Yale Department of Classics

Yale Department of Classics A leading center for teaching and research into the cultures and societies of the ancient Mediterranean

In addition to the study of the ancient Mediterranean in all its aspects, we also study the complex afterlives of the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome and the ways in which the classical past has been, and continues to be, woven into narratives of the present. The department places a very high value on equality, inclusion, and mutual respect and on providing an intellectual community in which a

ll members of the department feel at home. Our faculty members have areas of expertise in Ancient Philosophy, Greco-Roman History and Historiography, Greek, Roman, and Hellenistic Egyptian Law, Art and Material Culture, Archaic and Hellenistic Greek Poetry and Performance, Latin Poetry (especially epic, satire and elegy), the Reception of the Classics, Ancient Magic and Religion, Ancient Slavery, and Classical scholarly traditions. Within these broad outlines the department conducts research and teaching across the entire disciplinary spectrum from ancient epigraphy to twenty-first century classical receptions. The department has affiliations with the Yale Art Gallery, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Divinity School, Yale Law School, and the departments/programs of African-American Studies, Philosophy, Comparative Literature, Hellenic Studies, History, Humanities, Linguistics, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Renaissance and Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, and ARCHAIA. Our outlook is international: in addition to the U.S., members of the teaching faculty come from Britain, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, and the Netherlands.

New Pasts Imperfect (8.27.26) https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperfect-8-27-26/?ref=pasts-imperfect-newsletter T...
08/27/2026

New Pasts Imperfect (8.27.26) https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperfect-8-27-26/?ref=pasts-imperfect-newsletter This week, classicist and translator Stephanie McCarter discusses the art of translation, adapting myth, and her new book on Catullus. Then, India's Rāmāyana answer to Nolan's Odyssey, archaeologists at Sardis find a monumental new statue, mapping the ancient jade trade in western Canada, a medieval caravanserai emerges from the sands of Asila in North Sinai, the ethics of collecting ancient DNA, Dr. Wong wins a blue ribbon with her historic fiber arts, a tribute to secular saint Dolly Parton, new ancient world journals, and even some Sea Peoples.

This week, classicist and translator Stephanie McCarter discusses the art of translation, adapting myth, and her new book on Catullus. Then, India's Rāmāyana answer to Nolan's Odyssey, archaeologists at Sardis find a monumental new statue, mapping the ancient jade trade in western Canada, a mediev...

A new book out from Yale University Ancient History Ph.D. François Gerardin Department of History at Yale University
08/27/2026

A new book out from Yale University Ancient History Ph.D. François Gerardin Department of History at Yale University

08/25/2026

Assistant Professor Malina Buturovic reviews Aistė Čelkytė's Galen on Human Physiology: Taking the Body apart and Putting it Back Together Again (Cambridge, 2025) in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review

BMCR 2026.08.23 Galen on human physiology: taking the body apart and putting it back together again Aistė Čelkytė, Galen on human physiology: taking the body apart and putting it back together again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. Pp. 294. ISBN 9781009435819. Review by Malina But...

Associate Professor Jessica Lamont contributes a chapter, "Blood, Death, and ‘Magical’ Ritual Practice" to The Power of ...
08/24/2026

Associate Professor Jessica Lamont contributes a chapter, "Blood, Death, and ‘Magical’ Ritual Practice" to The Power of Blood
Blood and Blood Ties in Greek and Roman Discourse, edited by Julia Hoffmann-Salz and recently published by Vandenhoek & Ruprecht

Blood was everywhere in antiquity - but what did Greeks and Romans actually think about it? For the first time, this volume brings together studies on when and how blood and the ties it created were a topic in ancient discourse.

New Pasts Imperfect (8.13.26) https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperfect-8-13-26/ This week, classicist Jermaine B...
08/13/2026

New Pasts Imperfect (8.13.26) https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperfect-8-13-26/ This week, classicist Jermaine Bryant discusses Zora Neale Hurston's posthumously published The Life of Herod the Great. Then, a new study of the mass grave at Phaleron (Attica) confirms a local population; UNESCO announces 25 new heritage areas as protected sites, including Sebastia in Palestine; a new, open access book on medieval origin stories of Eurasia; massive geoglyphs in the southwestern Amazon; ancient Scandinavia and polar bears (?) in the Colosseum; recreating Egyptian Blue; the Indigenous oyster middens of New York City; a new exhibition on making medieval manuscripts; new ancient world journals—and more. Let's take a break from the endless Odyssey discourse and get to it.

