Overview
Working in English, French, German, and Spanish, with a focus on Europe and the Americas, modern and contemporary poetry, aesthetics and politics, history and literary history, philosophy and critical theory, poetics, economies, and ecologies, genres, platforms, and media, Jonathan Monroe is the author most recently of Framing Roberto Bolaño. Poetry, Fiction, Literary History, Politics (Cambridge University Press, hardback and digital 2019, paperback 2021) and editor and co-author of Roberto Bolaño in Context (Cambridge University Press, August 2023), a collection of thirty essays framed by his opening chapter, “Mapping Bolaño’s Worlds.” A companion essay for The Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel, “Transnational, Intermedial Pressures in Roberto Bolaño’s Prose Poem Novels,” appeared from Oxford University Press in 2023. Extending concerns previously developed in such articles and chapter contributions as "Genre,” "Philosophy, Poetry, Parataxis,” and "Urgent Matter,” his current research focuses on a book-in-progress nearing completion, Appositional Poetics, Poetry’s Knowledge: Poetry among Discourses and Media. Author of A Poverty of Objects: The Prose Poem and the Politics of Genre; and co-author and editor of Writing and Revising the Disciplines; Local Knowledges, Local Practices: Writing in the Disciplines at Cornell; Poetry Community, Movement; and Poetics of Avant-Garde Poetries, he has published widely on modern and contemporary poetry and poetics, innovative poetries of the past two centuries, avant-garde movements and their contemporary legacies, writing and disciplinary practices, and interdisciplinary approaches in literary and cultural studies. In addition to Demosthenes’ Legacy, a book of prose poems and short fiction, he has published poetry and cross-genre writing in numerous journals, including The American Poetry Review, Epoch, Harvard Review, /nor New Ohio Review, Verse, Volt, and Xcp: Cross-Cultural Poetics.
A Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholar Outstanding Educator, he has served as a member of the Dean's Advisory Committee on Appointments, and currently of the Agenda committee, in the College of Arts & Sciences; as a member of the steering committee for the Institute for German Cultural Studies and the University Appeals Committee; and as Chair of the University’s Humanities Graduate Fellowship Board. During his time as Director of Cornell’s John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, the Knight Institute’s work led Time and The Princeton Review to name Cornell their "Research University of the Year.” A former DAAD and ACLS Fellow, he served several years as a member of the IIEE's national Fulbright selection committee, and is currently serving his second-three year term as an Elected Member of the MLA Delegate Assembly representing Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (CLCS) European Regions. Recent and forthcoming courses include “Introduction to Comparative Literature,” “Methods of Comparison,” “Poetry’s Image,” "Poetry and Poetics of the Americas," “Global Avant-Gardes,” “Poetics, Economies, Ecologies,” “Postcolonial Poetries and the Poetics of Relation,” “Contemporary Poetry and Poetics,” and “Genres, Platforms, Media.”
Research Focus
- Innovative, experimental, alternative poetries of the past two centuries
- Avant-garde movements and their contemporary legacies
- Modern and contemporary poetry and poetics
- The prose poem and cross-genre writing
- Poetics, economies, ecologies
- Genres, platforms, media
Publications
BOOKS
Framing Bolaño: Poetry, Fiction, Literary History, Politics. Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, hardback and digital 2019, paperback 2021.
Roberto Bolaño in Context. Editor and co-author. Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming August 2022.
Demosthenes’ Legacy (prose poems, short fiction). Tokyo and Toronto: Ahadada Books, 2009.
Local Knowledges, Local Practices: Writing in the Disciplines at Cornell. Editor and co-author. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003; second edition, 2006.
Writing and Revising the Disciplines. Editor and co-author. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
A Poverty of Objects: The Prose Poem and the Politics of Genre. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
BOOK IN PROGRESS
Appositional Poetics, Poetry's Knowledge: Poetry Among Discourses and Media
SPECIAL ISSUES
Poetics of Avant-Garde Poetries II. “Aftershock: Poetry and Cultural Politics Since 1989.” Editor and co-author. Poetics Today 21.1 (Spring 2000).
Poetry, Community, Movement. Editor and co-author. Diacritics 26.3–4 (Fall–Winter 1996).
SELECTED ARTICLES, CHAPTERS, TRANSLATIONS (2003—)
“Mapping Bolaño’s Worlds.” Roberto Bolaño in Context. Ed. Jonathan B. Monroe. Cambridge, UK and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming August 2022.
“Transnational, Intermedial Pressures in Roberto Bolaño’s Prose Poem Novels.” Oxford Handbook of the Latin American Novel. Ed. Juan E. DeCastro and Ignacio López-Calvo. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, forthcoming spring/summer 2022.
“Genre.” Literature Now—Key Terms and Methods for Literary History. Ed. Sascha Bru, Ben de Bruyn & Michel Delville. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016, 252-264 and 296-298.
“Urgent Matter.” “What Is a Thing?” Special issue of Konturen. Ed. Nicholas Reynolds and Jeffrey S. Librett. Vol 8, 2015, 8-39.
“Los amores y juegos del joven Berger” (on Roberto Bolaño’s El Tercer Reich). In Bolaño salvaje. Ed. Edmundo Paz Soldán y Gustavo Faverón Patriau. Canet de Mar (Barcelona): Editorial Candaya, 2ndn nd edition, 2013, 487-506.
“Autrement dire : La poussée vers l'abstraction de Rosmarie Waldrop.” In Dossier: Lorrine Niedecker-Alejandra Pizarnik- Rosmarie Waldrop. Cahier critique de poésie. Ed. Jean Daive. Marseille: Centre international de poésie. Collection, Cahier critique de poésie. Paris: Gallimard, No. 26, 2013, 86-89.
“Composite Cultures, Chaos Wor(l)ds” (on Edouard Glissant). In Tradition, Trauma, Translation: The Classic and the Modern. Ed. Timothy Mathews and Jan Parker. Oxford University Press, 2011, 155-174.
“Philosophy, Poetry, Parataxis.” In Philosophy as a Literary Art: Making Things Up. Ed. Costica Bradatan. New York and London: Routledge, 2014; rpt. from The European Legacy 14 (5), 2009, 599-611; Rpt. from The European Legacy 14.5 (2009), 599-611.
