Classics Summer School

The Classics Summer School at Cambridge will give students a chance to begin exploring the breadth and diversity of the classical world with a variety of different lectures, classes, tours, and hands-on workshops, all of which give a flavour of what it is like to study Classics at Cambridge.  As languages are a key tool for classicists to study the ancient world, the backbone of the summer school are language classes, either in Latin or Ancient Greek, tailored for total beginners and beyond. These classes culminate in reading authentic, unabridged texts from the ancient world so that students can have a taste of the skills and techniques used to explore the world of antiquity. 

There are also various lectures and talks covering a wide range of classical subjects, from literature to history to linguistics and beyond, designed to parallel the breadth of study on offer in the Cambridge Classics degree. The week culminates with students presenting some of their own research conducted during the week into different aspects of the ancient world, so that they have a chance to personally explore the questions and issues which surround the study of Classics.
 
The Classics Faculty at Cambridge houses the Museum of Classical Archaeology, an unparalleled plaster cast collection of ancient artworks, and the nearby Fitzwilliam Museum also hosts a wide assortment of classical artefacts. Students will have the opportunity for tours at both, guided by experts in the collections, and also for a practical handling session of ancient pots to see what they can tell us about the ancient world. 

Overall, this course gives students a real sense of what it is like to study Classics at Cambridge, and the opportunity for an in-depth exploration of the breadth of Classics as a subject. No prior study of Classics is necessary, and the summer school is targeted particularly at those who have never studied ancient languages previously.