School of Writing, Literature, and Film

Richmond Barbour taught English literature at Oregon State University from 1992 to his
retirement in 2022. He specializes in Renaissance literature and culture, Shakespeare,
theater history, travel writing, cross-cultural relations, and oceanic history. He taught
Classical Drama and Classical Mythology and led several Study Abroad sessions in
Athens and London. His research interests include Ben Jonson, authorship, early modern
print culture, London’s theatrical and maritime industries in Shakespeare’s day, the birth
of the English East India Company, and the emergence of global corporate power. He has
received numerous grants for research at the British Library and the Huntington Library.
His articles have appeared in Publications of the Modern Language Association,
Huntington Library Quarterly, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Criticism,
and Clio; and his book chapters are featured in several edited collections, including:
Travel and Drama in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Travel
& Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World (University of
Nebraska Press, 2019); and England’s Asian Renaissance (University of Delaware Press,
2021). He has published three books: Before Orientalism. London’s Theatre of the East,
1576-1626 (Cambridge University Press, 2003, reprinted in paperback, 2009); The Third
Voyage Journals: Writing and Performance in the London East India Company, 1607-10
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2009); and The Loss of the “Trades Increase”: An Early Modern
Maritime Catastrophe (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). The last book earned a
major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was shortlisted for the
Mountbatten Award, “Best Book of 2021,” by the U.K.’s Maritime Foundation.