Robert Huntley Bell
Frederick Latimer Wells Professor of English, Williams College
Employment and Titles
1994-2006: William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English
1993-2006: Founding Director, Project for Effective Teaching
1983-1993: Professor of English, Williams College
1977-1982: Associate Professor of English, Williams College
1972-1976: Assistant Professor of English, Williams College
1971-1972: Tutor at Adams House, Harvard University
1969-1972: Teaching Fellow in Humanities 6, Harvard University
Education
1967-1972: Harvard University, M. A. (1968); Ph.D. (1972)
1963-1967: Dartmouth College, B. A. (magna cum laude)
1959-1963: Belmont Hill School, Belmont, Mass (cum laude)
Academic Honors and Awards
Carnegie Foundation/CASE Outstanding Baccalaureate College Teacher, 2004
Arthur Vining Davis Fellow, 2001-2003
Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, 1998
Exemplary Teacher, American Association of Higher Education, 1994
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, 1993
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers, 1989-1990
Danforth Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 1967-1972
Woodrow Wilson Fellow, 1967-1968
Dartmouth Senior Fellow, 1966-67
Phi Beta Kappa, 1966
Graduated with Highest Distinction in English, awarded 6 Dartmouth Faculty Citations for distinguished work
Rufus Choate Scholar at Dartmouth College
Academic Publications
"David Hume's Fables of Identity," Philological Quarterly, Spring 1975
"Moll's Grace Abounding," Genre, Winter 1975
"Metamorphoses of Spiritual Autobiography," English Literary History, Spring 1977; reprinted in John Bunyan's Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress: An Overview of Literary Studies, ed. Beatrice Batson, Garland Reference Library (New York and London: 1988)
"Boswell's Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," Modern Language Quarterly, June 1977; reprinted in Dr. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, ed. Harold Bloom (Chelsea House Publishers: New York, 1986)
"Dryden's Aeneid as English Augustan Epic," Criticism, Winter 1977
"Benjamin Franklin's Perfect Character," Eighteenth-Century Life, Winter 1978
"Rousseau: Prophet of Sincerity," Biography, Fall 1980
"Erotic Hermeneutics," College English, March 1981
"Gibbon: The Philosophic Historian," Michigan Academician, Winter 1981
"Blushing Like the Morn: Milton's Human Comedy in Paradise Lost," Milton Quarterly, March 1981
"True Comic Edge in Lucky Jim," American Humor, Fall 1981; reprinted in Proceedings of WHIM Conference 1984
"Sterne's Etristramology," Thalia, Winter 1982
"Metamorphoses of Heroic Enterprise in Dryden and Pope," Massachusetts Studies in English, Spring 1983
"Bertrand Russell and the Eliots," American Scholar, Summer 1983
"Confession and Concealment in Bertrand Russell's Autobiography,"
Biography, Fall 1985
"Autobiography and Criticism," Modern Language Quarterly, June 1985
"Mercurial Malachi and Jocoserious Joyce," Modern Language Quarterly, December 1987
Jocoserious Joyce: The Fate of Folly in Ulysses, Cornell U. Press, 1991. Paperback edition, University of Florida Press, 1996.
"The Double Vision of The Singing Detective," Literature Film Quarterly, Vol 21, #3, 1993
" 'In Virtue of Its Exhibitionististicity'," James Joyce Literary Supplement, Spring 1993
"Hogarth," in LabelTalk (1996)
“Kingsley Amis in the Great Tradition and In Our Time,” and “Serio-Comic Amis and True Comic Edge,” in Critical Essays on Kingsley Amis, Ed. Robert H. Bell (G. K. Hall/MacMillan, 1998)
"The Book of the Century: James Joyce's Ulysses," LITKIT: an electronic magazine, January 1999
"James Thurber," The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth Century American Short Story (Columbia University Press, 2001)
"Sterne's Anatomy of Folly," Literary Imagination (Winter 2001)
"Shakespeare's Great Fool and the Anatomy of Folly," Humor: International Journal of Humor Research (2001)
"Double Dylan," Popular Music and Society (Fall 2001)
Joyce’s Hades Episode: An Annotated Critical Variorum with an Introduction, special issue of Journal of Modern Literature (Summer 2001), pp. 359-499.
"Annotating Joyce's Ulysses," Zurich James Joyce Foundation Newsletter (2002)
"James Boswell's Anatomy of Folly," Sewanee Review (Fall 2003)
“Rereading Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight,” Southwest Review (Winter 2005)
“William Hogarth’s Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: A Medley,” Williams College Museum of Art Handbook of the Collection; rpt. in Encounter, ed. Vivian Patterson (2006)
A Reader’s Companion to Infinite Jest, co-authored with William Dowling (XLibris, 2005)
“Inside the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia,” Commonweal, December 2005
“Shakespeare’s ‘Henriad,’” Shakespearean Criticism (Gale, 2006).
Essays on Teaching
"In Quest of Crapper: A Research Expedition," Harvard Magazine, March-April 1988
"Paradise Lost? or, You Can't Always Believe What You Read," Williams Alumni Review, December 1991
"Shakespeare in Cyberspace, Humanities at the Millennium," Williams Alumni Review, December 1995
"Teaching Humor, Teaching with Humor," Liberal Education, Fall 1996
"A Quarrel with Myself," Liberal Education (Summer 1997)
"On Becoming a Teacher of Teachers," Harvard Review of Education, December 1999
"A Teacher for All Seasons," in Simple Abundance, ed. Michael Segell, Scribners/Simon & Schuster, 2000
“What I Teach and What I Teach For,” Liberal Education (Fall 2002)
“Sheer Morning Gladness at the Brim,” Liberal Arts On Line, 5, #2 (Feb 2005)
“In the realms of Gold”: Teaching Reading, The Leaflet (New England Association of Teachers of English), Winter 2007, 9-18.
