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Carmen Benito-Vessels

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Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese

2215A Jiménez Hall
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Research Expertise

Early Modern Studies
Middle Ages

Curriculum Vitae

A graduate of the Universities of Salamanca (1977), and California-Santa Barbara (1988), Dr. Benito-Vessels is the author of several books among them: Juan Manuel: Escritura y recreación de la historia (University of Wisconsin, Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1994), La palabra en el tiempo de las letras. Una historia heterodoxa (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007), Lenguaje y valor en la literatura medieval española (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2013), España y la costa atlántica de los EEUU. Cuatro personajes del siglo XVI en busca de autor (New York: ANLE, 2018), “Otro cincel para Rosetta. España y el español en la temprana modernidad de los EE. UU” (Submitted for publication). She is one of the editors of two volumes: The Picaresque. A Symposium on the Rogue's Tale (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1994) and Women at Work in Spain from The Middle Ages to Early Modern Times (New York: Peter Lang 1998). Benito-Vessels is also the co-author of Horizontes: Cultura y Literatura (Boston: Heinle and Heinle, 3rd edition 1997, and 4TH edition 2000). She has published articles and conducts research on the fields of Medieval historiography and poetry, the interaction of medieval literary genres and on Hispanic Philology.

Her most recent project is the 2024 Digital collection: “The Missing Link. Spain and North America in the 16th century” and a book of short stories titled Caleidoscopio is available now. See Press Release Here.

Interviews & Presentations

Courses and seminars: Medieval Spanish Literature, History of the Spanish Language.

Creative

Digital Collection "The Missing Link"

The primary goal of this project is to bring to light 16th-century colonial events that happened in the Eastern United States and shaped the history of both the US and Spain.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Non-ARHU Contributor(s): This StoryMaps Collection was supported by the GIS and Data Service Center at University of Maryland Libraries.
Dates:
inset image for digital project titled "The Missing Link"

An interactive guide to accompany Carmen Benito-Vessels’ research about early modern Spain and the early modern United States.

Interview posted in Big10 Geoportal "Finding “The Missing Link”: An Interview with Carmen Benito-Vessels".

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Publications

Caleidoscopio

Caleidoscopio es una ventana a los esplendores secretos del mundo de Carmen Benito-Vessels en 49 narraciones

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:

Caleidoscopio es una ventana a los esplendores secretos del mundo de Carmen Benito-Vessels en 49 narraciones ––algunas cuentos, otras ejercicios de memoria, algunas más observaciones sobre lo que no se entiende del mundo, pero debería entenderse—. Esta colección es un fichero de historias, a menudo hilarantes y siempre agudas, en las que una mente curiosa y elegante medita sobre lo chico en lo grande, sobre lo que solo se puede encontrar entrelíneas, sobre lo que da claridad entre la opacidad de lo grandilocuente. Si leer ficción es siempre una necesidad crítica ––leyendo aprendemos maneras nuevas de pensar–– y una empresa estética ––ciertas escrituras nos dan placer––, en Caleidoscopio de Carmen Benito-Vessels el placer critico viene de la posibilidad de ver al mundo desde un lugar que hace brillar lo que muestra.

Grupo Editorial Círculo Rojo SL (December 30, 2024)

Caleidoscopio

España y la costa atlántica de los EE.UU. Cuatro personajes del siglo XVI en busca de autor.

El periodo que aquí se estudia abarca desde 1520 hasta 1572, gira en torno a las primeras colonias fundadas en Norteamérica que fueron las de Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón y Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:
España y la costa atlántica de los EE.UU. Cuatro personajes del siglo XVI en busca de autor.
El periodo que aquí se estudia abarca desde 1520 hasta 1572, gira en torno a las primeras colonias fundadas en Norteamérica que fueron las de Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón y Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

Read More about España y la costa atlántica de los EE.UU. Cuatro personajes del siglo XVI en busca de autor.

Lenguaje y Valor En La Literatura Medieval Espanola

Language and money function metaphorically in similar ways; therefore, we tend to accept or reject the value of a coin or the coining of a word for very similar reasons.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures | Spanish and Portuguese

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:
book cover of cbenito lenguaje y valor

Language and money function metaphorically in similar ways; therefore, we tend to accept or reject the value of a coin or the coining of a word for very similar reasons. Benito-Vessels presents an overview of language-value and money-value in several historical time periods and specifically focuses on the early appreciation of language as an instrument of power in five medieval Spanish texts: Cantar de mio Cid, Bocados de oro, Tractado de amores de Arnalte y Lucenda, Sergas de Esplandián and Estoria de España. Through a close reading of these and other medieval and contemporary texts, the author demonstrates that the name of Beatriz de Suabia was considered of such value that it was misused as currency. Carmen Benito-Vessels is a Professor of Medieval Studies and History of the Spanish Language at the University of Maryland. She earned her M.A. in Romance Philology at the University of Salamanca (1977), she pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Lisbon (1977-79) and obtained her Ph.D. at the University of California-Santa Barbara (1988). Benito-Vessels is "Miembro Colaborador" of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language and she is the author and editor of several books and numerous articles, including: Juan Manuel: Escritura y recreación de la historia (1994); Women at Work in Spain. From the Middle Ages to Early Modern Times (1998); and La palabra en el tiempo de las letras. Una historia heterodoxa (2007).

