Janet Hendrickson, Ph.D.

Janet Hendrickson holds a PhD in Romance Studies from Cornell University and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa. Her current research examines the use of dictionaries and encyclopedias in contemporary hemispheric experimental poetry, focusing particularly on Argentina and Brazil. She also works as a literary translator: her publications include an experimental translation of Sebastián de Covarrubias’s Treasure of the Castilian or Spanish Language (New Directions, 2019), which turns one of the first dictionaries of a European vernacular into a series of prose poems.

Education

  • PhD, Romance Studies, Cornell University
  • MFA, Nonfiction Writing, University of Iowa
  • BA, English, Spanish concentration, University of Dallas

Research Interests

Contemporary Latin American literature, translation studies, media studies, nonfiction, poetics

Selected Publications

Scholarly Articles

  • “Paraliterature.” Cambridge Transitions in Latin American Literature, edited by Debra Castillo and Mónica Szurmuk, vol. 5 (1980–2017), Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
  • “The Reader as Translator: Rewriting the Past in Contemporary Latin American Fiction.” New Trends in Contemporary Latin American Narrative: Post-National Literatures and the Canon, edited by Tim Robbins, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 169–189.

Translations

  • Treasure of the Castilian or Spanish Language. (Experimental translation of Sebastián de Covarrubias.) New Directions, 2019.
  • The Future Is Not Ours, edited by Diego Trelles Paz, Open Letter Books, 2012.

In addition, Janet Hendrickson has published numerous translations of prose and poetry in venues including Granta, n+1, The Guardian, and The White Review.

 

Presentations

Selected Presentations

  • “Everything Is Movable, Nothing Is Translatable: Wlademir Dias-Pino and the Antialphabetic Encyclopedia.” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (March 7–10, 2019).
  • “‘Las palabras son cosas’: Generative Materiality in Mario Ortiz’s Cuadernos de lengua y literatura.” Latin American Studies Association Congress, Barcelona, Spain (May 23–26, 2018). 
  • “Reading and Misuse of Information in Marcelo Brodsky’s ‘The Archives.’” Latin American Studies Association Congress, Lima, Peru (April 29­–May 1, 2017).
  • “Toward a Universal Illiteracy: Reconstructions of the Wor(l)d in Wlademir Dias Pino’s Enciclopédia visual.” American Portuguese Studies Association International Conference, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA (October 13–15, 2016).
  • “Linguagem, tradução e apropriação em Como era gostoso o meu francês.” Seminário Letras Expandidas, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (November 15, 2015).