Curriculum

Students take the same courses (and the same number of courses) as those required for the two degrees under the normal sequence, but in a more flexible configuration. For especially well prepared students with superior grade-point averages, the MA requires 24 graduate hours rather than 30.

Students enroll as an undergraduate in six hours of 500-700 level courses that count toward the BA but are beyond those required for the Classical Languages major. All other requirements for the MA are the same as for other tracks: the principal focus remains ancient Greek and/or Latin (concluding with a comprehensive translation exam), and there remains a thesis and non-thesis option and required reading knowledge of a modern research language.

The shift of 6 credit hours from the MA to pre-requisites for the BA allows students greater flexibility and will ease the burden on their final year of study. More precisely, the flexibility allows faculty to advise students on a course of study that distributes courses across the 5 years of study in the most optimal way for language development.

In summary, students will successfully complete the MA in Classics from the University of Kansas if the following credit hour and Enroll & Pay career conditions are met:

  1. A minimum of 24 hours at the 500+ level on the graduate program line.
  2. A minimum of 6 hours at the 500+ level on the undergraduate program line beyond what is required of the Classics undergraduate major.

Students may be eligible to co-enroll in their final semester of undergraduate study.  This should be discussed and planned during the junior year of undergraduate study.

The requirement that students in the program write an undergraduate honors thesis also provides preparation toward the MA thesis. Students who choose the non-thesis option are not required to write an undergraduate thesis.

Examinations

All students must write a final translation examination prepared by a committee of three members of the graduate faculty, at least two of whom, including the committee chair, must be members of the Classics Department. The members of the examination committee will be selected by the student, with the approval of the graduate faculty of the Department, and the examination will be prepared by the committee in consultation with the student.

One section of this examination will be drawn from material read in graduate classes. The student will present a reading list of no less than 400 pages, according to pagination in the Oxford Classical Text or its equivalent. This will consist of 50-150 pages from at least four of the eight major ares of Greek and Latin literature that form the four-semester cycle of courses (see below). A second section will be a sight passage from one of the major genres of Greek or Latin literature selected by the student.

Four-Semester Cycle of Courses

Headings indicate areas from which instructors may draw material for author or genre courses. Author listings are representative, not exclusive.

Greek

  • Epic and Lyric Poetry: From Homer to the Hellenistic poets
  • Drama: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
  • History and Oratory: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Attic Orators
  • Philosophy: Pre-Socratics, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle

Latin

  • Epic Poetry: Lucretius, Ovid, Vergil, post-Augustan epic poets
  • Lyric and Elegy: Catullus, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid
  • History, Oratory, Philosophy: Caesar, Sallust, Cicero, Livy, Seneca, Tacitus, Augustine, Boethius
  • Drama, Satire, and Novel: Plautus, Terence, Horace, Petronius, Seneca, Juvenal, Apuleius