Classical Studies is one of Australia’s oldest disciplines in the humanities. It explores the cultures, languages, histories, literatures, and philosophies of the ancient Mediterranean world in themselves and in their enduring influence on global societies. At its core, the discipline brings together the study of ancient Greece and Rome with the wider ancient world they inhabited and shaped, from the Near East and North Africa to Europe and beyond. Through rigorous scholarship and imaginative inquiry, Classical Studies illuminates how ancient peoples understood their world – and how those understandings continue to inform contemporary thought, creativity, and civic life.  

Early Christianity and Late Antiquity have become an integral part of Classical Studies. Scholars examine the emergence of Christian thought and institutions within Greco-Roman cultural, philosophical, and political contexts, alongside Jewish traditions and other religious movements of the period. This work sheds light on processes of cultural continuity and transformation, including changing religious practices, identities, and modes of authority.

More recently, the rise of Classical Reception Studies has extended the discipline beyond antiquity itself, investigating how ancient texts, artefacts, images, and ideas have been interpreted, adapted, contested, and reimagined from the Middle Ages to the present. From Renaissance art and political theory to modern literature, film, popular culture, and debates about heritage and decolonisation, reception studies demonstrate that Classics is not a closed canon but a dynamic field shaped by ongoing dialogue with the past. The classical world and the disciplines concerned with its study also continue to inspire the popular imagination today, shaping modern storytelling, visual culture, political rhetoric, and creative media from novels and film to television, gaming, and graphic art.