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La palabra en el tiempo de las letras: una historia heterodoxa

Esta obra se tiende un puente entre la filosofia clasica, la tradicion judeocristiana y la filosofia contemporanea.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:
La palabra en el tiempo de las letras: una historia heterodoxa
Esta obra se tiende un puente entre la filosofia clasica, la tradicion judeocristiana y la filosofia contemporanea. La autora muestra que en toda epoca ha habido una veneracion por la palabra que permite identificar el ser de la lengua y el ser del hombre. El ensayo estudia la lengua como ser-en un sentido orteguiano y en su manifestacion ontologica-a traves de la literatura espanola, desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros dias. Partiendo de una solida base filologica, Benito-Vassels ve el discurso como una forma de vida y considera, a su vez, la vida como un discurso textual o palimpsesto, en el que se inserta el ser del hablante. Aqui se nos ofrece una historia heterodoxa del espanol en la que Dios y los academicos estan en la misma pagina y en la que la judeidad-diferente del judaismo-se revela como elemento esencial en el espanol.

Horizontes, Cultura y literatura

This book introduces the reader to the Spanish-speaking world through authentic, interesting, and culturally rich reading selections.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:
book cover image horizontes

This book introduces the reader to the Spanish-speaking world through authentic, interesting and culturally rich reading selections. These readings have been chosen for their ability to communicate the way in which native speakers of Spanish think, act and feel in everyday situations ranging from the daily preoccupations of life in the city to the profound expression of myths and traditions. Many readings are preceded by helpful vocabulary lists, and each text is presented along with a targeted reading strategy. Activities before and after each reading selection maximize opportunities to increase and practice speaking skills.

Wiley; 3rd edition (January 15, 1997)

 

Women at Work in Spain: From the Middle Ages to Early Modern Times

Women at Work in Spain offers evidence that women not only managed large estates and conducted the economic life of monasteries, but they also produced wealth through their labor as migrant and farm workers.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures | Spanish and Portuguese

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Non-ARHU Contributor(s): Marilyn Stone
Dates:
book cover of cbenito women at work in Spain

Women at Work in Spain offers evidence that women not only managed large estates and conducted the economic life of monasteries, but they also produced wealth through their labor as migrant and farm workers. These essays offer important data unearthed from archives in Castile, Leon, Toledo, and Seville, by documenting the contribution of women to the economic and cultural development of the Iberian Peninsula. These studies reveal that the survival of cultural traditions, the writing and illustrating of manuscripts, and the flowering of the printing industry were often in the hands of women.

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Juan Manuel: Escritura y recreación de la historia

Este volumen se dedica al análisis de la Crónica abreviada y al estudio de la interpretación de la historia en El conde Lucanor.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures | Spanish and Portuguese

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:
book cover of cbenito juan manuel

Este volumen se dedica al análisis de la Crónica abreviada y al estudio de la interpretación de la historia en El conde Lucanor. Los cuentos de carácter histórico de El conde Lucanor y el texto de la Crónica abreviada se basan en el mismo principio de composición narrativa: la abbreviatio. En los cuentos se puntualiza y se depura el texto referencial a fin de lograr la ejemplaridad a la que obliga el género literario de la colección; en la crónica, en cambio, Juan Manuel resume un texto referencial para destacar lo que es relevante para sí mismo y para su clan familiar. En ambas obras, Juan Manuel aúna el gusto por la experimentación literaria con el pragmatismo político y da lugar a una genuina interacción dialógica entre historia y ficción.

La Crónica abreviada demuestra el valor político literario de un texto que se elaboró fuera del patrocinio regio y que tenía aspiraciones monárquicas. Aunque Juan Manuel hizo amplio uso de lo imaginario en aras de la política en su Libro de las armas, la Crónica abreviada constituye el primer paso oficial en su reclamación monárquica.

Picaresque: A Symposium on the Rogue's Tale

Like cartographers after the Treaty of Versailles, contemporary critics of picaresque literature are hard at work redrawing lines and polemicizing boundaries in an attempt to resolve prevailing problems of definition and method.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Carmen Benito-…
Dates:

Like cartographers after the Treaty of Versailles, contemporary critics of picaresque literature are hard at work redrawing lines and polemicizing boundaries in an attempt to resolve prevailing problems of definition and method. To reevaluate this canon of texts and to address critical issues, a group of internationally renowned scholars gathered in April 1989 for a two-day conference, "The Picaresque: A Symposium on the Rogue' s Tale," which was held at the University of Maryland at College Park and sponsored by the Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies in conjunction with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. The essays in this volume grew out of this scholarly exchange and map out an unusually broad landscape of contemporary critical concern.

This volume represents the diversity of scholarly approaches to the study of picaresque and opens up new questions concerning the picaresque canon, especially regarding its criteria for the definition of parameters that include elements from classical antiquity to contemporary theory.

(January 1, 1994)