VanEsveld Adams teaches 19th- and 20th-century British literature and literary and feminist theory and is director of the Women and Gender Studies program. Her publications include "Our Lady of Victorian Feminism: The Madonna in the Work of Anna Jameson, Margaret Fuller, and George Eliot." The research for this book was supported by a Mellon Fellowship at the University of Texas, Austin, and a research associateship at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, Mt. Holyoke College.

Adams has also co-written the explanatory notes for the Random House/Modern Library edition of George Eliot’s "Romola," a Victorian novel set in Renaissance Florence. She received her master’s and doctoral degree from Harvard University.