Perry Buckley

Perry Buckley is a professor of literature and English at Wilbur Wright College.  He has taught at the City Colleges of Chicago for 27 years.  In addition to various English courses, he has taught Shakespeare, British Literature, fiction, poetry, and English as a second language.

After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lewis University in Illinois, Buckley moved to England where he received his Master of Arts degree in British Literature from Wroxton College in Oxford.  He then went on to receive a second baccalaureate degree (A.B.) and a doctorate, both in British literature, from the University of London.  Buckley’s mentor and adjudicator for his doctoral defense was Stanley Wells, former director of the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham in Stratford.  Buckley also has a licensed diploma (MA) from Trinity College in teaching English to speakers of other languages.

Buckley’s doctoral thesis “Shakespeare’s New Problem Plays” dealt with the problems of staging “politically incorrect” topics in Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century and how these can be mitigated through directorial adaptation and decisions.  He covered such works as Othello, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew,and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

 From 2000 – 2003 Buckley was four times a presenter at The Shakespeare Globe Theater in London for the Globe’s Theater Educational Center for workshops which discussed censorship in Shakespeare productions.

Buckley is currently on leave from Wright College as he serves as president of the Cook County College Teachers Union, a union which serves faculty and staff at the 14 community colleges and three institutes in Cook County.

Buckley spends his free time with his wife Lillian in their 405 year old thatched cottage in Wroxton - St. Mary, Oxfordshire, about 17 miles from Stratford.