Richard C. Harris


Professor Richard C. Harris

John J. McMullen Professor of Humanities/Assistant Dean/Director of Humanities

 

Education

Ph.D. in English, UNC-Chapel Hill (1974)

M.A. in English, UNC-Chapel Hill (1968)

A.B. in English with Honors, Phi Beta Kappa, UNC—Chapel Hill (1967)

 

Back to Faculty

Assistant Dean (Sept. 2007-present)

Coordinator—Webb Assessment Program for MSCHE (1995-present)

Director—Humanities Program (1996-present)

Coordinator—Webb Lecture Series (1997-2009)

Coordinator—Zeien Lecture Series (2000-2020)

Faculty Secretary (1997-2001)

Numerous committee chairmanships and memberships

  • Professor, Humanities Department, SUNY-Maritime College (1975 – 1996)
  • Adjunct Professor, English Department, Hofstra University (1974 – 1975)
  • TA/Instructor, English Department, UNC-Chapel Hill (1970 – 1973)
  • Instructor, English Department, Virginia Polytechnic Institute (1968-1970)
  • Technical Communication
  • American History
  • Western Literature
  • Western Culture I and II
  • Professional Presentations
  • Creative Writing
  • History of Architecture
  • Social History of Rock and Roll
  • Introduction to Classic Films

Publications:

  • Forthcoming: “Cather, Sassoon, and the Church of St. Ouen.” Willa Cather Review (Spring 2020).
  • “Cather’s ‘Doomed’ Novel: One of Ours and the Chivalric Tradition.” Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Spring 2017).
  • “Claude Wheeler’s Visit to the Church of St. Ouen.” Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Spring 2017).
  • “The Great War.” Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Spring 2017).
  • “Willa Cather, Howard Pyle, and ‘The Precious Message of Romance.'” Cather Studies, vol. 11 (U of Nebraska P, 2017).
  •  Willa Cather and the Art of ‘Recoverable Contexts.'” The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Winter 2015).
  • “Thackeray’s Henry Esmond and The Virginians: Literary Sources for Cather’s My Mortal Enemy.Cather Studies, vol. 10 (U of Nebraska P, 2015).
  • “Dear Alfred’/’Dear Miss Cather’: Willa Cather and Alfred Knopf, 1920-1947.” Studies in the Novel. Special Number: The Work of Willa Cather: Creation, Design, and Reception (Fall 2013).
  • “On the Title for One of Ours.”  The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Spring 2013).
  • “Willa Cather and One of Ours.” The Literary Encyclopedia. 2013.
  • “Cather, Edward Burne-Jones, and the Art of Enchantment.” The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Fall-Winter 2012).
  • “Willa Cather and Henry Blake Fuller: More Building Blocks for The Professor’s House.” Willa Cather and Modern Cultures.  Cather Studies, vol. 9 (U of Nebraska P, 2011).
  • “The Newly Discovered Cather-Alfred A. Knopf Correspondence and One of Ours.”  Feature article, The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Spring 2011).
  • “Pershing’s Crusaders:  G. P. Cather, Claude Wheeler, and the AEF Soldier in France.” Willa Cather: A Writer’s Worlds, Cather Studies, vol. 8 (U of Nebraska P, 2010).
  • “Wagnerian References in the Fiction of Willa Cather.” Outside the Ring: Wagner’s Non-Ring Operas (McFarland, Fall 2009).
  • “‘Happy Birthday, Dear and Noble Artist’:  Willa Cather, Yehudi Menuhin, and the Schubert Letters.” Willa Cather: New Facts, New Glimpses, Revisions. (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2008).
  • “Cather’s A Lost Lady and Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin.” The Willa Cather Newsletter and Review (Fall 2007).
  • “Over There from Over Here: Willa Cather, the Implied Reader, and One of Ours,” in Violence, the Arts, and Willa Cather (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2007).
  • “Barbusse’s L’enfer: A Source for ‘Aphrodite’ and ‘The Novel Démeublé.’” Willa Cather as Cultural IconCather Studies, vol. 7: (U of Nebraska P, 2007).
  •  Volume Editor for The Scholarly Edition of Willa Cather’s One of Ours (U of Nebraska P, 2006).
  •  “Getting Claude Over There: Sources for Book Four of Cather’s One of Ours.” Feature article, Journal of Narrative Theory (Fall 2005).

 

Papers and Presentations:

