The Classics Department

The Department of Classics at the Claremont Colleges is an intercollegiate program, with faculty members from Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, and Pitzer.

The Classics Department offers a major and a minor in Classics and a major in Late Antique-Medieval Studies (LAMS).

Classics is the study of the ancient Mediterranean world, including Greece, Rome, the Near East, and North Africa. The study of the Greco-Roman Classcis was the original liberal arts curriculum, and is the original interdisciplinary scholarly endeavor. Classicists are trained in the ancient languages as well as textual and literary criticism, history, archaeology, religion, and philosophy.  The study of the Ancient Greek and Latin constitutes the foundation of an education in the Classics. These two “dead” languages provide the medium through which Western literature, history, science, mathematics, and philosophy were originally formulated. The material record of the ancient Mediterranean is equally rich, providing insight into the origins of, among other things, religion and urban life.

Late Antique-Medieval Studies (LAMS) is the study of the Mediterranean and Near East in the periods known as Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,  roughly from the third to the fifteenth centuries. Late Antiquity witnessed the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rise of the "barbarian kingdoms" in the west, and the emergence and spread of of Islam in the east and south. Despite the competing political and religious claims of its opposing shores, the ties between the greater Latin, Greek, and Arabic cultures that shared the Mediterranean basin in the Middle Ages remained strong. Not only did each of these cultures identify with an Abrahamic religious tradition, but each saw itself as an heir to the rich secular traditions of the Greek, Roman, and Persian empires. Students of LAMS explore these fertile encounters from a fresh, multi-disciplinary perspective with appropriate attention to the original languages: Greek, Latin, and Arabic.

Faculty

Name/Contact	Title	Profile	Web	Phone	Location
Michelle Berenfeld	Assistant Professor of Classics			(909) 607-3390	Scott 207
Shane Bjornlie	Assistant Professor of History			(909) 621-8840	Kravis Center 208
Christopher Chinn	Assistant Professor of Classics			(909) 607-2926	Pearsons 7
Ellen Finkelpearl	Helen Chandler Garland Professor of Ancient Studies Professor of Classics			(909) 607-3048	Balch 305
Benjamin Keim	Assistant Professor of Classics			(909) 607-1820	Pearsons 6
Richard McKirahan	Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics			(909) 607-2912	Pearsons 5
David Roselli	Associate Professor of Classics			(909) 607-3058	Balch 215
Kenneth Wolf	John Sutton Miner Professor of History			(909) 607-3420	Pearsons 8

Staff

Name/Contact	Title	Phone	Location
Amy Crown	Academic Department Coordinator	(909) 607-3452	Pearsons 4