Alan W. Powers is Emeritus Professor of English at Bristol Community College.

His courses including Shakespeare and Western World Literature, he has published articles on Shakespeare and Renaissance law, folklore, Renaissance Italian drama (which he also translates) and medicine.

Left: Ariosto's Castle (16th C), Garfagnana, Italy

Giordano Bruno's Habitable Worlds

Bruno was the first modern, a man of letters and even "science writer." His incredible story is told in Alan's new book (see panel, right)

Left: Petrarch's Hous6e (13th Century), Arqua Petrarca, Italy

Courses:

• English 58: Shakespeare. 
  Seven or eight plays, plus additional videos and one live performance: e.g., Taming, MFM, Henry the Fifth, Lear.  Attention to issues of English culture and history, including spousals, wardship,  literacy, ethnicity, and the change of reign.
• English 51:  World Literature.  
  Ancient to Renaissance, the basic texts upon which Western Culture is founded (from Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, French and Spanish). Also some passing notice of, for example, the Qur'an. Old and New Testament, Homer, Aristophanes, Plautus, Ovid, Vergil, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, etc. 
• English 33:  Beginning Poetry Writing.  
  Practice in the skills and art of verse composition, plus substantial reading of contemporary poetry in English.

National Grants:

• NEH Seminar, Campania Felix, Naples, Italy 2000.
• Whiting Foundation Fellowship in Italy and England, 1996.
• Northeast MLA Summer Fellowship, 1996.
• JC Brown Library, NEH Institute, Maritime History, 1992.
• Folger Library, D.C., NEH Seminar, Ceremony & Text,1991
• Breadloaf, Vt.  NEH Seminar, Cultural History, 1990.
• Cornell U. NEH Seminar, Medicine & Humanities, 1986.
• Harvard U. NEH Seminar, Shakespeare & Genre, 1983.
• Brown U. NEH Fellowship in Renaissance Italian History  and  Popular Culture, 1979-80.
• Princeton U. NEH Seminar on Comparative Lit., 1978.
• National Merit Scholarship, at Amherst College, 1962-66.
• Amherst Fellowship, at U. of Minnesota, 1966.
   

Musical Setting and Compositions:

• W.B. Yeats, Words for Music Perhaps, BCC LRC
  _________"Brown Penny," Fuller St. Music, ASCAP
• Dylan Thomas, "Death Shall Have No Dominion,"
  A. Powers, "Up thrush," and "Dorset Bird," jazz songs, ASCAP
• A. Powers, lyrics to Andrew McWain, "The Carpenter's Son," Fuller St. Music, ASCAP

Film Appearances:

(Onscreen humanist) 
A Loaded Gun, directed J. Wolpaw, on Emily Dickinson's poetry.

Keats and His Nightingale, directed J. Wolpaw, 
Oscar-nominated, 1986.