the Training of Black Men”
Looking for more? Check out Archaeology at Carleton!