Overview

Ancient Greece and Rome are central to Western culture. They have informed the art, thought, literature, and political and social institutions of later Western civilizations. The cultures of ancient Greece and Rome are deemed classical in two senses. First, they offer models that later thinkers, writers, and artists have sought to assimilate, emulate, and recreate. Second, the cultural achievements of ancient Greece and Rome have not been superseded; they continue to speak to us directly on the questions that matter to us.

University students are generally aware of the importance of Greece and Rome, and often they are acquainted with those civilizations. By and large, however, students have not had the opportunity to investigate in detail the centrality of Greece and Rome in the Western tradition and how classical antiquity can speak to their own questions about culture, art, morality, politics, and identity. The Classical Legacy program seeks to change this state of affairs.

The program offers new courses in translation that make classical antiquity accessible to a wide range of students and give those students a grounding in Western intellectual and cultural history. The program consists of 200-level survey courses and 300-level "symposia" courses (as we call them) devoted to specific themes. At both levels the courses relate classical culture to postclassical and contemporary cultures. These courses, which carry Group I (Humanities) distribution credit, will appeal to students who major in the humanities and to those who look to the humanities for stimulating educational electives.

To maintain flexibility and openness, none of the courses has prerequisites - with one exception. The program offers, by application and only to students who have completed at least one Classical Legacy course, a two-week educational trip to Greece or Italy. The trip will be led by two Rice faculty members and with appropriate work will confer three hours credit.  Study trip to Italy is planned for the summer of 2010.