Ronald Briggs

Ronald Briggs is a Professor of Spanish and Latin American Cultures at Barnard College, affiliated with the Department of Spanish and Comparative Literature. He joined Barnard in 2008 after teaching at Bard College and New York University, where he previously served as managing editor of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. His research focuses on the intersection of education and literary theory in 18th- and 19th-century Latin America, with an emphasis on transatlantic intellectual networks and print culture.

Briggs holds a B.A. from Sewanee: The University of the South, an M.A. from Middlebury College, and a Ph.D. from New York University. His academic work includes two monographs: The Moral Electricity of Print: Transatlantic Education and the Lima Women's Circuit, 1876-1910 (2017) and Tropes of Enlightenment in the Age of Bolívar (2010). He is also co-editor of Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera: Escritos en prensa extranjera (2024) and Latin American Literature in Transition. Vol. II: 1800-1870 (2023). His articles explore themes such as literary networks, feminist pedagogy, and transnational intellectual movements across Latin America.

Briggs teaches courses on utopian literature, the politics of community in the 19th century, and the role of print culture in Pan-American contexts. His recent work highlights the global dimensions of Latin American intellectual history, particularly through analyses of marginalized voices like Clorinda Matto de Turner and Flora Tristán.