Balderston, Daniel
(2023)
Reconstructing the Early Career of Jorge Luis Borges as a Public Speaker: Talks and Courses from 1949 to 1955.
In: Pitt Momentum Funds 2023.
Abstract
One of the least studied aspects of the career of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is how he made a living during the Peronist decade (1946-1955), after he resigned from a modest post in a public library and before his national and world fame, which began with his appointment as the director of the National Library in 1955 (the year he went blind). During these years Borges overcame his fear of public speaking, giving at least three hundred talks and courses by 1955. This project aims to reconstruct all of the extant source materials about this part of his career: announcements of the courses, newspaper coverage of them (in small towns as well as in the capitals of Argentina and Uruguay), his own preparatory materials (particularly notes now housed at the University of Texas and Michigan State University), and typescripts prepared from shorthand transcriptions of some of these talks (which were not recorded), providing a unique point of access to the activities of a prominent intellectual and writer during a time of intellectual and political ferment in Argentina. The reading notes alone are quite extensive, and when published they will substantially increase Borges's total known work.
Share
| Citation/Export: |
|
| Social Networking: |
|
Details
Metrics
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Altmetric.com
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}