The UK Institute for Latin Studies

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The UK Institute for Latin Studies is a series of graduate courses in Latin studies designed to provide anyone with a special interest in Latin with a thorough command of the Latin language in reading, writing and speaking, along with a wide exposure to the cultural riches of the Latin tradition in its totality. This means a deep immersion in classical Latin texts as well as the Latin of the church fathers, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and even more recent times. This curriculum provides an unusually solid preparation for any profession or discipline in which skill in Latin is highly important, such as Classics, Theology, Philosophy, History, etc. We recommend this curriculum not only for those who aspire to enter a doctoral program, but also for anyone who is interested in teaching Latin in the secondary schools and would like to acquire an active command of the language along with a wide-ranging knowledge of Latin letters.

METHOD

Modern Latin curricula typically place vastly more emphasis on passive understanding of the language, i. e. reading only, than on inculcating facility in active use of the language as a means of communication in speaking and writing. It is well established that participation in a variety of learning modes, including writing, listening and speaking - not merely reading and translating - enhances the comprehension of any language and the appreciation of its nuances. The active use of Latin in speaking and writing, in addition to the reading of Latin texts, is one of the cornerstones of this sequence in Latin Studies.

SCOPE

The Institute is distinctive for its methodology, and also for the rich material of its courses. Latin is currently taught in high schools and in undergraduate curricula almost entirely as an ancient language, despite the fact that much of Latin's history as a literary language and an active means of communication extends to fairly recent, and, in some regions and environments, up to very recent times. The Latin works written in medieval and early modern centuries include seminal texts in the development of European literature, thought and science. The Institute sequence in Latin Studies includes a significant amount of this material as well as fundamental Roman texts, in order to present students with a more accurate view of the history of Latin, and to show future teachers how they can vastly enrich Latin education. The wide scope of our curriculum is based on the conviction that teachers of Latin should present Latin from the start (even in high schools) as not only the Romans' language, but the universal cultural language of the formative phases of later Europe. Even early training in Latin should reflect the fact that Latin is fundamental for a wide variety of disciplines studied at the university level, which range from classics, philosophy, and history all the way to medical terminology, and is an essential asset for the study of English and western European languages. One could hardly find a better example of a field that is multi-cultural and truly 'interdisciplinary' than the study of Latin literature approached from this wider and more historically-accurate perspective.

THE CURRICULUM

The core of the Institute, or Graduate Certificate Curriculum in Latin Studies, consists of courses in which Latin is the language of teaching and instruction, class activities, and assignments. The series begins with an intensive course in spoken and written composition, joined with exemplary readings from a wide range of authors, designed to prepare Institute students for the following courses. Subsequent courses focus on various periods of Latin literature from Antiquity to the present. Course activities always involve extensive reading, writing, and speaking in Latin. Other course projects may include such events as the performance of Latin drama. During the summers, Institute students have an excellent opportunity to take part in the 'conventicula Latina,' the well-known summer immersion workshops in spoken Latin held on the campus of UK, which now regularly attract participants from Europe and Australasia, as well as from all over North America. A candidate who successfully completes 9 credit hours of Institute course work may earn a Graduate Certificate in Latin Studies.

Those who successfully complete the Institute curriculum can earn a Graduate Certificate in Latin studies. This certificate is awarded independently of the M.A. in Classics. Candidates for the Certificate may also be candidates for the M.A. in Classics, or they may be enrolled in a degree program in another department, and take the courses in Latin Studies along with the required courses in their disciplines. Courses in the Institute curriculum occupy only a portion of a full-time course load for a student each semester.

N.B. the availability of these courses in any one year may depend on the presence or absence of professors prepared to teach them.

ADMISSION

Applicants to the Institute should normally have successfully completed at least three years of undergraduate Latin, or the equivalent, before they come to UK, and once enrolled at UK, must successsfully complete CLA 511, our graduate course in basic composition, unless the Institute staff decides that a candidate has already completed the equivalent level of work.

The Institute is an optional series of courses within the graduate program in Classics at the University of Kentucky, not a separate degree-granting program. Those who intend to be candidates for the Graduate Certificate in Latin Studies must first be accepted into the Graduate School at the University of Kentucky. In most cases, such candidates will also be candidates for the M.A. in Classics, or some other post-graduate degree.

For further details on the program, please write to the Director of Graduate Studies, UK Classics at classics at lsv.uky.edu

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