Joyce Sparer Adler

Joyce Sparer Adler (December 2, 1915 – September 13, 1999) was an American critic, playwright, and teacher. She was a founding member of the faculty of the University of Guyana, She resigned from her teaching position in 1954 . She held a number of jobs during the 1950s, including writing television screenplays and editing for the journal Blood. She lived in Shaftsbury, Vermont for the remainder of her life, raising three of her grandchildren after the death of her daughter Ellen in 1975.

Shortly after coming to Vermont she began work on her book War in Melville's Imagination (New York: New York University Press, 1981. ).

She adapted three Melville novels as plays, published as the book Dramatizations of Three Melville Novels, with an Introduction on Interpretation by Dramatization (Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. ). Her play Melville, Billy and Mars, a dramatization of Billy Budd, premiered at the University of Kansas in 1995. Her dramatization of Moby-Dick received its first dramatic reading in Kahului, Hawaii at an international meeting of the Melville Society in 2003. Her Benito Cereno was first staged at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 2005.

Adler traveled extensively, speaking at conferences and universities around the world, including Australia, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

In addition to her professional work, Adler was a committed social activist who engaged in many peace and civil rights movements throughout her life.