This week, classicist Jermaine Bryant discusses Zora Neale Hurston's posthumously published The Life of Herod the Great. Then, a new study of the mass grave at Phaleron (Attica) confirms a local population; UNESCO announces 25 new heritage areas as protected sites, including Sebastia in Palestine; a...

Our 2026 newsletter has arrived! Here is our annual roundup of all the news and events from Yale's Department of Classic...
08/04/2026

Our 2026 newsletter has arrived! Here is our annual roundup of all the news and events from Yale's Department of Classics. We hope all our students, friends and alums are having a calm and happy summer.

Our own Prof. Ben Kruchió appears in Yale Today this morning, discussing film adaptations of the Odyssey.
07/24/2026

Our own Prof. Ben Kruchió appears in Yale Today this morning, discussing film adaptations of the Odyssey.

With the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s long-awaited film adaptation, Yale’s Benedek Kruchió considers how the “poem of multitudes” has been adapted and reimagined over millennia.

New Pasts Imperfect (7.16.26) https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperfect-7-16-26/ μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, of this spec...
07/17/2026

New Pasts Imperfect (7.16.26) https://pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperfect-7-16-26/ μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, of this special Homer issue to prepare you to head to the theaters to see The Odyssey this week. Our resident Homer sage, Joel Christensen, discusses his new book, Why Odysseus?: Survivor, Scoundrel, (Anti)hero. Then, Yoandy Cabrera provides a list of Hispanic reimaginings of The Odyssey to check out, an engaging Homer discussion with Jackie Murray and Emily Wilson, the Tom Hollands collide on the Odyssey press circuit, a new study calculating the loss of medieval manuscripts, Tom Hiddleston and a few trusty classics professors take on Pompeii, saving Chaco Canyon, Mayan ruins reveal the name of an ancient astronomer and mathematician, global receptions of Homer from China to the Caribbean, a new open access book on The Iconography of ‘Otherness’ in Pre-Modern Visual Art, new ancient world journals, and much more. Let's get to it.

μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, of this special Homer issue to prepare you to head to the theaters to see The Odyssey this week. Our resident Homer sage, Joel Christensen, discusses his new book, Why Odysseus?: Survivor, Scoundrel, (Anti)hero. Then, Yoandy Cabrera provides a list of Hispanic reim...

New Pasts Imperfect (6.18.26) Yale University Classicist, Erika Valdivieso, discusses Latin American classical reception...
06/23/2026

New Pasts Imperfect (6.18.26) Yale University Classicist, Erika Valdivieso, discusses Latin American classical reception, Virgil & her new book: Empire’s Companion: Virgilian Epics from Colonial Iberoamerica. (University of Chicago Press). Then, ancient Cypriot pigeons, a new game board from medieval Morocco,
remembering Rosamond McKitterick, ancient world journals & more.

This week, classicist Erika Valdivieso discusses new directions in Latin American classical reception, Virgil, and her new book, Empire’s Companion: Virgilian Epics from Colonial Iberoamerica. Then, ancient Cypriot pigeons, what film costumes convey about views of the ancient "other", a new game b...

Yale Classics and History Major, Ryo Nagao, has received the Phyllis B. Katz Prize for excellence in undergraduate resea...
06/01/2026

Yale Classics and History Major, Ryo Nagao, has received the Phyllis B. Katz Prize for excellence in undergraduate research from the Classical Association of New England - CANE for his paper "Oral Tradition and Literary Innovation in an Epigraphic Oracle: Claros and Caesarea Trocetta during the Antonine Plague" now published in the New England Journal of Classical Studies https://crossworks.holycross.edu/necj/vol53/iss1/5/

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