The Classical Studies Club is one for the history books with its fun mix of educational talks and interactive activities centered around antiquity.
The Classical Studies Club provides a space for students from every major to bond over their interest in ancient Greece and Rome. Though the group does host educational lectures on antiquity, it also allows members to participate in hands-on and interactive activities to get a sense of how people lived during ancient times.
“We do a lot of things,” said Alexandra Hulse, club president and junior liberal arts major with a concentration in classical civilization. “Basically, our activities, they don’t require you to know Latin, to know Greek, to even be a classics major. We do everything from trivia nights to game nights, like playing ancient games. Pretty much anything you can imagine.”
The club was revived in 2023 with the goal of being bigger and better than ever before. Though the group usually meets about once a month, Alexandra is hoping to increase that number with at least one general body meeting and one smaller meeting every month, with a few fundraisers sprinkled in between.
Not only will the number of meetings be increased, but so will the ambitiousness of the meetings’ activities. Cooking ancient recipes, trying Roman hairstyles and playing mythologically-inspired improv are just a few of the many plans the Classical Studies Club has in store for this year.
The Classical Studies Club will also be introducing a book club this year, led by junior classical civilization major and club parliamentarian, Emma Hulse. The book club will be a part of the larger Classical Studies Club but will have independent meetings to discuss the classical and classical-inspired readings.
“We will be voting on which books we’re going to pick,” Emma explained. “I’m hoping to do a mixture between some modern retellings and some classical works. Once again, you don’t have to have any background in classics to do it. This is for fun.”
Both Emma and Alexandra Hulse, as well as club historian and junior computer science major Katherine Winchester, worked together to start the Classical Studies Club. The three friends attended the same high school and were all members of the Junior Classical League, an organization aimed at encouraging interest in classical antiquity among high schoolers.
“[Junior Classical League] was really the thing that sparked our interest in classics, and that was in high school,” Alexandra said. “We wanted to basically bring what we got from that to LSU and just celebrate knowledge, especially concerning Greece, Rome, Latin–the classics.”
As a computer science major at LSU, Winchester looked to the Classical Studies Club as an opportunity to further her love of the classics and connect to others with the same interest without sacrificing her educational and career goals. She hopes that other students who are not studying classics will also see the club as a way to learn more about ancient Greece and Rome outside of their majors.
“As someone who’s not in the classics department day in and day out, I think that this club is really important so that I can stay involved in the community,” Winchester said. “So it was really important for me, personally, to be a part of this club and its formation. I just wanted to make sure I kept that part of my life, even if it wasn’t going to be the biggest part of my life going forward.”
One of the biggest challenges the group faces is membership. After its 2023 revival, the group had to essentially start from scratch, and getting the word out to a niche audience on such a big campus can prove difficult. Additionally, interest in the classics is just not as widespread as perhaps it once was.
Still, the officers believe that the amazing community they have brought together was worth any obstacles they might have faced while forming the club. Emma loves seeing everyone in the club so excited to learn about these ancient cultures, and because classical studies are so diverse, she believes there is something for everyone.
“You’re studying the whole civilization and whole human experience of about 2,000 years ago,” Emma said. “And since it’s such a wide range of things, whether it’s theatre or philosophy or the arts or STEM or politics or literature–all of these different subjects–I think everyone can find something to love within it that fits their own interest.”
