Department of Classics

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Before submitting your application to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for the Classics MA program, potential students are advised to contact at least one potential advisor from among the members of the Department of Classics.

In an email, please let the potential advisor know the following:

• your area(s) of interest (e.g. Philology, Ancient History, Archaeology),
• a bit about yourself, and how to best contact you,
• a brief summary of your undergraduate education,
• any relevant community and/or work experiences,
• a description of your proposed research topic.

Please note that tentative acceptance from an advisor does not guarantee admission into the program.

The expertise of departmental faculty covers a broad disciplinary range: Greek and Roman art and archaeology, history and historiography and Greek and Latin languages and literatures. 

Although every attempt is made to tailor the MA program to the particular interests and needs of the individual student, students with interest in the following topics and areas are especially encouraged to apply:

The advisor's name is listed in brackets after the area of study.

Material Culture

• Greek art and archaeology (Lawall)
• Late antiquity (Stirling)
• Manuscript studies (Joyal)
• Papyrology (Sampson)
• Pottery in Classical archaeology (Lawall)
• Roman art and archaeology (Stirling)
• Roman statuary (Stirling)
• Transport amphoras (Lawall)

Language and Literature

• Ancient biography (Chlup)
• The Ancient novel (Nau)
• Classical tradition (Joyal)
• Epic poetry (Nau)
• Greek lyric poetry (Egan, Sampson)
• Greek prose literature (Joyal)
• Greek and Roman tragedy (Sampson)
• Greek  tragedy and Old comedy (Egan)
• Historical semantics (Egan)
• Latin love elegy (Chlup)
• Mythography (Egan)
• Mythology, especially Theban myth (Nau)
• Textual criticism and Greek palaeography (Joyal)
• Vergil (Egan)

Ancient History

• The Ancient economy (Lawall)
• Ancient military manuals (Chlup)
• Greek and Roman education (Joyal)
• Intellectual history and Ancient philosophy (Joyal)
• Middle and Late Republican history (Chlup) 
• Roman cemeteries (Stirling)
• Roman historians (Chlup)
• Roman North Africa (Stirling)

Miscellaneous

• Ethics and Classical scholarship (Sampson)
• History of Classical scholarship (Joyal)
• Pedagogical approaches to the Classics (Nau)

James Chlup specialises in the historiography of the ancient world, especially its literary character. He is particularly interested in authors such as Frontinus, Livy, and Plutarch, and is available to supervise graduate research on topics pertaining to Greek and Roman history and Latin literature.

• Learn more about James Chlup

Mark Joyal studies Greek prose literature, ancient philosophy and intellectual history, Greek and Roman education, Greek palaeography, manuscripts and the establishment of texts, the history of classical scholarship and the classical tradition. Much of his work focuses on Plato and Socrates, but he is happy to supervise graduate students in other related topics and authors as well. 

• Learn more about Mark Joyal

Mark Lawall is a specialist in the archaeological study of ancient economies. He has ongoing research projects in Greece and Turkey focused on the production and circulation of transport amphoras (clay shipping containers) between the 6th and 1st centuries B.C. His areas of interest also include the history of premodern economies, archaeological studies of ceramic production and use, ancient textile production, and the history of archaeological research. 

• Learn more about Mark Lawall

Mike Sampson is a Classical philologist whose interests range across the breadth of Greek and Latin literature (especially lyric and dramatic poetry) and whose speciality is texts preserved on papyrus. He is available to supervise graduate research in all of these topics.

• Learn more about Mike Sampson

• Abby Siegel: Vergil Redux: Transitional elements from Vergil's Eclogues and Georgics adapted by 21st century poets (2020)
• Jessie Tomlinson: The Textual Tradition of Plato's Symposium 201d1-212c2 (2019)
• Sarah Legendre: Visualizing the Aeneid in Roman Décor (2019).
• Bianca Claudio: The Study of Historical and Philological Papyrology: Case Studies “New Sappho” and “Newest Sappho” (2019).
• Dylan Townshend: Economic Changes in the Early Hellenistic Kingdoms of Macedonia and Thrace (2018).
• Agapi Ortaxidou: Platonic Defences of Socrates: The Apology, Symposium and other works (2018).
• Lisa Halim: Psyche’s Metamorphosis: An Exploration of Changes in Role and Character (2017).
• Alistair Mowat: The Late Roman Amphoras of Thrace: The Perspective from the Molyvoti Peninsula (2016).
• Keaton Arksey: Perceptions of the Ancient Jews as a Nation in the Greek and Roman Worlds (2016).