Portrait of Peter Bien, Teacher, in Dartmouth Alumni Review
(Sept 2007)
Academic Book Reviews
W. B. Carnochan, Confinement and Flight in English Literature of the Eighteenth Century, Modern Language Quarterly (March 1978)
Richard B. Schwartz, Boswell's Johnson: A Preface to the "Life," Modern Language Quarterly (March 1979)
John J. Burke, Jr. and Donald Kay, editors, The Unknown Samuel Johnson, Modern Language Quarterly (September 1983)
Bertrand Russell, The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume I, American Scholar (Summer 1984)
Philip M. Weinstein, Faulkner's Subject: A Cosmos No One Owns, Modern Language Quarterly (December 1993)
Maurice Beja, James Joyce: A Literary Life, James Joyce Literary Supplement (January 1994)
Laurence Sterne in Modernism and Post-Modernism, ed. David Pierce and Peter de Voogd, James Joyce Literary Supplement (Spring 1998)
Roy Gottfried, Joyce’s Comic Portrait, JJLS, (Spring 2001)
Sebastian Knowles, The Dublin Helix: The Life and Language in Joyce’s Uysses, JJLS (Fall 2001)
“Bloomsday at 100,” Commonweal (May 2004)
Book Reviews for Newspapers and Magazines
"Perspective: Prophets on the Right," Hanover Gazette, Jan 7, 14, 21, 1965
"A. S. Neill's Summerhill," Hanover Gazette, Nov 5, 1964
"American Jewish Novelists," Hanover Gazette, Dec 10, 1964
Wise & Ross's "The Invisible Government," Dec 3, 1964
Robb Foreman Dew’s Fortunate Lives, Williamtown Advocate, 1982
Peter Ackroyd’s T. S. Eliot, Berkshire Eagle (April 20, 1985)
"Critics' Choices for Christmas," in Commonweal, December 1, 1989
"Critics' Choices for Christmas," Commonweal, December 5, 1997
Mary Gordon’s Spending, Commonweal, April 10, 1998
“Summer Reading,” Commonweal, June 20, 2003
“Bob Dylan’s Chronicles,” Commonweal, Jan 14, 2005
Humor Writing
1980-1990: approximately 150 pieces of humor in various magazines, newspapers, journals
Theater Reviews
1982-1984: published about 40 reviews, mostly of Williamstown Theater Festival productions, in newspapers
Media Projects
Regular contributor, "Mid-Day Magazine," WAMC, Albany, N.Y., 1981-88.
Frequent contributor to National Public Radio stations, 1984-87
"Special Guest" on "Focus on Education," cable TV show, March 16, 1994
Produced, directed, and edited film, "Teaching at Williams," for the Williams College Bi-Centennial, 1993
Regular Host, conducting interviews, and reviewing books, The Book Show, produced by National Productions for Northeast Public Radio and NPR stations, December 1996-Jan 1998.
Other Professional Activities
Editor, James Joyce Hypermedia Project, 1999-2004.
Editor-in-Chief, Berkshire Review, 1981-1985
Reader for Cornell University Press, Columbia University Press, University of Florida Press, 1992-present
Evaluated applications for NEH Summer Stipends, 1992
Panelist for review of National Graduate Fellowships Program, 1985
Evaluated papers for Humor: International Journal of Humor Research
Banquet Speaker, James Joyce Conference, U. of Miami, 1993
Distinguished Visiting Teacher, Poly Prep School Brooklyn, NY, 1995
Many talks at conferences and meetings
Phi Beta Kappa speaker, 1998 (selected by Society members)
Fellow, Oakley Center for the Humanities, 1993-94, 1998, 2001-02
The 1998 Williams Family Distinguished Faculty Lecture, Oct 1998
Convocation Address at Butler University, Aug 2005
Principle Administrative Roles and Activities at Williams
Chair, Ad Hoc Committee to Review Tutorials, 1996-97
Committee on Pedagogy, 1996-8
Committee on Educational Policy, 1980-1984
Chair, Committee on Undergraduate Life, 1977-78
Faculty Steering Committee, 1999-2001
Advisory Committee, Inter-Departmental Program for Experimental and Cross-Disciplinary Studies, 2000-2001
Committee on Course Evaluation, 1975-77
Committee on Core Curriculum, 1982-83
Acting Chair, Department of Theatre, 1990-1991
Chair, Division I Research Funding, 1992-93
Bernhard Committee for Distinguished Visitors, 1992-93
Hiring Committee, Department of English
Class Visitation Committee, Dept. of English
Director of English 101, many times
Chair, Curriculum Committee, 1994-1996
Athletic Committee, 1980-1982
Library Committee, 1974-75, 1991-93
Honor and Discipline Committee, 1988-89
Chair, Academic Standing Committee, 1989, 1994-95, 1995-96
Senior House Associate, 1973-76
Chair, Stetson Users' Committee, 1982-83, 1991-92
Adviser to numerous organizations: public speaking, debate, film society, literary magazine, humor magazine
Freshman Adviser, regularly
Provost's Committee on Priorities and Resources, 1977-79
Committee on Audio-Visual Program, 1993-94
Head, Faculty Committee for Child Care, 1982-84
Frequent speaker at Williams Alumni Association meetings
Captain, Faculty Softball Team, 1976-1985
Faculty Basketball Squad, 1972-1987