Postgraduate Students

Research dissertation

You will undertake a research project and produce a dissertation which is submitted on an assigned date in mid-August.

The final element of the programme is a 15,000 word dissertation (60 credits), which you complete during the summer months. This is an independent, primary source-based research project supervised by one or more members of academic staff. You have considerable freedom to define your own dissertation project — so long as it is a feasible project that one or more staff members have the expertise to supervise.

You will meet with the Programme Director and other members of the department to decide on a topic, usually in Semester 2 and you will put together a research proposal.

Example dissertation topics

Past dissertation topics include:

  • Agricultural destruction in Hellenistic Greece
  • The legal status of Roman colonies
  • Athletics and addiction in Classical Greece
  • Cicero and Epicureanism