History and Archaeology of the Greek and Roman Worlds (MA)

Location: Canterbury

The MA in the History and Archaeology of the Greek and Roman Worlds allows you to integrate the sometimes contradictory material and textual evidence of antiquity, together with their different forms of heritage. 

You will learn an unusually broad range of advanced methods in studying Greece and Rome - cultural, intellectual and archaeological - from antiquity to the 21st century. When choosing from our variety of optional modules, you can specialise in either civilisation, or study both. We invite you to join our thriving, creative, and supportive comm­unity of scholars beyond the classroom in regular postgraduate social meetings, weekly seminars, and site visits.

This one-year MA degree (which can also be taken over two years as a part-time course) allows you to develop a broad understanding of ways to analyse sites, architecture, cities, objects, texts, and archaeological data. It allows you to develop a wide range of skills in interpreting texts, objects and data related to ancient Greece and Rome, and teaches you how to ask the most important questions. The course is designed to give you a thorough training in the theories, methods, and concepts now shaping the study of the ancient world. 

You can gain the skills of the archaeologist, the ancient Greek or Latin linguist, and the historian, through hands-on learning at fieldwork sites, in the classroom, and in museums and archives. With this qualification, you will be equipped for future work involving independent research skills, in academia, heritage, or beyond.

Two core modules in history and archaeology will provide a solid foundation for your dissertation, a substantial independent research project on a topic of your choice. In our wide range of optional modules, you will hone your analytical skills and deepen your knowledge of Greece and Rome. All MA modules are informed by cutting edge research and taught by friendly, internationally-recognised experts, who will provide personalised supervision as you develop your own research specialisms.

The Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies is advantageously situated on a campus overlooking Canterbury city centre, a designated Area of Archaeological Importance that contains Canterbury Roman Museum and the UNESCO world heritage site of Canterbury Cathedral. The Department has long-standing collaborations with Canterbury Archaeological Trust, the Kent Archaeological Society, Canterbury Cathedral Archives, and the Trust for Thanet Archaeology. 

Just an hour by train from London’s British Museum, Museum of London Archaeology, and British Library, we are well-placed for all your research needs. We are also the UK’s closest university to Europe, and less than two hours away is another capital city, Paris, with its Louvre Museum and Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Our nearness to these world-leading resources, combined with our own excellent laboratory and library collections, form an attractive setting for your research on a dissertation topic. In the summer term, one of our experts will guide you to explore your own interests in a substantial independent research project, using all the skills that you have gained during your 12-month MA.

This is an ideal degree for graduates of Archaeology, Ancient History, Classics, History, or the wider humanities, who want to engage deeply with the ancient Greek and Roman worlds and develop a range of research skills. 

Knowledge and understanding

You will gain knowledge and understanding of:

• a complex range of disciplines, cultural relationships and varied geographical regions at an advanced level
• the research skills associated with the use of ancient evidence to produce historical and archaeological narratives and analyses that engage with the most recent development in research in ancient Greek and Roman History and Archaeology
• basic philosophical issues by thinkers of very different cultural and linguistic assumptions from our own
• the nature of the societies and political systems of antiquity
• an appropriate and diverse range of primary materials: material culture, epigraphy, papyrology, literature, visual material, and history
• a broad and systematic knowledge developed within a coherent framework of complementary subjects, including archaeology, and history.

Intellectual Skills

You develop intellectual skills in:

• applying the skills needed for academic study and enquiry
• evaluating research and a variety of types of information and evidence critically
• synthesise information critically from a number of sources in order to gain a coherent understanding of theory and practice
• applying strategies for appropriate selection of relevant information from a wide source and large body of knowledge
• utilising problem solving skills
• analyse, evaluate and interpret the evidence underpinning archaeological, historical, linguistic and literary evidence critically.

Subject-specific skills

You gain subject-specific skills in:

• having an advanced understanding of another culture, whether focused on its archaeology, history, literature, thought, art and religion, or its history and political and social organisation, or its material culture; demonstrate a critical engagement with it; develop an informed sense of the similarities and differences between it and our own culture
• having a broad knowledge, developed within a coherent framework, of complementary subjects, drawn from such fields as archaeology, history, art, literature, linguistics, language, and philosophy, or theme-based topics which cross the boundaries between them (e.g. religion, gender studies), and periods
• demonstrating familiarity with and be able to evaluate an appropriate and diverse range of primary materials, e.g. archaeological and historical texts, art objects, and inscriptions 
• commanding a range of techniques and methodologies, such as bibliographical and library research skills, a range of skills in reading and textual analysis, the varieties of historical method, art criticism, use of statistics (e.g. in archaeology), philosophical argument and analysis.

Transferable skills

You will gain the following transferable skills:

• communicate effectively complex issues to specialist and non-specialist audiences using a variety of means
• evaluate autonomously your own academic performance
• manage change effectively and respond to changing demands and complex and unpredictable situations
• take responsibility for advancing personal and professional learning, initiative and development to a high level
• manage time and prioritise workloads, plan and implement tasks professionally.

This programme aims to:

• attract outstanding students, irrespective of race, background, gender or physical disability from both within the UK, and EU, and from overseas
• develop new areas of postgraduate teaching in response to the advancement of scholarship and current research
• expand student’s depth of knowledge of key subject areas in ancient Greek and Roman History and Archaeology
• develop the student’s competence in applying skills to analysis of a diverse body of ancient evidence
• enhance the development of the student’s interpersonal skills
• assist the student to develop the skills required for both autonomous practice and team working
• provide the student with skills to work in multidiscipline environments by introducing the student to a complex range of disciplines, cultural relationships and varied geographical regions of the Classical World
• provide the students with skills for a further career either for doctoral research in Greek or Roman History and Archaeology or in employment, through the use of these transferable skills
• develop critical, analytical problem-based learning skills and the transferable skills to prepare the student for graduate employment, opening up a wide range of careers to graduates in the academic, journalistic and literary fields.