Dr. Monique R. Balbuena

Professional Background

Monique Rodrigues Balbuena is an associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Oregon. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and a master’s degree in comparative literature, both from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, as well as a PhD in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Her monograph, Homeless Tongues: Poetry and Languages of the Sephardic Diaspora (2016), was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Sephardic Culture category. Dr. Balbuena has been a research fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard and the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, and was a visiting professor at the Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She has taken part in three Mandel Center academic programs - the Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar for Faculty, the Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar, and a Summer Research Workshop. Dr. Balbuena received a course development grant from the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University, and also participated in its Annual Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization and a Regional Institute on Visual Culture and the Holocaust.

Dr. Balbuena sits on several editorial boards, including The Journal of Jewish of Identities, and is the modern literature editor of the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (Brill). Currently, she is a member of the board of directors of the Association for Jewish Studies. Dr. Balbuena is also the secretary and incoming chair of the Sephardic Studies Discussion Group board at the Modern Language Association. A translator and scholar of multilingual poetry, she also writes about new Ladino poetry. Dr. Balbuena works with French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Ladino, German, Arabic, Catalan, Italian, and English sources.

Fellowship Research

Dr. Monique Rodrigues Balbuena was awarded the Sosland Foundation Fellowship to develop her project, “Sephardic Literary Responses to the Holocaust.” Defining “Sephardi,” grosso modo, as Jews who descend from Jews exiled from the Iberian Peninsula, her project favors literary genres—mainly poetry, song, and drama—in different languages used by Sephardic Jews from Europe, Israel, and Latin America. Her research considers four main periods: works created during the war, soon after liberation, several years later, as well as works by second and third generation survivors.

Dr. Balbuena's scholarly focus includes the genres of poetry and song. Through her extensive review of survivors' testimonies, public and private documents, and archival materials, Balbuena aims to identify and then analyze songs sung by Sephardic Jews, including versions of tangos in Sephardic languages. She seeks to broaden the Holocaust literary canon as she incorporates previously overlooked Sephardic perspectives by adding new texts and unheard voices in multiple accents.

Residency Period: October 1, 2023–May 31, 2024