Ksenija Bilbija
Credentials: Associate Chair
Position title: Professor
Email: kbilbija@wisc.edu
Address:
1070 Van Hise Hall
Spring 2025 Office Hours
coming in late January
Biography
Ksenija Bilbija specializes in cultural studies, gender criticism, and post-traumatic memory, with interest in Spanish American Literatures. Most recently, in 2022, she authored Ni perversas ni traidoras: Ficciones de colaboración femenina en las dictaduras de Argentina y Chile, Santiago: Cuarto Propio, 2022. In this volume she looks at the uses and abuses of the so-called Stockholm Syndrome and the ways that literary and visual texts of the XXI century articulate issues of female complicity and morality along with resistance, revenge, and restitution, all related to military dictatorships. She is also the autor of Cuerpos Textuales: Metáforas de la génesis narrativa en la literatura latinoamericana del siglo XX (Latinoamericana Editores, 2001), as well as Yo soy trampa: Ensayos sobre la obra de Luisa Valenzuela (Buenos Aires: Feminaria, 2003). She co-edited The Art of Truth-Telling About Authoritarian Rule (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005) and Accounting for Violence: Marketing Memory in Latin America with Leigh Payne (Duke UP in 2011) as well as published translations of work by María Luisa Bombal, Luisa Valenzuela, Mario Benedetti, and Clarice Lispector into her native Serbo-croatian. From 2001-2006 she was the Editor of Letras Femeninas: Revista de Literatura Femenina Hispánica. From 2007-2012 she was the Director of the Latin American Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program. She co-edited Academia Cartonera: A Primer of Latin American Cartonera Publishers (with Paloma Celis Carbajal, Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, 2009) a bilingual collection of manifestoes accompanied by a CD with academic articles on cartonero publishing phenomenon. In 2014 she co-edited with Marguerite Feitlowitz a special issue of the journal Review: Literatures and Arts of the Americas titled “Beyond Violence: Towards Justice in Latin American Writing and Arts.” Most recently, in 2017, she coedited with Ana Forcinito and Bernardita Llanos a volume “Poner el cuerpo: rescatar y visibilizar las macros sexual y de genera de los archives dictatorialness del Cono Sur” published by Cuarto Propio en Santiago de Chile.
Ksenija’s research broadly looks at how cultural memory and memorialization work within neoliberal society. Her research agenda is multidisciplinary in the sense that it bridges political sociology, textual analysis, and gender study.
Another line of her research explores the rise of cartonera presses, progressive publishing paradigm that challenges and contests the neoliberal political and economic hegemony. It started with Eloisa Cartonera in Argentina (2003) and has spread to other Latin American and European cities. Ksenija is the principal investigator in charge of cartonera publishing for the project Editores y Editoriales Iberoamericanos (siglos XIX-XXI) – EDI-RED. This is the first academic portal invested in mapping the cultural history of publishing in Spanish and it is supported by the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes and coordinated by the Center of Human and Social Sciences in Madrid (CSIC). Within this line of research she is looking at gender issues within cartonera presses as well as strategies they employ in contesting neoliberal economy.
Education
PhD, University of Iowa
Honors and Awards
2017. Center for European Studies Faculty Research Award.
2014-16. Graduate School Research Committee Grant.
2004-15. Wisconsin/Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Award.
2013. Nominated as an Honored Instructor by the Division of University Housing.
2010. PI NRC Title VI Federal Grant.
2008. Course Development Grant from Human Rights Initiative, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2007-09. PI NRC Title VI Federal Grant.
2007-09. Vilas Associate Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2007. Special Interest Honor Book, American Association of School Librarians and Public Library Association for The Art of Truth Telling About Authoritarian Rule.
Publications
Akademia Cartonera: A Primer of Latin American Cartonera Publishers
REVIEW: Literatures and Arts of the Americas, Guest co-editors: Marguerite Feitlowitz and Ksenija Bilbija (Beyond Violence: Towards Justice in Latin American Writing and Arts) Issue 88, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2014.
Akademia Cartonera: A Primer of Latin American Cartonera Publishers, eds. Ksenija Bilbija and Paloma Celis-Carbajal, Madison: Parallel Press University of Wisconsin Library, (2009)
The Art of Truth-Telling About Authoritarian Rule, Eds. Ksenija Bilbija, Jo Ellen Fair, Leigh Payne, Cynthia Milton. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, (2005)
- Award: Special Interest Honor Book, American Association of School Librarians and Public Library Association (2007)
Yo soy trampa: Ensayos sobre la obra de Luisa Valenzuela, Buenos Aires: Feminaria, (2003)
Cuerpos textuales: metáforas de la génesis narrativa en la literatura latinoamericana del siglo XX, Berkeley, Lima: Latinoamericana Editores (2001)
Reviewed:
- Bernardita Llanos, Revista Iberoamericana v. LXIX, no. 203, pp. 480-1
- Graciela Gliemmo, Nueve Perros, v. 2, no. 2-3, Rosario, 2002/3
Selected articles
“Transacciones y f(r)acturas neoliberales: el valor de la pena desde Luz Arce a Arturo Fontaine” Senderos de violencia. Latinoamérica y su narrativas armada” edited by Oswaldo Estrada. Valencia: Albatros (Serie Palabras de América), 2015. Pp.289-307
“El valor de un cartonero en el mercado cultural: iconografías argentinas” Cuadernos de CILHA (Centro Interdisciplinario de Literatura Hispanoamericana) vol. 15, n. 2, 2014. Pp. 133-155.
http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_issuetoc&pid=1852-961520140002&lng=es&nrm=iso
“Fiction’s Mysterious Ways: Eloisa Cartonera” REVIEW: Literatures and Arts of the Americas, Guest co-editors Marguerite Feitlowitz and Ksenija Bilbija (Beyond Violence: Toward Justice in Latin American Writing and Arts), Issue 88, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2014, 13-20.
“Libres por libros: editoriales cartoneras en América Latina.” Libro mercado: literatura y neoliberalismo. Coordinador, José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra, México, Ciudad de México: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2015. Pp. 85-116
“Anamnesis del legado autoritario: Novela negra con argentinos de Luisa Valenzuela.” Hispamérica. Vol. 40, no. 118, 2011; pp: 45-55;
“Tortured by Fashion: Making Memory Through Corporate Advertising” in Accounting for Violence: Marketing Memory in Latin America Eds. Ksenija Bilbija and Leigh Payne, (Duke UP; Spring 2011); 291-312
“Borrón y cuento nuevo: las editoriales cartoneras latinoamericanas”, Nueva Sociedad, Buenos Aires, No. 230, Noviembre-Diciembre 2010; pp. 95-114.