Degree Requirements

Please click the below link to see the list of requirements for majors/minors class of 2020 or earlier:

Major/Minor Requirements for Classics PDF 

Please click the below link to see the list of requirements for majors/minors class of 2021-2022 or later:

Major/Minor Requirements for Classics PDF

The Department of Classics at Wake Forest University is the first Classics department in the world to require all majors and minors to take a course focused on race and the discipline. The course, CLASSICS BEYOND WHITENESS (CLA 281), studies misconceptions that ancient Greeks and Romans were white; race in Graeco-Roman societies; the role of Classics in modern racial politics; and non-white approaches to Classics. It considers race as a social construct; white supremacy, fragility, and privilege; and critical-race-theoretical study of ancient cultures. The course was developed and first taught by Professor T. H. M. Gellar-Goad in fall 2019, as part of the department’s inaugural year of CLASSICS BEYOND WHITENESS programming, co-organized by Professor Gellar-Goad and Professor Caitlin Hines, now in its second year as an ongoing series hosted by the department.

The department’s decision to add this course as a core component of the departmental curriculum is part of a broader, transformational change that the department faculty, staff, students, and alumns are undertaking, including a revised department mission statement and new statements on the department’s view of the discipline of Classics, on equity, on action and practice, and on support and community.  These efforts build on the department’s previous statements in support of Black Lives Matter and on-campus antiracist organizing, as well as departmental faculty advocacy for LGBTQIA+ rights within the discipline.  The CLASSICS BEYOND WHITENESS decision requires all Classics majors and minors to take the course, whether students are concentrating in language (the Classical Languages major, the Greek major and minor, the Latin major and minor) or in culture (the Classical Studies major and minor).  These updates were formally approved by the College faculty of Wake Forest University on February 8, 2021 and take effect starting with all students who declare a major or minor beginning with the 2021–2022 academic year.