Adam Serfass teaches a wide range of courses in Greek, Latin, history, and rhetoric. For his work in the classroom, Serfass received a teaching fellowship from the Whiting Foundation and Kenyon’s Trustee Teaching Excellence Award. He has delivered papers, reviewed books and written essays on the history of ancient Rome, especially Christianity in late antiquity. His scholarship and teaching are intertwined: his book "Views of Rome: A Greek Reader," an award-winning anthology of Greek-language writings about the Romans, originated in an advanced Greek course he has offered as a visiting professor at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome and at Kenyon.
Areas of Expertise
Greek and Roman history, early Christianity
Education
— Doctor of Philosophy from Stanford University
— Bachelor of Arts from Williams College
Courses Recently Taught
This course surveys the history of ancient Greece from its occluded origins in the pre-Homeric past to the widespread diffusion of Hellenic culture that accompanied the conquests of Alexander the Great. At the heart of the course is a careful study of the emergence and development of the Greek city-state in its various incarnations. The course provides a solid grounding in political history but also explores aspects of the cultural milieu -- for example, religion, sexual mores and the economy -- that fostered some of the greatest literary and artistic works produced by Western civilization. We read from the celebrated Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, as well as from a variety of other sources, ranging from the familiar to the recondite. This is a requirement for the major. No prerequisite. Offered every other year.
This course surveys the history of the ancient Romans from their early years as a negligible people in central Italy to their emergence as the supreme power in the Mediterranean and, finally, to the eve of their displacement as rulers of the greatest empire in antiquity. The course combines a chronological account of the Romans' remarkable political history with an examination of Roman society, including subjects such as gender, demography and slavery. We read from a variety of ancient sources, including the historians Polybius, Livy and Tacitus and the poets Horace and Vergil. We also mine the evidence offered by coins, inscriptions, papyri and even graffiti, which provide invaluable insight into the realia of daily life. This counts as a core course requirement for the major. No prerequisite. Offered every other year.
Training in rhetoric -- the art of public speaking -- was a cornerstone of education in antiquity. The techniques developed in Greece and Rome for composing and analyzing speeches remain invaluable today, but the formal study of these techniques has all but disappeared from undergraduate curricula. This course seeks to fight this trend. In the opening weeks, we read ancient handbooks on rhetoric, which anatomize the strategies and tropes available to the public speaker, and engage in classroom exercises in speechmaking developed millennia ago. We then examine the crucial role that rhetoric played in three venues: the assembly of democratic Athens, the criminal courts of republican Rome and the cathedrals of Christian bishops in late antiquity. We read and analyze extant speeches delivered in these three venues by figures such as Pericles, Cicero and the Cappadocian Fathers, as well as comparable speeches delivered by more contemporary figures such as Churchill, Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. It is hoped that the academic study of ancient rhetoric aids students in developing their own skills as public speakers. This counts toward the classical civilization for the major. No prerequisite. Offered occasionally.
This yearlong course prepares students to read Ancient Greek literature in its original form. The first semester and the first half of the second semester consist of readings and exercises from a textbook designed to help students build a working vocabulary and learn the extensive and subtle grammar of this language. Twice a week students translate a short piece of authentic Greek, appreciating its artistry and situating it in its cultural context. After spring break, the hard work of the preceding months is rewarded with the opportunity to read Plato's dialogue "Crito" or another text written in Attic prose. The course is taught in English and does not presuppose any knowledge either of Ancient Greek or of grammatical terminology. Students enrolled in this course are automatically added to GREK 112Y for the spring semester. No prerequisite. Offered every year.
This yearlong course prepares students to read Ancient Greek literature in its original form. The first semester and the first half of the second semester consist of readings and exercises from a textbook designed to help students build a working vocabulary and learn the extensive and subtle grammar of this language. Twice a week, students translate a short piece of authentic Greek, appreciating its artistry and situating it in its cultural context. After spring break, the hard work of the preceding months is rewarded with the opportunity to read Plato's dialogue "Crito" or another text written in Attic prose. The course is taught in English and does not presuppose any knowledge either of Ancient Greek or of grammatical terminology. Prerequisite: GREK 111Y. Offered every year.
It is a great pleasure to read Homer in Greek, and this course seeks to help students do so with accuracy and insight. Students acquire a working knowledge of Homer's vocabulary and syntax, and explore some of the key literary and historical questions that have occupied his readers. Offered every spring.
Students improve their skills in reading Greek and discuss scholarship on the author or authors being read that semester. Each semester the readings change, so that GREK 301 and 302 can be taken, to the student's advantage, several times. Students are encouraged to inform the instructor in advance if there is a particular genre, author or theme they would especially like to study. The list of authors taught in this course includes the lyric poets; the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes; and great prose stylists such as Plato and Thucydides, to name just a few. Offered every spring.
Students improve their skills in reading Greek and discuss scholarship on the author or authors being read that semester. Each semester the readings change, so that GREK 301 and 302 can be taken, to the student's advantage, several times. Students are encouraged to inform the instructor in advance if there is a particular genre, author or theme they would especially like to study. The list of authors taught in this course includes the lyric poets; the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes; and great prose stylists such as Plato and Thucydides, to name just a few. Offered every spring.
In this course, students improve their skills in reading Latin and discuss scholarship on the author or authors being read during the semester. Each semester the readings change, so that LATN 301 and 302 can be taken, to the student's advantage, several times. Students are encouraged to inform the instructor if there is a particular genre, author or theme they would especially like to study. The list of authors regularly taught in this course includes Horace and Ovid; the comic poet Plautus; and great prose stylists such as Livy, Tacitus, Petronius and Augustine, to name just a few. Offered every fall.