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This piece from @kataplexis and @lpoldybloom gets at something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.
https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/02/changing-classics-to-save-classics-view.html
https://rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/02/changing-classics-to-save-classics-view.html
They outline the requirements of their old, ‘pre-professional’ major: 9 language classes, 2 culture or myth courses in translation.
This kind of structure seems fairly standard: the major in undergraduate languages here at Michigan is basically the same.
What is entirely unclear to me is whom this structure serves. Language competence is great, but what point is there learning Latin if you don’t know Roman history?
Sure, some kids go to law school or whatever, but why do we think this is sufficient for those who wish to be scholars?
My own undergrad experience in NZ was not unlike their newer model — a major based primarily on courses in translation. Denison still requires some language; in NZ Classical Studies (entirely in translation) is separate from Greek and Latin.
We were also lucky in NZ that small upper language courses were still supported, so in some ways we had the best of both worlds. I came to the languages halfway through my degree, so I had a firm grounding in Greek history and literature well before I learned an ablative absolute
And though RFK and MP regret (I think) that they can no longer regularly send students to graduate school, my public school in NZ — with a very similar model! — still does with some frequency.
A coeval of mine won a Clarendon scholarship for his DPhil; a friend a year later started graduate school at Yale. Previous years saw students go to Penn, Johns Hopkins, and others to Oxford (with funding).
What’s the difference? Not, I think, the spirit of Ronald Syme (our most famous alumnus) pulling strings with the big guy, but the fact we have an MA for which the university offers scholarships.
Writing my MA, not only did I learn an awful lot about my own area, get a writing sample for applications, etc., I also finished my third year of Greek (adding to my year and a half of Latin).
If we want Classics to remain a robust field, especially for those without exposure prior to college, we need more and better funded MAs.
Four years of concerted effort is enough to prepare a student in both languages, histories, and cultures if they commit to it from day one and do nothing else.
But a) a student with no prior experience will not commit to Classics that way, and b) the American system would never support that kind of early specialisation.
So we need those big courses in translation, both because we need the numbers and to attract students — somewhat lost in the shuffle is that our subject, in all its aspects, is incredibly appealing to a lot of people. That’s a good thing.
But there has to be a pathway from a freshman who takes Greek History, commits to the subject as a sophomore after a couple more classes, and starts the languages as a junior.
And, as RFK and MP point out, that can’t be a poorly funded MA somewhere across the country. They need to exist in place, or at least nearby, and be funded at a commensurate level with PhD programs.
(Frankly, a lot of PhD programs would probably do more good as MA programs, but I’m not sure I want to start that fight.)
There’s a certain stigma in America against MAs, it seems to me, and I don’t really know why. But our discipline is already tremendously complex just doing it in translation. Add the languages, and even four years isn’t enough.
From day one at uni to the end of my MA was 5 full years. I didn’t start my PhD until a year later. In those six years, I had 4 of Greek and 2.5 of Latin, and a very broad background in the history and archaeology of Greece and Rome.
So we need to acknowledge that a) big translation courses are useful EVEN FOR those with graduate aspirations and b) maybe you can’t learn enough in four years to be ready for grad school. So embrace the MA.
(This probably should have been a blog post in its own right, but if you made it this far thanks for reading. I hope it made some sense.)
