Students who wish to be considered for the degree with honors will normally write a thesis (one semester and WSP) or sometimes pursue appropriate independent study. An honors project gives students an opportunity to work in depth on a topic of their own devising and to develop the techniques and critical methods with which they have become acquainted during their regular course work.
To be considered for the degree with honors, students will normally have a minimum GPA of 3.3 in the Classics major and must have demonstrated original or superior ability in their Classics courses. Further, upon graduation they must have completed a minimum of ten semester courses in Classics, not including the honors thesis or independent study. Students who are interested in writing a thesis must first identify and meet with a potential advisor for the project by the end of Winter Study in their junior year. A preliminary draft of the thesis proposal with bibliography must be submitted to the intended advisor no later than March 15, and a formal, revised version of the proposal must be submitted to the advisor and to the department chair by April 15. The Classics faculty approves or rejects the proposal, or in rare cases, may condition approval on the satisfactory completion of additional revisions before the conclusion of the spring pre-registration period.
Recent theses have included:
Altitude, Collection, and Interiority: Images of Striving in Horace’s Odes. Katherine Hatfield, 2022. Edan Dekel, advisor.
Translation Before Theory: The Poetics of Translation in Catullus, Horace, and Vergil. Eileen Russell, 2019. Edan Dekel, advisor.
Love is An Open Door: The Paraclausithyron in Plautus. Maria Magidenko, 2018. Edan Dekel, advisor.
Lucretian Analogy. Lila Anderson, 2017. Edan Dekel, advisor.
Felicitas & Fortuna: Or, The Rise of Tyranny in late Republican Rome. Andrew Rondeau, 2017. Amanda Wilcox, advisor.