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Ancient History

The graduate program in Ancient History offers an exciting blend of traditional and modern approaches, and is designed to give students expertise in a variety of areas. Ancient history has always been one of the department's strengths, and the program is a pioneer in preserving traditional classical history and connecting it with comparative cultural studies. Some ancient history courses focus on particular periods or authors in Greek and Roman history; others connect classical history with global history and multicultural studies. Recent examples include Greek Historiography, Alexander the Great, Frontiers in Comparative Perspective, and Practicum in Ancient Global History.

The department sponsors the biennial Fordyce Mitchel Memorial Lecture Series in honor of its distinguished former Greek historian. The Mitchel lecturer, in addition to delivering a series of original scholarly lectures on a topic in Greek history, meets with graduate students informally to discuss their work and other items of common interest.

Ancient History is part of the Ancient Studies Program (ASP) of the University, which encourages students to take graduate courses in other ASP departments: Classical Studies, Art History & Archaeology, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. Ancient history graduate courses include reading material in Greek and Latin, and students are expected to take language courses in the Department of Classical Studies.

At Missouri, we do not believe in simply training graduate students; we believe in preparing graduates to give them an edge over the competition in the job market. That’s why the courses in ancient history are aimed at producing graduates with a thorough grounding in Greek and Latin as well as an in-depth knowledge of how to apply new methodologies to the ancient world and of the comparative cultural studies arising from it. The resulting graduates can boast strengths in traditional classical history and an ability to teach in distinct, yet inter-related, areas. We keep an eye on what hiring institutions want, and we prepare our students accordingly.

Library and Resources

Ellis Library is the university's main library for humanities and social sciences. In addition, the Tate Library holds an exceptionally fine collection of scholarly and rare books. The MU Libraries are the 47th largest research collection in North America with holdings of 2.6 million books and 5 million microforms.

Ancient history faculty

Lawrence Okamura (Ph.D. Michigan) teaches Roman history. His areas of expertise are imperial Rome, provincial archeology, and numismatics. He is the author of articles on these areas, and is now working on soldiers, civilians, and barbarians in the Danube region.

Ian Worthington (Ph.D. Monash) teaches Greek history. His areas of expertise are classical Greece, Alexander the Great, and Greek oratory. He is the author of A Historical Commentary on Dinarchus, Greek Orators II, Dinarchus and Hyperides (in the Aris & Phillips series of classical texts and translations), and Alexander the Great: Man and God. His edited books include Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action; Ventures into Greek History: Essays in Honour of NGL Hammond; Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator; and Alexander the Great: A Reader. He is currently working on a biography of Philip II of Macedonia and is editor of the Blackwell Companion to Greek Rhetoric, both due out in 2006. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Brill’s New Jacoby, a new edition of Jacoby’s Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Parts I-III, and heads a team of 90 scholars in 16 countries. It will be published online from 2006 to 2015.

Prospective students are encouraged to contact Ian Worthington at any time.

 

 

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Ancient History Courses
Fordyce Mitchel Memorial Lecture

Ancient Studies Program
MU Libraries

 

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