Bristol's Department of Classics & Ancient History offers a unique combination of opportunities for MA students and those undertaking research degrees. Bristol has a well deserved reputation for work at the cutting edge of Classics and Ancient History, a reputation which has been reinforced by appointments over the last few years.
Bristol's distinguished staff offer a wide range of perspectives on the ancient world, drawing on the insights offered by, for instance, structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis and anthropology. Regular research seminars, in which papers are given by Bristol staff and students as well as visiting speakers, provoke stimulating and engaged debate. The department is large enough to support a thriving community of postgraduates (generally of about 30); at the same time it is small enough to ensure individual attention for all of them. The department has been awarded a 5 (international excellence in some sub-areas of activity and national excellence in virtually all others) in all Research Assessment Exercises so far.
Recent research projects such as the on-going series of myth conferences, the Leverhulme Trust funded three-year research project Receptions of Rome in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, the tercentenary conference on John Dryden in 2000 and the Augustine: City of God Commentary Project have further enhanced Bristol's high international profile, attracting scholars from all over the world. The Bristol Institute for Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition, which offers further opportunities for international research on the ancient world and its reception, was opened in 2000. The publisher Blackwell has chosen the Department of Classics & Ancient History and the Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition to collaborate on an annual lecture series, the Blackwell Lectures in Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition.