Group X: Interdisciplinary Studies

Overview

'X courses’ refer to courses developed by the interdisciplinary ‘X Caucus’ in the Faculty of Classics at Cambridge: you can read more about the Caucus and its history here. At Part II level, courses developed by the Caucus place a particular emphasis on bringing together perspectives drawn from across various subdisciplines, including ancient literature, philosophy, history, material and visual cultural studies and linguistics; they also lean heavily on aspects of reception and tradition, as well as approaches developed outside the disciplinary parameters of Classics. 'X courses’ frequently experiment with different modes of teaching and learning, with a recurrent emphasis on group seminars and classes.

Paper X1: Classics Live

Course Director: Dr S Malik

Aims and objectives

1. To introduce students who have acquired a good range of knowledge and depth of understanding in traditional Classics to (a) a range of modern engagement with (aspects of) the ancient world by tracing 'classical presences' across a wide range of contemporary media and materials; and (b) the theoretical and methodological issues raised thereby.
2. To explore the diverse motivations for the ongoing dialogue with Greco-Roman antiquity in society at large, from critical commentary to identity construction, from creative enterprises to entertainment.
3. To raise critical questions about the historical factors and forces (and the ideologies) that underwrite the continuing relevance and appeal of ancient Greece and Rome as a point of reference.
4. To investigate the relationship between such 'creative' engagements with antiquity and classical scholarship/the academic discipline of Classics.
5. To pull together, thereby, many threads of earlier learning in a demanding interdisciplinary, theoretical framework.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2025–26

There will be around 16 essay-style questions concerning various topics covered in lectures, classes, and supervisions. Candidates will be required to answer three questions. In some questions, candidates will be invited to refer in their answers to particular texts, pictures, or combinations of texts and pictures if they so choose.

(Supervisions for this course will be centrally organised.)

In 2026-27 this paper will be replaced by a paper on 'The Politics of Classical Reception'.

Course description

Classics exists at the interface of ‘then’ and ‘now’. Ever since the end of Greco-Roman antiquity, thinkers, artists, authors, and ideologues of various persuasions have reactivated aspects of the ancient world, across a broad spectrum of media and for a wide variety of purposes. This paper seeks out engagements with ancient Greece and Rome outside the domain of disciplinary scholarship and explores classical and classicizing presences in such spheres as political and cultural theory, the verbal and visual arts, popular culture and the creative industries, and political ideologies. The individual case studies are designed to illustrate the ongoing dialogue with Greco-Roman antiquity in society at large, to explore the diverse motivations for this dialogue – from critical commentary to identity construction, from creative enterprises to entertainment –, and to raise questions about the historical factors and forces that underwrite the continuing (if fading?) relevance and appeal of ancient Greece and Rome as a point of reference. While the paper does not focus on the study of the ancient world ‘as such’, the fraught relation between historicizing research and ‘creative’ engagements outside academia falls very much within its remit.

Content note: Some of the lectures (and following seminar discussion) might deal with difficult or sensitive subject matter (such as sexual abuse, self-harm, issues of race and racism, LGBTQ+issues and transphobia); if so, specific content notes and guidance will be provided in advance.

General Reading: Almagor, Eran and Maurice, Lisa (eds.) (2017), The Reception of Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture: Beauty, Bravery, Blood and Glory, Leiden and Boston; Carlà-Uhink, Filippo (2020), Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks, New York; Gloyn, Liz (2019), Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture, New York; Hobden, Fiona (2018), Ancient Greece on British Television, Edinburgh; Lowe, Dunstan and Shahabudin, Kim (eds) (2009), Classics for All: Reworking Antiquity in Mass Culture, Newcastle; Knippschild, Silke and Morcillo, Marta Garcia (eds) (2013), Seduction and Power Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts, New York;  Postclassicisms Collective (2020), Postclassicisms, Chicago; Rogers, Brett M. and Stevens, Benjamin Eldon (eds) (2018), Once and Future Antiquities in Science Fiction and Fantasy, New York; Umachandran, Mathura and Ward, Marchella (eds) (2024), Critical Ancient World Studies: The Case for Forgetting Classics, London.

Paper X2: Greece, Rome and the Environment

Course Director: Prof. S Cuomo and Prof. E Gowers

Aims and objectives

1. To explore the concerns, theories, discussions and strategies which animated Greek and Roman responses to their environment.
2. To reflect on the ways in which the question of the relationship between humans and their environment varied and evolved across different times, places and genres.
3. To ask how modern approaches to eco-criticism and environmental ethics relate to those of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
4. To emphasise and pursue the intrinsically interdisciplinary nature of classical studies.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2025-26

There will be around sixteen essay-style questions concerning various topics covered in lectures, classes, and supervisions. Candidates will be required to answer three questions. In some questions candidates will be invited to refer in their answers to particular texts, pictures, or combinations of texts and pictures if they so choose.

(Supervisions for this course will be centrally organised.)

In 2026-27 the format and structure of the paper will remain unchanged.

Course description

How did the Greeks and Romans think about the environment and their place in it? How did they attempt to harness, tame or emulate it? How far did they imbue the environment with an agency or identity distinct from those who inhabited it? What role did it play in the lives and experiences of ancient individuals and communities and what, if anything, was it owed? In this course we will explore the diverse and complex ways in which the environment was constructed in both thought and practice in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Engaging with the literature, art, archaeology and philosophy of Greece and Rome, we will explore such questions as how environments both urban and rural shaped and were thought to shape their inhabitants, what it meant to claim to have been born from the soil, to worship a tree or to claim a grove as inherently sacred, and how far humans’ impact on the environment was a source of ethical or practical concern.

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in these and similar questions posed in the shadow of ecological debates of unprecedented urgency. This course will draw on and engage with this exciting area of classical research.

Topics and sources covered will include: (i) literary and visual depictions of the natural world from pastoral idylls to strange lands; (ii) Greek and Roman gardens and cityscapes, real and imaginary; (iii) medical, philosophical and ethnographic accounts of the relationship between humans and their environment; (iv) the subjugation of the natural world and its consequences; (v) the relationship between art and nature in literature and visual culture; (vi) sacred landscapes and nature deities; (vii) human impact on the environment and environmental history; (viii) ancient (and modern) concerns about the environment and its degradation. The paper will give attention to both texts and visual material.

Introductory reading:

L. Foxhall, M. Jones and H. Forbes ‘Human Ecology and the Classical Landscape: Greek and Roman Worlds’ in S. Alcock and R. Osborne, eds., Classical Archaeology (Malden, MA, 2007), 91–117

R. Futo Kennedy and M. Jones-Lewis, eds, The Routledge Handbook of Identity and the Environment in the Classical and Medieval Worlds (London, 2016)

C. Levine, The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton and Oxford, 2023)

J. McInerney and I. Sluiter, eds., Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, 2016)

C. Schliephake, ed., Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity (Lanham, MD, 2016)

C. Schliephake, The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World: Questions and Perspectives (Cambridge, 2020)

G. Shipley and J. Salmon, eds, Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity. Environment and Culture (London, 1996)

D. Spencer, Roman Landscape: Culture and Identity (Cambridge, 2010)

L. Thommen, An Environmental History of Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 2012)

Paper X3: Christianity, Hellenism, and Empire

Course Director: Dr A Lefteratou (Divinity)

This is a joint course with the Faculty of Divinity; full course details are available on the Faculty of Divinity’s online platforms (please see under part IIb, course C14). https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/study-here/undergraduate/paper-descriptions-overview