Christopher Benfey is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 literary critic and Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...

 scholar. He is the Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...

.

Background

Benfey was born in Merion, Pennsylvania

Merion, Pennsylvania

Merion Station is an unincorporated community in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is contiguous to Philadelphia and is also bordered by Wynnewood, Narberth, and Bala Cynwyd...

 but spent most of his childhood in Richmond, Indiana

Richmond, Indiana

Richmond is a city largely within Wayne Township, Wayne County, in east central Indiana, United States, which borders Ohio. The city also includes the Richmond Municipal Airport, which is in Boston Township and separated from the rest of the city...

 and attended The Putney School

The Putney School

The Putney School is an independent high school in Putney, Vermont. It was founded in 1935 by Carmelita Hinton. It is a co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school, with a day-student component, located outside of Brattleboro, Vermont. Emily Jones is the director...

. He began his undergraduate studies at Earlham College

Earlham College

Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...

, where his father was a professor in the Chemistry department, and completed his B.A. at Guilford College

Guilford College

Guilford College, founded in 1837 by members of the Religious Society of Friends , is an independent college whose stated mission is to: provide a transformative, practical and excellent liberal arts education that produces critical thinkers in an inclusive, diverse environment, guided by Quaker...

. Benfey holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

Career

Benfey is a specialist in 19th and 20th century American literature

American literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...

. He is also an established essayist and critic who has been published in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

, The New York Review of Books

The New York Review of Books

The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

, and The Times Literary Supplement.

Select publications

• American Audacity: Literary Essays North and South. (University of Michigan Press
  University of Michigan Press
  The University of Michigan Press is part of the University of Michigan Library and serves as a primary publishing unit of the University of Michigan, with special responsibility for the creation and promotion of scholarly, educational, and regional books and other materials in digital and print...
  
  , 2010).
• The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan, (2003). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_5_112/ai_102275164
• http://books.google.com/books?id=zqG-XoxMjF0C&dq=%22christopher+benfey%22+%22degas+in+new+orleans%22&pg=PP1&ots=Yu22qIoTVG&sig=fCusuRzlUIEDMV0xzW1corwMTHg&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3D%2522Christopher%2BBenfey%2522%2B%2522Degas%2Bin%2BNew%2BOrleans%2522%26btnG%3DSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnailDegas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington] (1999).
• A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade

External links

• Official website - Mount Holyoke College
  Mount Holyoke College
  Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
  
  
• Christopher Benfey in the New York Review of Books
• The Woman in White Joyce Carol Oates
  Joyce Carol Oates
  Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
  
  review of Benfey's A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade
• Author page and article archive from The New York Review of Books