Various schools

[heliogabalus]

What are your impressions of various departments?

Anybody know anything about UCI's tri-campus program?

[heliogabalus]

Nothing? Oh well.

How about this: Which Classics departments are the best for studying Medieval Latin? (I know UToronto's medieval studies dept. is probably the best regarded, but I'm mainly wondering about Classics depts)

My guess would be Harvard, UNC, UCLA and CUA. As far as admission goes, my guess would be all but CUA would be really tough to get into.

Any other schools I don't know about?

[Athena]

Sorry, I don't know much about UCI's program.

As far as later Latin goes, here are my opinions:

- Harvard is of course, top-notch, especially with Jan Ziolkowski there. Library is renowned for its collection. I think Harvard would be a good place to do primarily classics, with a bit of medieval stuff on the side... but that's just an opinion based on the faculty I recall being there. This computer isn't very fast at loading pages, so I'll leave you to check the faculty list.

- UCLA has been great for years in the area of medieval Latin - they have Patrick Geary and Claudia Rapp, both fantastic scholars; also Christopher Baswell. Friends have good things to say about their post-bacc program and assume that their graduate program is of the same high quality. I think this would be a great place for someone wanting to do more interdisciplinary study, especially something historical. I've heard good things about the library here, too.

- U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has a few outstanding scholars in late antique/medieval Latin. Danuta Shanzer runs all the Platinum Latin sessions at the Kalamazoo Medieval Congress and she's in charge of Latin programming at the Leeds Medieval Congress. She and Ralph Mathisen (later Roman history / numismatics) have run a late antiquity conference nearly every year since 2004 - and they have attracted big names in the field (e.g. Walter Goffart, Gillian Clark) as well as up-and-coming scholars. Charles Wright is based in the English department and does medieval Latin/Old English. Library is renowned.

- Notre Dame is a good place for a person who knows they want to do medieval Latin and not much classical Greek. Thomas F. X. Noble is renowned in early medieval history. Can't remember who else is there, but I know they have a long list of faculty. Their medieval institute always offers great summer courses in medieval Latin, so I imagine it's a good place to study that, especially if you are interested in religious material. (Not to mention that they are loaded - medieval studies gets lots of $). And Indiana uses daylight saving time now! I would choose ND over CUA (assuming you mean Catholic U of America).

[Incitatus]

Athena,

I posted the original message (under a different name because I can never login here). I just wanted to thank you for responding. I'll definitely check out those programs but to be honest I don't know if I'll ever have the time to do a PhD--I have a family and a good job. Ah, if only I'd been smarter about these things when I was young and single.

Are you doing a grad degree in Classics?

[gnothiseauton]

I have a Prof who knows some of UCI's dept, and she did not recommend it to me very highly. I got the impression that departmental strife was going on.