The Department of Classics is at the forefront of research in classical studies. Faculty lead a variety of research projects in all three fields of classical studies — classical philology, ancient history and classical archaeology — and faculty have been awarded numerous fellowships with nationally and internationally-recognized research organizations — including the Humboldt Foundation, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Center for Hellenic Studies, and the Loeb Library. Faculty research has been supported through major grants from national organizations, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Research in all areas of ancient Mediterranean heritage and literature at FSU is interdisciplinary in nature, spanning the philological, theoretical, material, historical and digital. Research conducted by faculty typically involves FSU students, and faculty invest in developing FSU graduate students as junior researchers, with students regularly presenting papers at professional conferences and developing publications.
Archaeological Research
The classics department supports an impressive range of innovative archaeological research on the greater ancient Mediterranean world, from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity periods. Faculty have published on the archaeology of Italy, Greece, Britain, France, Anatolia, the Near East, and the Black Sea regions. Faculty research reflects the full spectrum of current theoretical perspectives in the field of Mediterranean archaeology — from the humanist traditions of art history to anthropological perspectives on society and culture. Research is conducted on a range of archaeological remains, such as everyday material culture, visual arts, and architecture, and therefore employs a range of methodological techniques, including artifact studies, archaeometry, Geographic Information Systems and architectural surveys. The archaeology faculty also support active work in digital humanities as well as research and training in cultural heritage management and museum studies, with student internships such as the Bucher-Loewenstein Museum internship. The department's research topic strengths include crafts production, economy, urbanism, rural landscapes, rituals and cults, and ancient imperialism.
FSU classics boasts strong expertise in the field of classical archaeology, and faculty direct several major fieldwork projects located across the Mediterranean world. These projects involve not only the excavations of major sites, including Cosa, Corinth and Cetamura del Chianti, but also regional landscape projects such as the Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia Project and the Saronic Harbors Archaeological Research Project. The research conducted on these fieldwork projects has trained generations of archaeology students and helped to develop student research projects at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
FSU is home to a large community of archaeologists, digital humanists, and art historians, and the classics archaeology faculty often work collaboratively with their colleagues in other departments and colleges through fieldwork and co-developed student projects.
Ancient Literature Research
FSU classics offers comprehensive coverage of Greek and Latin literature of all periods (Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Republican and Imperial) and in all major genres (epic, lyric, drama, oratory, history, biography and philosophy).
Areas of strength
- Greek and Latin poetry (Francis Cairns, Virginia Lewis, Christopher Nappa, Tim Stover)
- Greek and Latin drama (Virginia Lewis, Tim Stover)
- Attic oratory (Jim Sickinger)
- Early Latin literature (Jessica Clark)
- Ancient history (Jessica Clark, Trevor Luke, Jim Sickinger)
- Latin biography and historiography (Jessica Clark, Trevor Luke)
- Ancient philosophy (Svetla Slaveva-Griffin)
We have strong interdisciplinary relations with the faculty in the Departments of Religion (religions of Western Antiquity), English, History, Modern Languages and Philosophy.
Complementary areas of expertise
- Gender studies (Virginia Lewis, Christopher Nappa)
- Greek epigraphy (Jim Sickinger)
- Military history (Jessica Clark)
- Intertextuality (Christopher Nappa, Tim Stover)
- Medieval and Renaissance Latin (Francis Cairns)
- Religion (Trevor Luke, Svetla Slaveva-Griffin)
- Science and medicine (Svetla Slaveva-Griffin)
Faculty editors for major reference resources
- Brill’s Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Jessica Clark)
- Brill’s New Jacoby (Jim Sickinger)
- Oxford Bibliographies Online (Tim Stover)
- The Routledge Companion to Neoplatonism (Svetla Slaveva-Griffin)
The department's prestigious journals
- Histos (John Marincola)
- Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar (Francis Cairns)
Our graduate and undergraduate students have received national and university fellowship awards, received recognition for outstanding conference papers, and published in peer-reviewed journals in their fields.