LUPACK, Barbara Tepa 1951-

PERSONAL:

Born 1951; married Alan Lupack (a scholar and librarian).

ADDRESSES:

Home—375 Oakdale Dr., Rochester, NY 14618.

CAREER:

Former academic dean, State University of New York; former Fulbright professor of American Literature in Poland and France; University of Rochester Robbins Library, Rochester, NY, co-designer of The Camelot Project; writer.

WRITINGS:

Plays of Passion, Games of Chance: Jerzy Kosinski and His Fiction, Wyndham Hall Press (Bristol, IN), 1988.

(Editor) Take Two: Adapting the Contemporary American Novel to Film, Bowling Green State University Popular Press (Bowling Green, OH), 1994.

Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction: Inmates Running the Asylum, University Press of Florida (Gainesville, FL), 1995.

(Editor) Vision/Re-Vision: Adapting Contemporary American Fiction by Women to Film, Bowling Green State University Popular Press (Bowling Green, OH), 1996.

(Editor) Critical Essays on Jerzy Kosinski, G. K. Hall (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor with husband, Alan Lupack) Arthurian Literature by Women, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor) Nineteenth-Century Women at the Movies: Adapting Classic Women's Fiction to Film, Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, OH), 1999.

(With A. Lupack) King Arthur in America, D. S. Brewer (Rochester, NY), 1999.

Literary Adaptations in Black American Cinema: From Micheaux to Morrison, University of Rochester Press (Rochester, NY), 2002.

(Editor) Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenalia, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to scholarly periodicals.

ADAPTATIONS:

Lupack and her husband are featured in the educational video Tracing the Arthurian Tradition.

SIDELIGHTS:

Barbara Tepa Lupack is a scholar whose interests range widely through modern literature, film adaptation, the King Arthur legends, and the work of Polish author Jerzy Kosinski. Lupack has worked with her husband, Alan Lupack, on several books about King Arthur, and they also designed the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester's Robbins Library. This project is compiling a comprehensive database on all aspects of Arthurian literature, art, film, and critical studies. Lupack's contributions to Arthurian scholarship include King Arthur in America, an examination of how Arthurian legends have been adapted to suit American audiences, tastes, and cultural norms, and Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenalia, a project that explores books and films about King Arthur for younger audiences.

Lupack's Plays of Passion, Games of Chance: Jerzy Kosinski and His Fiction includes biographical material on the writer and a critical treatment of his books. Choice contributor C. G. Masinton called the work "a fine example of applied criticism," and Stan Fogel in Modern Fiction Studies found it "a good book for anyone who wants an introduction to Kosinski and his writing." Kosinski's Being There is one of the novels covered in Lupack's Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction: Inmates Running the Asylum, a book that College Literature contributor Terry Caesar commended as "lucidly written and solidly researched."

Lupack has published several volumes about film, with emphasis on adaptations of novels into movies. The essays in Vision/Re-Vision: Adapting Contemporary American Fiction by Women to Film look at individual books and films to form a general picture of how content is altered from the original medium to the adaptation. Literary Adaptations in Black American Cinema: From Micheaux to Morrison explores how African-American artists and intellectuals have sought to create an authentic cinematic experience for black viewers. Variety reviewer Katheline St. Fort called the work "intriguing" and described it as "full of engrossing behind-the-scenes details."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, September, 1989, C. G. Masinton, review of Plays of Passion, Games of Chance: Jerzy Kosinski and His Fiction, p. 126; November, 1999, D. C. Homan, review of King Arthur in America, p. 538.

College Literature, Volume 24, number 2, Terry Caesar, review of Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction, pp. 225-227.

Journal of American Studies, August, 1998, S. M. Grant, review of Vision/Re-Vision: Adapting Contemporary American Fiction by Women to Film, pp. 326-327.

Modern Fiction Studies, April 24, 1990, Stan Fogel, review of Plays of Passion, Games of Chance, pp. 764-766.

Variety, July 1, 2002, Katheline St. Fort, "Niche Tomes Take Polar Paths," p. 37.*