Ben A. Heller

Associate Professor of Spanish
Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Education

M.A. and Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis

B.A., University of Pennsylvania

Research and Teaching Interests

Latin American and Caribbean literature and culture, poetry, the works of José Lezama Lima and the Orígenes group, environmental criticism, translation studies, crime narratives, cultural theory

Biography

Heller’s research and teaching has focused on Latin American poetry, cultural theory, representations of nature and translation. He has concentrated primarily on Cuba and Chile, but has wide-ranging interests in Latin America and the macro-Caribbean region. His first book was on Cuban writer José Lezama Lima, and this figure has continued to influence his thinking in productive ways.

Representative Publications

• Heller, Ben A. “Cartas encontradas: rememorando el cincuentenario de Orígenes (La Habana, 1994)” in La futuridad del naufragio: Orígenes, estelas y derivas, eds. César Salgado and Juan Pablo Lupi. Leiden: Almenara Press: 2019
• Barrientos, Raúl. Running Back Through the Rain/Corriendo bajo la lluvia: Selected poems, 1982-1998, (Swan Isle Press, 2002, ed. and trans. Ben A. Heller; trans. Christopher Maurer) 
• Heller, Ben A. and Elzbieta Sklodowska, eds. Roberto Fernández Retamar y los estudios latinoamericanos (Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, 2000)
• John F. Garganigo, Rene de Costa, Ben A. Heller, Alexandra Luiselli, Georgina Sabat-Rivers, and Elzbieta Sklodowska. Huellas de las literaturas hispanoamericanas (Ed. John F. Garganigo, Pearson, 1997, 2002)
• Heller, Ben A. Assimilation, Generation, Resurrection: Contrapuntal Readings in the Poetry of José Lezama Lima (Bucknell University Press, 1997)