The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is a non-profit overseas research center with a consortium of nearly 200 North American colleges and universities devoted to advanced teaching and research in Greek area studies. The ASCSA was founded in 1881 to provide American graduate students and scholars with advanced on-the-ground instruction and a necessary base for their studies in the history and civilization of the Greek world. Today, 135 years later, it is an even more vital teaching and research institution, providing advanced undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students and scholars a unique opportunity to study first-hand the sites and monuments of Greece and to explore its important history and culture up to the present.
The School is also a superb resource for senior scholars pursuing research in a variety of fields and on subjects ranging from antiquity through the Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman empires and contemporary Greece, thanks to its internationally renowned libraries, the Blegen, dedicated to classical antiquity, and the Gennadius, which concentrates on the Greek world after the end of antiquity and which houses a world-class collection of rare books and unparalleled archival holdings.
The School also administers two major excavations and related study centers in Ancient Corinth and in the Athenian Agora; oversees and facilitates other American excavations and research activities in Greece; publishes books and a peer-reviewed award-winning scholarly journal; and houses an internationally renowned laboratory for archaeological science.
