Nora Benedict

Benedict reading
Blurred image of the arch used as background for stylistic purposes.
Associate Professor of Spanish and Digital Humanities

I am a book historian and digital humanist who focuses on the development of the publishing industry in twentieth-century Latin America. A commonly overlooked fact of every book is the material evidence of its production and manufacture; this has been the central point of departure for much of my research. Instead of examining variants from manuscripts to printed text, my research relies on an analysis of the physical features of any given book to help recount its creation, production, manufacture, and ultimate circulation. In my research I investigate how distinct physical forms—both print and digital—might have emerged and in what ways they shaped specific audiences.

My first monograph, Borges and the Literary Marketplace (Yale University Press, 2021), considers the marked presence of books, periodicals, and other print mediums in Jorge Luis Borges’s life by analyzing the physical features of his publications, which I read through the lens of analytical bibliography and material studies. By looking comprehensively at Borges's publications and editorial work from the 1930s to the 1950s, I argue that his various jobs in the publishing industry changed not only what people read, but how people read. 

I recently co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Jorge Luis Borges with Daniel Balderston, which consists of thirty-five chapters written by prominent senior and junior scholars drawn from twenty-eight research universities across four continents. 

My current project, Global Interdependence in the Latin American Book Market, 1940–1970, examines how international publishing firms directed their energies toward Latin America, what kinds of strategies they employed, and which areas they targeted as they began to enter the market and forge collaborative alliances; it also identifies the kinds of materials that these firms supplied, again driven primarily by market considerations. 

 

Research Areas:
Latin American, Iberian & Latinx Studies
Literary Aesthetics & Poetics
Media, Visual Culture, & Performance Studies
Research Interests:
  • Latin American literature
  • Book History
  • Digital Humanities
  • Publishing History
  • Descriptive and Analytical Bibliography
  • Access and Preservation of the Cultural Record
Grants:

Willson Center Fellowship, University of Georgia, 2021–2022

Alfred A. and Blanche W. Knopf Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, 2019–2022

Courses Regularly Taught:
SPAN 3010
SPAN 3030
SPAN(DIGI) 4085
SPAN 4092
SPAN 6700
Selected Publications:

Books

Articles

  • “Selling Crime by Subscription: W. M. Jackson and the Club de Novelas Laberinto.” Hispanic Review, vol. 92, no. 4, 2024 (Forthcoming)
  • “‘Capítulo de una novela en prensa’: Teaser Chapters and Marketing Strategies in Sur.” Studies in Bibliography, vol. 61, 2024 (Forthcoming)
  • “Compositional Convergence in Whitman and Borges.” Romance Notes, vol. 63, no. 2, 2023, pp. 475–87.
  • “Buyers versus Borrowers: A Look at the Finances of Shakespeare and Company.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqac091.
  • “The Risks and Rewards of Implementing Digital Humanities Methodologies in Modern Language Graduate Research.” Hispania, vol. 104, no. 4, 2021, pp. 571­–82.
  • “MercadoLibre and the Democratization of Books: A Critical Reading of New Material Affordances and Digital Book History.” Book History, vol. 24, no. 1, 2021, pp. 177–208.
  • “The Transcontinental Book Trade: Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company and Victoria Ocampo’s Sur Enterprise.” Modernism/Modernity, vol. 6, cycle 1, 2021, https://modernismmodernity.org/articles/benedict-transcontinental-book-trade-sylvia-beach-ocampo.
  • “(In)visible Collaborations between los hermanos Borges and los Bioy.” Variaciones Borges, vol, 49, 2020, pp. 89–116.  
  • “Los precursores (estéticos) de los Breviarios del Fondo de Cultura Económica.” Revista Bibliographica, vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 104–132.
  • “Books about Books and Books as Material Artifacts: Metabibliography in Jorge Luis Borges’s El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (1941).” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 42, no. 3, 2018, pp. 451–72. [Published in April 2019]
  • “Censorship and Political Allegory in Jorge Luis Borges’s ‘Viejo hábito argentino’.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, vol. 96, no. 1, 2019, pp. 89–107.
  • “Digital Approaches to the Archive: Multispectral Imaging and the Recovery of Borges’s Writing Process in ‘El muerto’ and ‘La casa de Asterión’.” Variaciones Borges, vol. 45, 2018, pp. 153–169.
  • “La novela negra en Jorge Luis Borges: una aproximación nueva a ‘El muerto’.” Variaciones Borges, vol. 39, 2015, pp. 143–158.
  • “Los golpes del escoplo: el arte de grabar como metáfora en La desheredada.” Decimonónica, vol. 11, no. 2, 2014, pp. 1–18.
Of note:

Since a central part of my research involves the analysis of the physical features of books, I am also an avid book collector. You can read more about my (prize-winning!) collection here:

Education:

Ph.D. University of Virginia, Spanish

  • Major Area: Latin American Literature & Cultural Studies; Minor Area: Analytical bibliography 

M.A. University of Wisconsin, Madison, Spanish Literature

B.A. Loyola University Maryland, English, Spanish, Art History (Minor)

Events featuring Nora Benedict
Benedict
February 21, 4:00pm

DIGI Colloquium with Nora Benedict

DIGI Lab, 300 Main Library

Dr. Nora Benedict, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Digital Humanities at UGA, will walk us through the complications and opportunities provided by translating print materials into a digital format in her current digital project, “Global Networks of Cultural Production,” which analyzes the emergence of a transatlantic literary print culture in Argentina during…

Contact Information

nbenedict@uga.edu
Office: Gilbert 311

Other Information

Curriculum Vitae: Benedict_CV_2024.pdf (181.87 KB)
Professional Website: http://norabenedict.github.io/index.html

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