Classical Studies and Film Studies

Classical studies and film studies are disciplines that seem to span very different eras, yet they share a concern with how human beings make meaning through narrative, image, and spectacle. Classical studies encompasses the literature, history, philosophy, religion, art, and material culture of ancient Greece and Rome, tracing how those civilisations understood the world and how their ideas and forms have been transmitted, reinterpreted, and contested across two millennia. Film studies examines cinema as an art form and a cultural industry, asking how moving images construct meaning, how genres develop and evolve, and how film reflects and shapes the societies in which it is made.

At the University of St Andrews, this four-year, full-time joint Honours programme combines both disciplines at a high academic level. The classical studies strand gives you access to the full breadth of the ancient world: Greek tragedy, Roman epic, Platonic philosophy, classical sculpture, and the history of the Greek and Roman world, alongside the study of how that world has been received and reimagined in modern culture. The film studies strand will develop your capacity to analyse films as visual and narrative texts, to trace the history and theory of cinema, and to engage with debates about genre, authorship, spectatorship, and the politics of representation.

The programme includes a year abroad, enriching your studies by exposing you to different academic traditions and cultural environments. An entry tariff of 200 points reflects the selective and intellectually demanding nature of the programme.

Graduates from classical studies and film studies degrees go on to careers in arts journalism, cultural criticism, screenwriting, publishing, museum and heritage work, arts administration, teaching, and broadcasting. The combination of deep historical knowledge and visual literacy is distinctive, and the research and communication skills developed at St Andrews are highly transferable. Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in classical studies, film studies, cultural history, or related fields.