Lee Bliss | Curriculum Vitae

Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara

Education

B.A. Stanford University, 1965, “with distinction” and Honors in English; honors essay:
“The Grotesque in Modern Southern Fiction: Faulkner, O’Connor, Welty” (Director: Robert Polhemus)

M.A. University of California at Berkeley in English Literature, June 1967

Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley in English Literature, December 1972
Dissertation: “Tragic Structure in the Plays of John Webster and Its Relation to Early Jacobean Drama” (Director: Norman Rabkin)

Professional Experience

1967 | Program Tutor, “Upward Bound,” Mills College, Oakland, CA
1972-1973 | Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Scripps College, Claremont, CA
1974-1975 | Lecturer in English and Humanities, University of California, Los Angeles (Comparative Literature Program)
1975 | Visiting Assistant Professor, Occidental College, Pasadena, CA (summer)
1975-1976 | Lecturer in English, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
1977-1982 | Assistant Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
1982-1988 | Associate Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara
1986 | Visiting Associate Professor of English, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA (Fall Semester)
1988- | Professor of English, University of California, Santa Barbara

Selected Grants and Honors

Special Career Fellow in the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley, 1967-69
Summer Stipend for Younger Humanists, National Endowment for the Humanities, 1974
Junior Faculty Award, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 1976
Faculty Development Affirmative Action Grant, University of California, Santa Barbara: Fall 1979 and Spring 1981
Instructional Improvement Grant, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1981 ($14,000 to purchase BBC-Time/Life Shakespeare series);co-author of Instructional Development Grant of $6500 for ACTER residency, Winter 1984
Fellow, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1988-89 ($1000 for UC Shakespeare Forum, of which I am UCSB representative)
NEH-Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship, 1992-93

Publications

“The Wheel of Fortune and the Maiden Phoenix of Shakespeare’s Henry the Eighth,” English Literary History 42 (1975), 1-25

“Destructive Will and Social Chaos in The Devil’s Law-Case,” Modern Language Review 72 (1977), 513-25

“The Boys from Ephesus: Farce, Freedom and Limit in The Widow’s Tears,” Renaissance Drama, n.s. 10 (1979), 161-83

The World’s Perspective: John Webster and the Jacobean Drama, Rutgers University Press and (in England) Harvester Press, 1983

“Defending Fletcher’s Shepherds,” Studies in English Literature 23 (1983), 259-310

“‘Plot mee no plots’: The Life of Drama and the Drama of Life in The Knight of the Burning Pestle,” Modern Language Quarterly 45 (1984), 3-21

“Three Plays in One: Shakespeare and Philaster,” Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 2 (1985), 153-69

Review of Jonathan Dollimore, Radical Tragedy, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology 84 (1985), 553-56

Reprint: “The Wheel of Fortune and the Maiden Phoenix of Shakespeare’s Henry the Eighth,” in Shakespearean Criticism, 3 vols., ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris and Mark W. Scott (1984)

Reprint: “Defending Fletcher’s Shepherds,” in The Critical Perspective, vol. 3 (The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism, 1986)

Review of Martin Butler, Theatre and Crisis, 1632-1642, in Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986), 349-51

“Tragicomic Romance for the King’s Men, 1609-11: Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Fletcher,” in Comedy from Shakespeare to Sheridan, ed. A.R. Braunmuller and J.C. Bulman (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1986), 148-64

“Don Quixote in England: The Case for The Knight of the Burning Pestle,” Viator 18 (1987), 361-80

Francis Beaumont (Boston: Twayne, 1987)

Reprint: “The Wheel of Fortune and the Maiden Phoenix of Shakespeare’s Henry the Eighth,” in Shakespeare Criticism, gen. ed. Joseph G. Price, vol. 6 (‘King John’ and ‘Henry VIII’), ed. Frances A. Shirley (Garland, 1988)

Review of Susan Wells, The Dialectics of Representation, in Comparative Literature 40 (1988), 281-83

“Pastiche, Burlesque, and Tragicomedy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Drama, ed. A.R. Braunmuller and Michael Hattaway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 237-61

Review of John S. Wilks, The Idea of Conscience in Renaissance Tragedy, in Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1991), 621-22

Review of Philip J. Finkelpearl, Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, on Modern Language Review 87 (April 1992), 432-33

“The Renaissance Griselda: A Woman for All Seasons,” Viator 23 (1992 [published in Spring 1993]), 301-43

Review of Gordon McMulland and Jonathan Hope,eds., The Politics of Tragicomedy: Shakespeare and After, Shakespeare Quarterly 45 (1994), 250-52

“Scribes, Compositors and Annotators: The nature of the Copy for the First Folio Text of Coriolanus,” Studies in Bibliography 50 (1997), 224-61

Review of Ivo Kamps, Historiography and Ideology in Stuart Drama, Shakespeare Quarterly 50 (1999), 11-13

Coriolanus, ed. Lee Bliss, New Cambridge Shakespeare series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Selected Professional Activities

“Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess. or Sex, Nature and the Pastoral Vision,” University of California, Santa Barbara, 1979

“Art and Nature in Dramatic Romance: Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher,” Shakespeare Conference, William Andrews Clark Library, Los Angeles, 1981

Seminar organizer, “Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher,” Shakespeare Association of America meetings, Boston, 1988

Seminar creator and chair, “Shakespeare’s Problem Plays in their Context,” Shakespeare Association of America meetings, Vancouver, 21-23 March 1991

“Renaissance Griselda: the 1599 Patient Grissil, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., February 12, 1993

Seminar respondent, ‘Scolding Shrews and Patient Griseldas: A case of Misogyny or Early Feminism?,’ organized by Carolyn Brown, Shakespeare Association of America meetings, Chicago, 23-25 March 1995

Seminar creator and co-chair (with Gordon McMullan of King’s College, London), ‘Acts of Collaboration: Shakespeare and Others,’ Sixth World Shakespeare Congress, Los Angeles, 7-14 April 1996

Seminar member, with a paper on ‘Politics and Spectacle: Coriolanus from Nahum Tae to J.P. Kemble,’ for a seminar organized by Lori Newcomb on ‘Speculations in Shakespeare: Appropriations and Audiences, 1623-1800,’ Shakespeare Association of America meeting, Cleveland, 19-21 March 1998

Manuscript reader: Renaissance Drama, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Renaissance Quarterly, Viator, University of California Press, Mosaic

Selected University Service

Department of English:

Affirmative Action Committee, 1976-81
Appointments Committee, 1978-79, 1981-82, 1982-83, 1986-87, 1987-88
Undergraduate Committee, 1978-80, 1986-87
Chair, Undergraduate Committee and Undergraduate Advisor, 1984-86
Administrative Committee, 1986-87
Graduate Committee, 1988-89, 1989-90, 1990-91
Campus representative for UC Shakespeare Forum, 1987-2006

University Service:

Arts and Lectures subcommittee (Dance, Drama, Music), 1978-80
Faculty Legislature (Area III), 1982-84
Student Affirmative Action Committee, 1983-85
Committee on Undergraduate Courses, 1986-90, Chair 1989-90
Letters & Science Renaissance Studies Committee, 1984-
General Education Committee, Fall 1988
Special Committee on the Writing Programs, 1989-90
Committee on Research, 1991-92
Humanities RA Fellowship Committee, Spring 1992