View past theses (dating back to 1904) on MSpace

2024 - Reimagining Greek myths for Roman lives, Zahra Newby, University of Warwick
2023 - A Caesar for the 21st Century?, Robert Morstein-Marx, University of California Santa Barbara
2022 - Dylan the Classic, Richard F. Thomas, Harvard University 
2021 - Not held due to COVID-19.
2020 - The Roman Imperial-Period Portrait Statuary from the Library of Pantainos Complex in the Athenian Agora, Sheila Dillon, Duke University
2019 - 'I am Antony Yet': Reading Mark Antony's Mail, Jeffrey Tatum, Victoria University of Wellington
2018 - Race and Citizenship in Roman Law and Administration, Clifford Ando, University of Chicago
2017 - Building for Eternity: Investigating the Secrets of Roman Marine Concrete, John P. Oleson, University of Victoria
2016 - The Botany of Death, John Bodel, Brown University 
2015 - Epicurean Vergil, Alison Keith, University of Toronto
2014 - Socrates Aesopicus: Socrates’ Swan Song in Plato’s Phaedo, John Harris, University of Alberta
2013 - The End of Sacrifice , Brent Shaw, Princeton University
2012 - Gears for the Greeks, Alexander Jones, New York University
2011 - Laid Out For Posterity: A Roman Tombstone Carved With a Child's Portrait and His Poem, Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University
2010 - Making History Personal: Constantine Cavafy and the Rise of Rome, Bruce Frier, University of Michigan
2009 - The Fall (or not) of Rome: What Counts as Civilization, Gillian Clark, University of Bristol
2008 - Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity: The Papyri versus the Literary Sources, Raffaella Cribiore, Columbia University
2007 - Nature as Healer in Ancient Greek Medicine, Paul Potter, University of Western Ontario
2006 - Roman Historians and the Truth, John Yardley, University of Ottawa
2005 - The Genesis, Character, and Influence of Erasmus' Adagia, John Grant, University of Toronto
2004 - From Mystery to History: The Garamantes of the Libyan Sahara, David Mattingly, University of Leicester 
2003 - The Odyssey's Odyssey, David F. Bright, Emory University
2002 -The Earliest Signs of a Christian Material Culture: The Codex, the Nomina Sacra, the Staurogram, Larry W. Hurtado, University of Edinburgh
2001 - Plato and the Fates of His Books, Mark Joyal, Memorial University of Newfoundland
2000 - Getting to Heaven - The Mithraists' Way, Roger Beck, University of Toronto
1999 - Chasing Roman Soldiers From Turkey to Syria & Palestine and Back, James Russell, University of British Columbia
1998 - Nationalism and Archaeology: Roman Africa and Germany Compared, Colin M. Wells, Trinity University, Texas
1997 - Michael Ventris and an Architect's Plan for the Decipherment of Linear B, Thomas G. Palaima, University of Texas at Austin
1996 - Married with Children: The Structure and Dynamics of the Roman Family, Jo-Ann Shelton, University of California, Santa Barbara
1995 - Goddesses, Whores, Vampires & Archaeologists: Ten Years of Excavation at Mytilene (Lesbos), Hector Williams, University of British Columbia
1994 - Three Ways to Understand the Middle Ages: The Historiographical, The Narrative, And The Biographical, Norman Cantor, New York University
1993 - The Oldest City in Western Europe: The Foundation and Early History of Marseille, A. Trevor Hodge, Carleton University
1992 - Honour and Shame and the Unity of the Roman World, Susan Treggiari, Sanford University
1991 - Vergil's Aeneid and J.M.W. Turner's Flaming Fields, Alexander Gordon McKay, McMaster University
1990 - A Medical Career in the Roman Empire: Galen of Pergamun, John Scarborough, University of Wisconsin
1989 - The Origins of the Alphabet, George P. Goold, Yale University

The Hellenic Civilization Lecture is the successor of the Centre for Hellenic Civilization, an interdisciplinary research centre formerly housed within the Department of Classics at UM. The Centre was founded in 1995 by Professor Michael Cosmopolis with generous financial support from the governments of Greece and Cyprus. The goal of the lecture is to explore Hellenic Civilization broadly in temporal and geographic terms; that is, the committee seeks not speakers and topics on the ancient world only, but scholars whose research explores the diverse discourses—or the long and varied life—of Hellenic history and culture across the many millennia and across the world.

2024 - Not held.
2023 - Underworld Myths from Thomas Mann to N.K. Jemison, Judith Fletcher, Wilfrid Laurier University
2022 – Heading for the Hills? Flight to the Mountains during the Ottotman Centuries, Molly Greene, Princeton University
2021 – Not held due to COVID-19.
2020 – Not held due to COVID-19.
2019 – Treasures of the Goddess: Cultural Heritage and Survival in Post-2008 Greece, Brady Kiesling, Independent Scholar 
2018 - The Resilience of the Seleukid Kingdom or: What Broke the Neck of the Strongest Successor Kingdom, Altay Coşkun, University of Waterloo
2017 - On Love, Lesbos, and the Reputation of Sappho: Anacreon's Girl with Ornate Sandals, Christopher Brown, Western University
2016 - Sappho on Papyrus: Reading Some New Poems, Leslie Kurke, University of California, Berkeley
2015 - Homer and Archaeology: A New Mycenaen Palace at Iklaina, Pylos, Michael Cosmopoulos, University of Missouri, St. Louis
2014 - In Search of the Lost Greek Infinitive: Continuity, Contact and Change in Romeyka of Pontus, Ioanna Sitaridou, Queen's College, Cambridge
2013 - Sex Slaves in Classical Athens, C.W. Marshall, University of British Columbia
2012 - Alexandria Quartet: Callimachus, Philo, Origen, Cavafy, John Dillon, Trinity College, Dublin