Group X: Interdisciplinary Studies and Classical Reception

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: The Politics of Classical Reception

Course Director: Dr E Giusti

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 and how they have operated to create a politics of classics; and (b) the theoretical, methodological and ethical implications of these engagements.
2. To explore the diverse motivations for the ongoing dialogue with Greco-Roman antiquity in modern and contemporary societies, and the ways in which a narrative of classical exceptionalism has been traditionally promoted.
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 'applied classics' (i.e. creative engagements with classics by artistic practitioners) 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 2026–27

Candidates will be required to answer one question from Section A and two questions from Section B.  Section A will contain around five passages and/or pictures taken from relevant materials discussed in the lectures, seminars, or supervisions.  Section B will contain around ten essay questions.

(Supervisions for this course will be centrally organised.)

In 2027-28 the format and structure of the paper will remain unchanged.

Course description

This paper explores a series of political receptions of Classics. Each week, an internal or external guest lecturer will present a position paper on their research and/or the state of the field. Throughout the term, we will consider respectively the terminology of ‘politics’ and ‘the political’, and the practice of politicised acts of classical reception. Seminars will accompany each lecture, in which the Course Directors will expand upon the themes of the lectures. Centrally organised supervisions will complement these themes. Overall, the course will interrogate the political implications of being a classicist in the 21st century.

Content note: This course will include discussion of sensitive topics such as race, gender, imperialism, structural oppression and violence.

Introductory reading: 

Adler, Eric (2016) Classics, the Culture Wars, and Beyond. Ann Arbor.
Andújar, Rosa, Giusti, Elena and Murray, Jackie (eds.) (2026) The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race. Cambridge.
Butler, Shane (ed.) (2016) Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception​. London and New York.
Campanile, D., Carlà-Uhink, F. and Facella, M. (eds.) (2017) Transantiquity: cross-dressing and transgender dynamics in the ancient world. London.
Goff, Barbara E. (ed.) (2005) Classics and Colonialism. London.
Hall, Edith and Stead, Henry (2020) A People's History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain and Ireland 1689 to 1939. London.
Holmes, Brooks (2012) Gender: Antiquity and its Legacy. Bloomsbury.
Postclassicisms Collective (2020) Postclassicisms. Chicago.
Rabinowitz, Nancy S. and Richlin, Amy (eds.) (1993) Feminist Theory and the Classics. New York and London.
Umachandran, Mathura and Ward, Marcella (eds) (2024) Critical Ancient World Studies: The Case for Forgetting Classics. London.
Zajko, V. and Leonard, M. (eds.) Laughing with Medusa. Classical Myth and Feminist Thought. Oxford.

Paper X2: Greece, Rome and the Environment

Course Director: Prof. E Gowers and Dr H Willey

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 2026-27

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 2027-28 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: This course will not run in 2026-27.