Undergraduate Classics at NUI Galway

What is Classics?

At the centre of Arts and Humanities lies the attempt to understand human nature: imagination, creativity and identity. One way to do that is to look at where we have come from: the rise of civilization, the growth of literature, art and thought, and the historical processes that have moulded our view of the world. Classics in this university takes on that challenge by orienting ourselves first from ancient Greece and Rome and then broadening the scope, moving back into prehistory and forwards towards the rise of Christian Europe and the Middle Ages, including the place of Ireland in this international process.

There are three basic themes in this study:

1. Literature and thought
2. Art and archaeology
3. Languages and texts

In the video clips below, Dr Amanda Kelly introduces the 2011–2012 First Year programme and Cathy Hogan, a BA Connect student, describes her experience of the course.

Classics in First Arts

Our First Year modules introduce you to the above three themes in turn, assuming no prior knowledge of the subject and presenting a multi-disciplinary view of Antiquity and its legacy. In the higher years you will have the opportunity to specialize either by learning one or more ancient languages, such as Latin and Greek, or by focusing on archaeological and cultural themes while reading ancient texts in translation.

(See the First Arts page for modules details, lecture times and our First Year BA handbook.)

Classics in Second and Final Year Arts

In your Second Year you have the opportunity to specialize, either by following a linguistic path and beginning the study of Latin or by focusing on art, archaeology and the history of ideas without language.

In Final Year Arts and continuing into the MA, the pattern develops further: material culture is studied in greater depth, literary histories broaden, and original texts in Latin are studied in depth. We have offer the study of Greek as well, with both beginners’ and advanced courses available as options from undergraduate level onward.

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