Major
A major requires a minimum of nine classes including the senior seminar. Students are required to take courses that reflect the interrelated aspects of the major:
Methodology Requirement
| CSLC 200 | Literature, Culture, Self: Being in the Wor(l)d | 4 units |
| CSLC 201 | Forms of Feeling, and a Feeling for Form: Literature and Its Lifeworlds | 4 units |
Foreign language
Students must select three 300-level courses in German, Greek, Latin, Russian, Chinese or Japanese. GRK 201, LATN 201, GERM 202, and RUSN 202 may also be used to fulfill this requirement.
Literary and Cultural Studies
Students must select two CSLC courses from the 100- or 200-level.
*This course is preferably chosen from outside the student’s major language concentration (courses outside the department allowed by approval)
Interdisciplinary Requirement
Students must complete two additional courses which reflect a thematic or comparative language-based concentration. The two interdisciplinary courses should be chosen in consultation with the student’s adviser.
Senior Seminar
Students must pass a language proficiency exam prior to the beginning of their senior year and enrollment in the senior seminar. Please consult the departmental website for current information about courses which satisfy requirements.
Honors in the Major
Honors is awarded to students who have demonstrated excellence in their departmental work. In the Spring semester, CSLC faculty review each Seniors’ record of work in the department and make their determinations based on achievement in coursework, sophistication of the comprehensive project, and contribution to the intellectual community of the department.
Minor in Classical Studies
Classical Studies offers Occidental students the opportunity to study the languages, literature, art, philosophy, history, and cultures of Greece and Rome in a multicultural context. Taken together, the courses address the impact of ancient cultures on later civilizations and draw parallels with non-Western cultures.
Occidental offers a minor in classical studies consisting of five courses taken in at least three different departments, at least one of which must be an original language course in Greek or Latin (GRK 101, GRK 102, GRK 201, LATN 101, LATN 102, or LATN 201). Courses with classical emphasis suitable to the minor are listed below.
To share the resources of faculty and students interested in classical studies, the committee sponsors interdisciplinary colloquia. Students who are interested in creating an Independent Pattern of Study in a topic related to the ancient world should consult with the chair of the committee for advice in constructing a program tailored to their needs.
| ARTH 170 | Introduction to the Arts of the Early Mediterranean World | 4 units |
| ARTH 272 | Greek and Roman Art | 4 units |
| CSLC 120 | Metamorphic Bodies: Fluid Forms from Ovid to Kafka | 4 units |
| CSLC 181 | Violent Femmes: Drama in the Polis | 4 units |
| CSLC 202 | The Wake of the Ancient | 4 units |
| CSLC 204 | Between Desire and Despair: Roman Literature Survey | 4 units |
| CSLC 205 | Comedy Philosophy Romance: Hellenistic Literature | 4 units |
| CSLC 222 | Myth: the Greco-Roman gods | 4 units |
| CSLC 241 | Spectacle and the Stage in Ancient Rome | 4 units |
| CSLC 280 | Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger: Tragic Philosophy | 4 units |
| CSLC 283 | Style and "Substance": Philosophy and the Arts | 4 units |
| CSLC 286 | Ulysses: The NoÂPlace That's Home | 4 units |
| CSLC 292 | Love's Song - A History | 4 units |
| HIST 121 | Antiquity to 1700: Europe and the Middle East | 4 units |
| HIST 220 | Ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence | 4 units |
| RELS 351 | "Good" Sex: History of Sexual Ethics | 4 units |
Minor in CSLC
A minor in CSLC consists of five courses: one course course in theory and methodology (either CSLC 200 or CSLC 201), and four additional CSLC courses (student who take both CSLC 200 and CSLC 201 need only complete three additional CSLC course). This minor exposes students to world literature and culture in translation.
Minor in German
A minor in German language consists of five courses (20 units). Three of the five courses must be completed as Occidental courses. One of the five courses can be competed in the form of a German related course in a different department.
Electives
| CSLC 107 | Marx, Nietzsche, Freud | 4 units |
| CSLC 108 | Art, Nature, Self: German Romanticism | 4 units |
| CSLC 109 | From Kafka to Twitter: Small Forms of the Literary | 4 units |
| CSLC 112 | The Sickness unto Death: Selfhood and Despair in Literature and Philosophy | 4 units |
| CSLC 114 | Goethe and the Art of Living | 4 units |
| CSLC 115 | Kleist, Kafka, and the Poetics of Madness | 4 units |
| CSLC 116 | Heidegger and the Ecstasy of Being | 4 units |
| CSLC 118 | What Was the Enlightenment? | 4 units |
| CSLC 120 | Metamorphic Bodies: Fluid Forms from Ovid to Kafka | 4 units |
| CSLC 122 | Rage, Rave, and Revolution: German Literature and Philosophy Post-45 | 4 units |
| CSLC 187 | Prometheus: Agonies of the Absolute | 4 units |
| CSLC 280 | Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger: Tragic Philosophy | 4 units |
| ARTH 288 | Paris and Berlin: Capitals and Crossroads of the 20th Century | 4 units |
| ARTH 289 | Modern Art in the US and Europe, 1900-1950 | 4 units |
| DWA 101 | International Relations: The Changing Rules of the Game | 4 units |
| DWA 102 | International Organizations | 4 units |
| DWA 103 | Introduction to Global Political Economy | 4 units |
| DWA 239 | European Politics | 4 units |
| HIST 230 | European Intellectual History | 4 units |
| HIST 233 | Fascism, Nazism, and the Crisis of Democracy | 4 units |
| HIST 345 | The Holocaust: History, Testimony, and Memory | 4 units |
| LING 301 | Introduction to Linguistics | 4 units |
| LING 350/PSYC 351 | Psycholinguistics | 4 units |
| LING 351 | Phonetics | 4 units |
| MUSC 261 | Western Music and Culture: 1580-1829 | 4 units |
| MUSC 263 | Western Music and Culture: 1830 to the Present | 4 units |
| MUSC 264 | The Total Artwork | 4 units |
| PHIL 210 | Modern Philosophy | 4 units |
| PHIL 212 | Existentialist Philosophy | 4 units |
| PHIL 311 | Wittgenstein | 4 units |
| PHIL 312 | Kierkegaard | 4 units |
| POLS 130 | Introduction to International Relations | 4 units |
| SOC 200 | Classical Sociological Theory: Marx, Weber, Durkheim | 4 units |
Minor in Russian
A minor in Russian language consists of five courses (20 units) numbered RUSN 202 and above. Three of the five courses must be completed as Occidental courses.