The MA Classics and Ancient History provides intensive preparation for further research into the literature, cultures, history and societies of ancient Greece and Rome and their later reception. At the same time, it delivers key transferable skills and training that employers value. 

Core modules prepare you for the challenge of your MA, helping you to develop thematic perspectives on the ancient world and understand the big ideas that inform contemporary research. They also build your skills in research and communication, encouraging you to adopt effective strategies for gathering and organising disparate information, analysing complex evidence, evaluating propositions and articulating arguments for different audiences and occasions. As well as pursuing independent research across your degree, you will work with your fellow students to coordinate and participate in a research colloquium. 

In addition to the core modules, you choose from a unique range of optional modules that draw from expertise distinctive to Liverpool staff and have resonance with contemporary issues of debate. Focused around the literary, documentary, visual and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome, these modules shed light on the lived experiences of people in Classical antiquity. From their individual, group, and interstate interactions (peaceful and violent); their social, economic, and political organization; their own knowledge and understanding of the world; to their religious beliefs and their ideological and philosophical principles and debates, these options cover a wide array of aspects of the ancient world whilst pursuing overarching themes.

Additional options in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology allow you to expand your horizons even beyond Greece and Rome to the Mediterranean and the Near East, and to work with objects in our Garstang Museum collection. There are opportunities, too, to develop skills in ancient Greek or Latin language. Liverpool students may also apply to study abroad at the British School of Athens or the British School of Rome as an accredited part of their degree.

This variety and flexibility allows you to tailor the MA programme to suit your research interests and agenda, and prepares you for completing a large-scale supervised dissertation (15,000-20,000 words) on the agreed topic of your choice.

Our Master's programmes are designed to equip students with a wide range of transferable skills, with an emphasis on the development of both research and practical analytical skills. They equip students for further study at Postgraduate level (MPhil/PhD) and meet the training requirements of the AHRC and NERC. Research students have not only continued their studies at postdoctoral level, but also embarked on specialised long-term careers in lecturing, museum work and the heritage industry. Our degrees are a good investment in your future. Whichever direction you choose after graduation, potential employers (both nationally and internationally) appreciate the breadth of view, analytical skills and intellectual rigour that you gain by studying civilizations and periods so different from our own.