Kelly Comfort

Dr. Kelly Comfort is a Professor of Spanish and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Davis and has been at Georgia Tech since 2005, becoming Associate Professor in 2012 and full Professor thereafter. Her research focuses on Latin American modernismo and its intersections with European aestheticism and decadence movements. She has co-edited New Directions in Flânerie (2021) and authored European Aestheticism and Spanish American Modernismo (2011), which examines the evolving role of art and artists in transnational contexts.

Dr. Comfort’s teaching spans Spanish conversation, Latin American literature, and service-learning initiatives. She directs Georgia Tech’s International House and advises Gringos y Latinos: Atlanta's Spanish Service Society (GLASSS). Her awards include the 2010 CETL/BP Teaching Excellence Award and the 2014 Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award. Her work bridges literary analysis with cultural studies, emphasizing gender, transnationalism, and art’s socio-economic dimensions.

Her scholarly contributions include groundbreaking analysis of flânerie in Latin American contexts, re-evaluations of Cuban literature’s colonial foundations, and explorations of aestheticism’s philosophical underpinnings. Recent publications engage with Borges’ gauchesco narratives, Mexican modernism, and the transatlantic exchanges shaping Spanish American literature.

• Education: PhD in Comparative Literature, UC Davis
• Labs/Teams: Faculty lead in Ivan Allen College’s ADVANCE initiative promoting gender equity
• Grants: Research supported through Georgia Tech’s academic infrastructure