The American Academy in Rome invites applications to participate in its annual Classical Summer School for 2025, founded in 1923.

Under the direction of Dr. Evan Jewell (Rutgers University), the Classical Summer School is a five-week program (June 16 – July 19, 2024) designed to provide qualified graduate students, and middle school, high school, and college/university teachers with a well-founded understanding of the growth and development of the city of Rome and its surrounding sites of significance.

This five-week program is designed to provide qualified graduate students, and middle school, high school, and college/university teachers with a well-founded understanding of the growth and development of the city of Rome through a careful study of material remains and literary sources. Rome began as a cluster of Iron Age huts on a hill overlooking the Tiber River. This tiny settlement eventually grew to become the capital of an empire that stretched across the entire Mediterranean basin. The city’s development reflects its long and complex relationships with the other peoples of the Italian peninsula, in particular the Etruscans and Greeks, as well as multiple influences from individuals and groups who came to the city as enslaved persons, merchants, or immigrants. Continuously inhabited since its foundation, the city has been frequently rebuilt, with layer rising upon layer. This program aims to provide participants with a deep understanding of ancient Rome as an urban setting (from the Etruscan/early Roman period through late antiquity), as well as the contiguous development of its colonies and neighbors in the Italian peninsula. Through close attention to both textual sources—from literary authors to epigraphic documents—and evidence for ancient topography, art, and architecture, the program recovers and reconstructs the diverse experiences of multiple groups that gave rise to the city of Rome. 

Due to the complications of the Jubilee Year in 2025, applicants should be aware that the Classical Summer School this year will spend its first two weeks outside of Rome and three weeks inside Rome. The first week will focus on the region of Etruria, primarily on the Etruscan and Faliscan cities and cemeteries, as well as early Roman colonies. The program then moves to Naples in the second week, focusing on Magna Graecia (Paestum) and the development of towns and villas around the bay and its hinterland prior to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Finally, the program moves to the center—Rome itself—in its last three weeks and focuses on topographically oriented study of the city and its rise, complemented by a few day trips to key sites in the region of Latium.

APPLICATION DEADLINE:

Friday, December 20, 2024.

COST and SCHOLARSHIP FUNDING

The program fee of $5,000 includes tuition, housing, some meals and the cost of trips to sites in and around Rome.

Please note: All participants are eligible for an American Academy in Rome scholarship (a minimum of $1,500 for those without any external funding).

During the first two weeks of the program, participants will be housed in hotels outside of Rome, in single or double occupancy rooms. For the last three weeks of the program, participants will be housed in single rooms in shared apartments in the Prati area of Rome. Some lunches and dinners will be provided. All of the apartments in Rome are equipped with a kitchen. The program fee does not include airfare, personal expenses (or additional, unplanned expenditures), some lunches/dinners, any travel not directly related to the program of the Classical Summer School, nor expenses such as laundry, tips, amusements, or shopping.

DATES

June 16–July 19, 2025.

QUESTIONS, APPLICATIONS and MORE INFORMATION

For questions about the program, please contact Dr. Jewell at cssdirector@aarome.org and visit the CSS website for further information and the application portal.

APPLY FOR A SCHOLARSHIP FROM CANE

The Cornelia Catlin Coulter Memorial Rome Scholarship is awarded to a teacher of ancient languages or to a graduate student in programs relevant to the Ancient Mediterranean for study at the Summer Session of the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome.

Application Deadline: January 15 
Decision Date: February 15

Read more about the scholarship here, and check back later to apply.