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UCLA Department of Classics

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The UCLA Department of Classics is one of three Humanities departments at UCLA ranked in the top ten nationally in the last National Research Council report.

Classics forms the foundation for the Humanities. Philology, philosophy, government (including democracy), the theater, linguistics, archaeology, literary theory and many other fields have their origins in the Classics. We have a dedicated and diverse faculty of scholars and teachers, many at mid-career, whose areas of expertise represent a variety of disciplines at the heart of classical antiquity. Areas of faculty strength have long been in Classical philology and subfields of paleography, Classical linguistics, Byzantine studies, and medieval Latin, now supplemented with new fields of excellence in Greek and Mediterranean archaeology, Indo-European linguistics, ancient and medieval philosophy, particularly Greek philosophy, ancient Greek political thought, ancient sexuality and gender studies, and Neo-Latin and Renaissance studies. We have the highest number and proportion of women faculty in any Classics department of our size at a major research university.

10/30/2026

On screen Polyphemos the giant is denied articulate speech; even in the end credits.

This omission may dim Odysseus’s signature wit and playfulness, but it also points to a deeper irony.

Beyond Odysseus’s wit, what else do we lose when Polyphemos is muted and left nameless?

Find out in Mantieia’s blog, “Eloquent Polyphemos, or Silent Cyclops?”

https://classics.ucla.edu/blog/the-odyssey-files-12-eloquent-polyphemos-or-silent-cyclops/

10/30/2026

On Oct. 27th, Professor Lydia Spielberg, was at the University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill for a two-day historiography visit!

On her first day, she joined Dr. Emily Baragwanath’s Thucydides grad seminar to discuss the rhetoric of Pericles’ funeral oration and reunited with second-year PhD student Caroline Lunt, who graduated from UCLA in 2023 with her BA in Greek, Latin, and Classical Civilization. Prof. Spielberg was Caroline’s first Classics professor, and she fondly remembers her first year seminar on “The Murder? of Germanicus Caesar”.

On day two, Prof. Spielberg gave a talk on “Lying Emperors and Roman Historians”, exploring questions of distrust, attribution, appearance, and “might have dones” that are so lively in the study of Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and other Roman historiographers.

10/26/2026

Professor Kathryn Morgan presented a talk entitled “The Speech of Lysias in Plato’s Phaedrus: Pastiche and the Perils of Writing” for the conference Plato and the Art of Writing on Friday, October 23 at the Danish Institute at Athens, Greece.

This international 3-day conference was organized by Columbia University and attended by scholars from around the globe.

10/26/2026

Prof. John Papadopoulos will be delivering a lecture on the excavations in the Athenian Agora on Monday, November 16 at 4 PM in Dodd 146.

The talk entitled In the Heart of the World's First Democracy: Excavations in the Athenian Agora, is included in the events for International Education Week and is open to the public.

All are welcome to attend!

10/23/2026

This week’s The Odyssey Files blog comes to you, courtesy of Classics graduate student Alex Seiler.

In her post, she discusses the crafty, careful character who intrigues her even more than Odysseus.

Read all about it in “Penelope the Nightingale”

https://classics.ucla.edu/blog/the-odyssey-files-11-penelope-the-nightingale/

By Alex Seiler, graduate student in Classics For me, Odysseus has never been the most interesting part of the Odyssey. It’s not that he isn’t interesting; almost by definition,...

10/20/2026

The Department of Classics is proud to announce this year's Helen Caldwell Award recipients!

Congrats to Arianna Aminian and Julia Kinion for the award in Elementary Latin and to Sujanaa Srinivasa Raghavan for the award in Elementary Greek!

The Helen Caldwell Awards & Prizes in Classics was established by the generosity of Joan Palevsky (UCLA B.A. French, 1947) in appreciation of an inspiring teacher during her student days at UCLA.

Helen Florence Caldwell (UCLA B.A. Classics 1925; M.A. 1939) was a Senior Lecturer and beloved teacher of Latin and Greek in the Department of Classics for almost thirty years until her retirement in 1970.

10/19/2026

Postbacc alumna, Prof. Elke Nash organized a conference, "A Mouth Full of Stars: Audre Lorde, Black Feminisms, and Classics," which took place at the University of New Hampshire on Friday 16 October, 2026.

Prof. Nash presented a paper at the event: "Bringing Audre Lorde into Classics and Classics to the Lorde: A Love Story in Three Parts."

The conference also included a paper by Prof. Hannah Čulík-Baird: "Audre Lorde Beyond Fragmentary Survival."

The day was brought to a close with a reading by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Carl Phillips, author of collections such as Then the War (2022) and Scattered Snows, To The North (2024).

10/16/2026

Who is identified as “WE” when Odysseus admits in Homer’s epic, “WE are the Sea People” (though in Nolan’s film, it is Penelope who tells him, “You are the people from the sea…”)?

Find out in Professor Sarah Morris’ installment of The Odyssey Files, blog 10: https://classics.ucla.edu/blog/the-odyssey-files-10-we-are-the-sea-peoples/

10/12/2026

Even a 3-hour movie cannot approach the expansiveness of a 24-book epic poem.

Yet, in leaving out Odysseus’s parents Anticlea and Laertes, Nolan’s film lost two of arguably the most poignant reunions of the Odyssey, which speak to the nature of our relationships with those who raised us.

Dr. Collin Moat discusses this perspective in The Odyssey Files, blog 9 “Between Parents and Children” https://classics.ucla.edu/blog/the-odyssey-files-9-between-parents-and-children/

10/07/2026

Sheila Murnaghan (University of Pennsylvania) will conduct a Commentary Writing Workshop on Sophocles' Ajax on Monday, October 26th at 4 PM in Dodd. 248.

She will discuss lines 646-92 of Sophocles' Ajax (the “deception speech”) for a commentary she is preparing for the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (green and yellow) series.

A section of the commentary will be pre-circulated in advance to guests who RSVP by Thursday, October 22nd.

For full event details: https://classics.ucla.edu/event/sheila-murnaghan-commentary-writing-workshop-on-sophocles-ajax/

Address

405 Hilgard Avenue, Dodd Hall Room 100
Los Angeles, CA
90095

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 5pm
Tuesday	8am - 5pm
Wednesday	8am - 5pm
Thursday	8am - 5pm
Friday	8am - 5pm

Telephone

+13102061590

Website

http://www.classics.ucla.edu/

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