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Literæ humaniores


Literae Humaniores is the name given to an undergraduate course focused on Classics (Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Latin, ancient Greek and philosophy) at the University of Oxford and some other universities.

The Latin name means literally "more human literature", and was in contrast to the other main field of study when the university began, i.e. res divinae, a.k.a. theology. Lit. Hum. is concerned with human learning, and Lit. Div. with learning that came from God. In its early days, it encompassed mathematics and natural sciences as well. It is now an archetypal Humanities course and is colloquially called Greats.

The University of Oxford's classics course, also known as "Greats", is divided into two parts, lasting five terms and seven terms respectively, the whole lasting four years in total, which is one year more than most arts degrees at Oxford and other English universities.

The course of studies leads to a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree. Throughout, there is a strong emphasis on first hand study of primary sources in the original Greek or Latin.

In the first part (Honour Moderations or Mods) students concentrate on Latin and/or Greek language; in the second part students choose eight papers from the disciplines of Classical Literature, Greek, and Roman history, Philosophy, Archaeology, and Linguistics. The teaching style is very traditional and consists of weekly tutorials in each of the two main subjects chosen, supplemented by a wide variety of lectures. The main teaching mechanism remains the weekly essay, one on each of the two main chosen subjects, typically written to be read out at a one-to-one tutorial; this affords all students plenty of practice at writing short, clear, and well-researched papers.


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