  • “Cather, Sassoon, and the Church of St. Ouen.” Presented at the Western Literature Association 2019 Annual Meeting. Estes Park, CO.  September 2019.
  • “Men of Bronze: The Harlem Hellfighters of World War I.” North Shore Historical Museum.  Glen Cove, NY.  September 2018.
  • “Claude Wheeler and Willa Cather Go to Church; A Close Reading of the St. Ouen Passage in One of Ours.” 16th International Willa Cather Seminar. Duquesne University. Pittsburgh; June 2017.
  • “The Election of 1840: Our First ‘Modern’ Election.” North Shore Historical Museum, Glen Cove, NY. December 2016.
  • “The Bronx: The Original Webb Site.” Presented at the Webb Homecoming May 2016.
  • “Willa Cather’s ‘Doomed Novel’ : One of Ours and the Chivalric Tradition.” Plenary presentation at the Willa Cather Spring Conference, Red Cloud, NE ; June 2016.
  • “Willa Cather and the Visual Arts.” Panel presentation at the 15th International Willa Cather Seminar. Lincoln, NE; June 2015.
  • “World War I: Reality and Disillusionment.”  North Shore Historical Museum.  Glen Cove, NY; September 2014.
  • “Willa Cather and the Art of ‘Recoverable Contexts’: Source Materials for One of Ours.”  Willa Cather Symposium. Rome; June 2014.
  • “The Remarkable Mr. Webb.”  Presented on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the founding of Webb Institute. Glen Cove, NY; May 2014.
  • “Willa Cather, Howard Pyle, and ‘The Precious Message of Romance.’”  Panel presentation at the 27th Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists, sponsored by the School of Visual Arts. New York, NY; October 2013.
  • “Willa Cather, Howard Pyle, and ‘The Precious Message of Romance.’”  Plenary presentation at the 14th International Willa Cather Seminar. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ; June 2013.
  • “Cather, Edward Burne-Jones, and the Art of Enchantment.”  Presented at the Willa Cather Spring Conference—Willa Cather and April Twilights. Red Cloud, NE; June 2012.
  • “Thackeray’s Henry Esmond and The Virginians: Literary Sources for Cather’s My Mortal Enemy.”  Plenary presentation at the 13th International Willa Cather Seminar. Smith College, Northampton, MA; June 2011.
  • Panelist and Presenter at the 2011 Willa Cather Spring Conference—Cather and Popular Culture.  Red Cloud, NE; April 2011.
  • “The Cather-Knopf Correspondence, 1921-1923.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Literature Association. Prescott, AZ; October 2010.
  • Panelist and Presenter at the 2010 Willa Cather Spring Conference—Food and Drink in Cather’s Fiction. Red Cloud, NE; June 2010.
  • “Willa Cather’s War: The Use of Journalistic Sources in One of Ours.”  Presented at the 23rd Annual National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists.  The School of Visual Arts.  New York; October 2009.
  • “Willa Cather and Henry Blake Fuller: More Building Blocks for The Professor’s House.”  Presented at the 12th International Willa Cather Seminar.  Chicago; June 2009.
  • “Cather and Her Contemporaries: The Critical Debate over One of Ours.”  Keynote address at the 2008 Willa Cather Spring Conference. Red Cloud, NE; June 2008.
  • “Elementary, My Dear Watson: Cather Scholarship and the New York Times Historical Index.”  Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Literature Association. Tacoma, WA; October 2007.
  • “’Pershing’s Crusaders’: G. P. Cather and the American Expeditionary Force in France.”  Plenary session paper presented at the 11th International Willa Cather Seminar 2007; The Sorbonne, Paris; June 2007.
  • “One Little Feller’s Quest for ‘Something Splendid’: Another Look at Cather’s Claude Wheeler.”  Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Literature Association. Boise, ID; October 2006.
  •  “Cather’s A Lost Lady and Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin.”  Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Literature Association. San Francisco, CA; May 2006.
  • “’Happy Birthday, Dear and Noble Artist’: Willa Cather, Yehudi Menuhin, and the Schubert Letters.”  Presented at the Cather Colloquium, Drew University; September 2005.
  • “Over There from Over Here: Willa Cather, the Implied Reader, and One of Ours.”  Plenary session paper presented at the 10th International Willa Cather Seminar; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; June 2005.
  • Attended Middle States Town Hall Meeting on revised standards and schedules; Philadelphia, October 2016.
  • Attended Middle States workshop “Standard 14 in Characteristics of Excellence.” University of Delaware; Newark, DE, 2007
  • Attended Middle States workshop “Taking the Next Step.” University of Delaware; Newark, DE, 2007
  • Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition (In Gratitude for Your Efforts to Preserve and Propagate the History of the 369th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment, Also Known as the “Harlem Hellfighters,” 2019
  • Named John J. McMullen Professor of Humanities, 2007
  • Named a Distinguished Scholar, Inaugural Willa Cather Scholar’s Summit, 2004
  • Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History for edition of Memorandum of a Jaunt: Peter S. Townsend and the New York Lyceum of Natural History, May-June 1817, 2002
  • Phi Beta Kappa
  • Western Literature Association
  • Assistant Dean, 1996-present
  • Director of Humanities Program, 1996-present
  • Coordinator of Assessment, 1996-present
  • Coordinator, Exchange Program with the University of Southampton, UK, 2008-present
  • Coordinator, Zeien Lecture Series, 2000-present
  • Faculty Coordinator, Annual Founder’s Day Event
  • Faculty Coordinator, “Midnight” Breakfasts
  • Author/Editor: Webb Guide for Submitted Work, Webb Guide to the Senior Year (Junior Year), Webb Guide to the Senior Thesis (Senor Year)
  • Co-Editor: Webb News
  • Adviser to students on resumes and letters of inquiry/application for jobs
  • Committee Memberships and Chairmanships
    • Admissions Committee
    • Curriculum Committee
    • International Programs Exchange Committee
    • Faculty Honor Committee
    • Library Committee
    • Thesis Committee
    • Faculty Search Committee
    • Fine Arts Committee