Research Opportunities
All majors complete a specially designed undergraduate Research Seminar (Classics 395, description below).
Students interested in completing independent research projects are encouraged to undertake senior thesis work.
Weinberg College sustains programs to support undergraduate research in a variety of ways (including grants).
Research Grants for Undergraduates
Funds for Undergraduate Research in Weinberg and at Northwestern
Classics 395 Course description:
The purpose of the Research Seminar is to provide Classics majors with the opportunity to work closely with Classics faculty, to learn fundamental research skills, critical methodologies, and to apply these skills and methodologies in a research project. Fundamental research skills include knowledge of textual criticism, the use of papyri, inscriptions, and material sources (from architecture to coinage), metrics, and basic bibliographic tools (L'année Philologique, TLG, etc.). Critical methodologies include source criticism, narratology, semiotics, speech act theory, gender studies, intertextuality, and major hermeneutic modes of interpretation (Marxist, psychoanalytic, structuralist).
The topic chosen for each quarter's seminar will usually be historical or literary, and may best combine the two. Ideally, each topic will also span Greek and Latin/Roman, allowing students of each language to profit fully from the course. Examples include Greek New Comedy and Plautus, Ancient Rhetoric: Demosthenes and Cicero, Ancient Epic: Homer and Virgil, Democracies: Greek and Roman.
The seminar will meet once a week during the spring quarter. As appropriate, each meeting will present specific research skills or critical methodologies as relevant to the topic of the course.
Prerequisites: Junior or senior standing; major or minor in Classics. Others may participate with department permission.
Students will submit short weekly or biweekly written assignments and must complete a final research paper, typically 10-15 pages. Evaluation is based on one's participation in the seminar and application of relevant skills and methodologies as displayed in written work.
