UMass Boston

The Department offers undergraduate programs in Classical Studies, Classical Languages, and Religious Studies. We also offer three graduate MA degrees: the Licensure track prepares graduate students to teach Latin at the secondary secondary school level, the Applied Linguistics track teaches Latin and theories of language pedagogy, and the Greek/Latin track prepares students to apply to Ph.D. programs. The Applied Linguistics and Greek/Latin tracks can be completed remotely.

Request Info  Apply

Classics

Classics embraces the study of the languages, literatures, thought, history, art, and archaeology of ancient Greece, Rome and the Mediterranean more broadly. Questions that we ask ourselves today about relationships, politics, the nature of the world around us, and the meaning of life are also the concerns of ancient authors like Homer, Sappho, Plato, Cicero and Horace, whose perspectives not only allow us to understand their own historical context, but also allow us to view those fundamental questions from outside our own cultural assumption. Students constantly discover that features of our own world—in the arts, sciences, medicine, geopolitics, law, entertainment, and religion—have roots in antiquity.  

Classics students, who are intellectually adventurous, often complement their study of antiquity by double-majoring in fields ranging from biology and computer science to English and anthropology.  

Religious Studies

The academic study of religion provides students with an understanding of a variety of religious traditions, an exposure to the academic approaches employed within the academic study of religion, as well as an opportunity to explore diverse intellectual, historical, cultural, and ethical issues that arise when one considers the various manifestations of religion in human affairs. We offer courses that delve into aspects of the world’s major religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) as well as courses on religious thought and practices that are common to many traditions.

Classics and Religious Studies students are now the beneficiaries of the endowed Historeuon fund (ask us about that word!) that pays them to travel abroad for study. One student, for example, spent two weeks on an island in the Aegean studying Greek inscriptions. Other students have participated in archaeological excavations in Italy and Greece. Over the years the department has offered study tours, for academic credit, to Greece and the Bay of Naples. Our students regularly visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for scavenger hunts of ancient art. One recent student was hired as an intern in the Egyptology department at the MFA.  

On campus, the department annually hosts the Conventiculum Bostoniense, a week-long total immersion program in spoken Latin that draws participants from around the country and the world. We have also offered workshops for teachers on Latin pedagogy and the Advanced Placement (AP) tests. The Classics Club hosts events on campus, including a production of Sophocles’ Philoctetes.