Adams, Barry B.
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Barry Banfield Adams is a Prof Emeritus from the Department of English at Cornell University. As a distinguished scholar of the humanities with a deep commitment to undergraduate education, Barry Adams' tenure in the Department of English spanned 38 years. His essays on medieval and renaissance drama have appeared in many professional journals, and he was a contributor to a volume titled Teaching Shakespeare. During his Cornell Career, he served as vice provost, chairman of the English department, chairman of the University Faculty Library Board, and served on the Faculty Council of Representatives. In 1976, Boston College awarded him a Presidential Bicentennial Award for personal dedication, excellence and service.
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Item A Conversation with Winthrop (Pete) Wetherbee IIIWetherbee, Winthrop (Pete) III; Adams, Barry B (Internet-First University Press, 2019)Winthrop (“Pete”) Wetherbee recounts highlights of his career as Professor of English at Cornell with close ties to Cornell’s Medieval Studies Program and its Department of Classics. He also describes his role in developing a teaching program at the maximum security prison at Auburn, New York.Item A Conversation with Jonathan CullerCuller, Jonathan; Adams, Barry B. (Internet-First University Press, 2015-09-10)During his 38 years on the Cornell faculty, Jonathan Culler (successor to M. H. Abrams as Class of 1916 Professor of English) has served as academic administrator as well as teacher and scholar, first as Director of the Society for the Humanities and subsequently as Chair of the English Department, Chair of the Comparative Literature Department, and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. His undergraduate teaching has included Freshman Humanities seminars, as well as large lecture courses treating literary texts as more than self-reflective explorations of the act of creating novels and poems. Much of his teaching at all levels has involved his scholarly interest in critical theory, which he has pursued since his pre-Cornell days at Cambridge and Oxford, where he also engaged in a form of academic administration quite different from what he has found at Cornell and other American universities.Item A Conversation with Roger GilbertGilbert, Roger; Adams, Barry B. (Internet-First University Press, 2015-09-10)Professor Gilbert discusses the biography he is writing about beloved poet A.R. (Archie) Ammons: he commens briefly about the legendary M.H. (Mike) Abrams.Item A Conversation with Kenneth A. McClaneMcClane, Kenneth A.; Adams, Barry B. (Internet-First University Press, 2015-07-27)Professor Kenneth McClane reflects on his experience as a Cornell freshman, as a member of the Arts College undergraduate College Scholars Program, as a graduate student in the Cornell English Department, and as the distinguished W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature at Cornell. He shares memories of growing up in a Harlem household that entertained prominent participants in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. He describes his experience as a poet and autobiographical essayist, as well as a teacher in Cornell’s creative writing program (which happened to include assignment to an office in Goldwin Smith Hall once used by Vladimir Nabokov), and reflects on his role as a member of two Cornell presidential search committees conducted by the Cornell Board of Trustees.Item A Conversation with Alison LurieLurie, Alison; Adams, Barry B. (Internet-First University Press, 2015-07-27)As a member of the Cornell English Department, Professor Lurie has taught courses in literature as well as writing. These included treatment of such topics as children’s literature and children in literature that had not been appropriated by colleagues with advanced degrees, which she lacked. Several of her acclaimed novels have academic settings, reflecting her declared preference for writing about what she has experienced personally, but she debunks the notion that characters in her 'War Between the Tates' are based on Cornell faculty members. She speculates that if she had been ten years older than she is, she would never have been allowed to do any teaching in the Department, and if she had been ten years younger, she would have been allowed to do so much sooner.Item A Conversation with Jim McConkeyMcConkey, James R.; Adams, Barry B. (Internet-First University Press, 2015-06-02)James McConkey, is Goldwin Smith Professor of English Literature Emeritus at Cornell University. Known for his meditative nonfiction narratives, James McConkey began teaching at Cornell in 1956, as an assistant professor in the English department. He wrote fiction until the early 1960s, and retired in 1992 as Goldwin Smith Professor of English Literature Emeritus. McConkey is the author or editor of 14 books, including Court of Memory, Stories from My Life with the Other Animals, To a Distant Island, and The Anatomy of Memory. His research and teaching interests are Creative writing (poetry and fiction), Modern literature and prose, Modern fiction, particularly British.Item A Conversation with Robert MorganMorgan, Robert R.; Adams, Barry B. (Internet-First University Press, 2015-06-02)Robert Morgan looks back on his 44 years as a member of the Cornell English Department faculty to recall his pleasure at receiving a carefully worded invitation to teach creative writing at Cornell “for one year only.” Members of the writing program (among them Baxter Hathaway, Jim McConkey, Walter Slatoff, Archie Ammons, and Bill Matthews), as well as other colleagues were happy to see that invitation extended. As an undergraduate Bob had undertaken serious study of math and science before being deflected into literature. His career as writer (punctuated by a memorable endorsement by Oprah) has encompassed poetry, fiction, and history, much of it based on his experience growing up in the American South in a story-telling family. Since retirement he has written several plays drawing on the same material. A major turning point was his successful attempt to compose a semi-fictional account of the death of his uncle in World War II, told in the voice of the uncle’s fiancée.Item Barry B. Adams talks with Gould ColmanAdams, Barry B.; Colman, Gould P. (Internet-First University Press, 2013-05-10)This video is a contribution to CAPE's Oral History project, The Legacy of Cornell Faculty and Staff