BA in Classics

The study of classics embraces all aspects of Greek and Roman culture from the prehistoric to the medieval periods, including study of the languages relevant to these societies. But the influence of classical thought did not disappear with the fall of the Greek and Roman empires; many contemporary Western ideas, from atomic theory to democracy, are rooted in the developments of the era.The UO s Department of Classics introduces students to the foundational concepts of Western culture and literature through the study of key classical texts of antiquity in Greek and Latin and in translation. The primary mission of the classics department is to examine the classical world using language as a microscope. Language is a window into the past and when you are reading something in its original text, the words resonate with multiple associations, bringing the past alive in a way that is lost in translation, says Lowell Bowditch, department head.