University College Cork

I completed my BA International in Spanish and French at NUI Galway in 2009, before completing my MA in Spanish there in 2010, and my PhD in 2016. Funded by the Irish Research Council and the Hardiman Scholarship (NUI Galway), I undertook a structured PhD in Latin American Studies with a focus on representations of genders and ethnicities in Chilean historical fiction. From there, I took up a lectureship in Hispanic Studies in Cardiff University between 2016 and 2018. I started in UCC as a Lecturer in Latin American Studies in 2018.

My research interests are broadly related to gendered approaches in Latin American cultural studies, with a focus on Chile. My forthcoming monograph, Fictionalising Genders and Ethnicities in Chile: Catalina de los Ríos y Lisperguer, (Liverpool University Press) focuses on recent fictional accounts of Chilean 17th-century historical figure, Catalina de los Ríos y Lisperguer (la Quintrala). The book investigates the strategies that Mercedes Valdivieso and Gustavo Frías use in their their re-writings of Catalina's story to challenge the colonial and patriarchal visions of genders and ethnicities that persist in Chile today. My current project takes a comparative approach to the artistic responses in the campaigns for reproductive justice in Argentina, Chile, and Ireland in 2018. It is interdisciplinary in nature and highlights the intersection between art activism and social issues facing the countries studied. Through this project, I combine theories produced in the Global North and South to investigate how cultural practitioners contribute to the struggles against socio-historical and geopolitical challenges identified under the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.