Undergraduate Research

The Department of Classics encourages its majors and minors to do research both independently and in cooperation with faculty members. Research assistantships for students to work with faculty members on research projects are available, as is funding to help students carry out their own research and present it at various venues. Students interested in undergraduate research projects should consult with their faculty advisor.

Examples of recent undergraduate research projects include:

    Senior Theses

    • The Cult of Serapis: Origins and Political Responses from the Hellenistic Era to Late Antiquity (Lillian Nystrom)
    • A Die Study of Silver Minted Tetradrachma of Cleopatra VIII and Mark Antony (Efimia Karageorgiou)
    • Contextualizing Paul's Rhetoric in Acts: Shrine Practices in Roman Athens (Eli Ten Eyk)
    • Prescriptive Memories of Female Monks in the Lives of Pachomius (Kaysie Wachs)
    • Understanding Livian Women: Agency, Morality, and Change in the Women of Books 1-5 of Livy's History of Rome (Chase Moriarty)
    • Teaching Erinna's Epigrams (Eva Dalzell)
    • Ancient Greek, African, and African-American Trickster Myths (Pascale Stain)

    Other Student Projects

    • A digital reconstruction of a church from late antique Egypt that is undergoing excavation (Caleb Ullendorff)
    • A short story written from the perspective of an ancient auletris {flute-player} (Gracie Gentzler)
    • A study of the impact of damnatio memoriae on the coinage of Caligula and Nero and their successors (Alyssa Mehnert)
    • A study of ancient agriculture (Thomas Humphrey)
    • A screenplay for a film narrating Seneca's relationship with Nero (Henry Vettel)
    • A study of Claudius' centralization of imperial government (Nicholas LaMorte)
    • A survey and study on allyship in Classics (Nina Bhatia)
    • An illustrated Latin novella (Sanjeevani Bhavsar)

    Undergraduate Assistantships with Faculty

    • A database of Greek dramatic meters 
    • The Influence of Livy in the Modern World 
    • Siglos and Drakhma: Numismatic Metrology of the Northwestern Satrapies in the Achaemenid Empire, 500-300 
    • Images of Ancient Music 

    Opportunities for Presenting Research

    Undergraduate Conferences

    Journals

    Deciding to pursue a second major in Classics was the best decision I made at WashU. As a pre-med with a primary major in Biology, it was very important to me to broaden my interests beyond just the realm of science and medicine, and Classics was the natural choice. Not only did Classics allow me to balance my schedule between science, language, and ancient history, it also gave me a better appreciation for how modern languages, government, cultures, and even medicine evolved from the ancients.

    ―Lisa DornMD / PhD Candidate, Medical Scientist Training Program, The Ohio State University