Tag Archives: feminism

Monsters and Killjoys: Feminist Activism in Galician Audiovisual Culture, Friday 4 November 2022 – Seminar Write-up

This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2022-2023.

On Friday 4th November 2022, Dr Catherine Barbour (Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Spanish Peninsular Studies, Trinity College Dublin) delivered a seminar on the Galician webseries Monstras, directed by Eire García Cid, and how its feminist perspective compares with work more typical of what is known as Galician noir.

At the beginning of her presentation, Dr Barbour introduced the concept of Galician noir, a media genre sharing the key characteristics of Scandi noir with a strong sense of culture specific to the Galician community. There is frequently an undercurrent of rebellion, with anti-state sentiments mirroring the feelings of the region towards the Spanish state. Programmes and novels are almost exclusively in the Galician language – Monstras takes this a step further by having English subtitles rather than Spanish.

Still from Monstras.
Image credit: Corentena Producións 2020

Dr Barbour then turned more specifically to Monstras itself, which was made available exclusively on YouTube from July 2020, the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows a group of women hiding out in their friend’s apartment after a violent act of revenge upon the man who sexually assaulted one of their friends. The production itself exudes anti-institutionalism; it was completely crowd-funded, with an exclusively female team.

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Will the Real Margery Kempe Please Stand Up/DM Me? Curating (Medieval) Identities Online, 23 April 2021 – Seminar write-up

This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2020-2021.

What does the autobiography of a medieval mystic and Twitter have in common? On the 23rd of April, Dr Alicia Spencer-Hall gave a fascinating presentation during which she suggested that Margery Kempe, a 15th century English Christian mystic and author of the first autobiography written in the English language, would be big on Twitter were she alive today.

However, it appears that being alive is not a criterion for having Twitter account, as Dr Spencer-Hall analysed 4 of the 15 Margery Kempe Twitter accounts which have sprung up to speak for the mystic in 2021. These Twitter accounts tell Margery’s story in different ways. Dr Spencer-Hall used her presentation to examine these accounts and how they are used to reinterpret and reclaim the life of a woman who lived nearly 600 years ago.

Providing some context about the mystic, Dr Spencer-Hall explained that Margery Kempe relied on a number of scribes to write her book. Because of this, the book, which presents Margery in an overwhelmingly positive light and uses the 3rd person to address her, has raised questions about its authenticity. Dr Spencer-Hall suggests there are similarities between Margery’s autobiography and Twitter today: both present highly edited and at times inauthentic reflections of self.

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