A. W. H. Adkins

Arthur William Hope Adkins was a British classical scholar, known chiefly for his work on ancient Greek moral values.

Biography

The son of Archibald Arthur Adkins and Nora Hope Adkins, Adkins was born and grew up in Leicester. He studied at Merton College, Oxford, graduating BA in 1952, MA in 1955, and DPhil in 1957. His doctoral thesis, titled "The Development of the Concept of Moral Responsibility from Homer to Aristotle", was supervised by E. R. Dodds, and formed the basis for Adkins's first book Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values. He held positions as an assistant lecturer at the University of Glasgow, as a lecturer in Greek at Bedford College, London, as Fellow in Classical Languages and Literature at Exeter College, Oxford, and as Professor of Classics at the University of Reading.
Having held a senior visiting fellowship at Cornell University in 1969–1970, he moved permanently to the United States upon being appointed Professor at the University of Chicago in 1974, and served as department chair from 1975 to 1980. He was named Edward Olson Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures in 1977, and held this position until his death in 1996. He also served from 1979 to 1992 as the founding chair of the Committee on the Ancient Mediterranean World at Chicago, now restructured as the Program in the Ancient Mediterranean World : this was one of the first US doctoral programs to offer a specifically interdisciplinary approach to studying the ancient world.
He was honoured by the publication of a Festschrift titled The Greeks and Us: Essays in Honour of A. W. H. Adkins. This volume, which emerged from a symposium held in his honour in 1994, did not come out until some months after his death.
He died of cancer on 13 February 1996, survived by his wife Elizabeth and his children Matthew and Deborah. His papers and correspondence are kept at the University of Chicago Library.