Tag Archives: Spanish

Postgraduate student interviews: Erin McCombe (PhD)

This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2024-2025

In the 21st century, postcolonial literature has progressively shifted from the cultural periphery to the mainstream. It offers a path to understanding the ever-present effect of colonialism within contemporary society, in particular by giving a voice to those who were historically silenced. On the 21^stof March 2025, I discussed this topic with Erin McCombe, a Spanish and Portuguese PhD student whose thesis examines the topic of conviviality within literature by women of African descent in Spain and Portugal [1].

When did you first develop an interest in postcolonial literature?

I suppose as an undergraduate, on the Portuguese side [of my degree]. I remember reading [the short story] ‘O embondeiro que sonhava pássaros’ by [Mozambican author] Mia Couto and that still sticks out in my mind as my initial contact with postcolonial literature. I then went on to study Lusophone African cinema and that developed my interest even more. In final year I started looking into postcolonial Africa within a Spanish context and come across some research on authors from Equatorial Guinea.

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Hidden in Plain Sight: Amphion and the Dilemmas of Lyric Theory, 30 October 2024 – Seminar write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2024-2025.

On Wednesday 30th October, the Core Disciplinary Research Group in Modern Languages hosted Leah Middlebrook, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish at the University of Oregon. Professor Middlebrook gave a seminar on the findings of her new book, Amphion: Lyre, Poetry and Politics in Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

Cover of Professor Middlebrook’s book, created by University of Chicago Press

Professor Middlebrook opened her presentation with the story of the construction of the city-state of Thebes, as told through the myth of Amphion, who with the playing of his lyre made the stones move to build walls to form this great city. The figure of Amphion has continued to be prominent for his role in music and architecture. He was also key to the development of lyric theory and practice, as Professor Middlebrook demonstrated. However, Amphion was pushed to the academic and cultural periphery in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The idea that Amphion represents is that fragments converge to create something abstract and solid, in particular, creating bulwarks of language. This is best encapsulated according to Professor Middlebrook, in the reference to Luis Pérez Ángel, as cited in the 1602 work Discurso en loor de la poesía (by anonymous Peruvian poet “Clarinda”) whose poems were described there in an explicit Amphionic analogy as “build[ing] […] walls” for a city, a concept that Middlebrook revisited later in the seminar. This came in the form of the image depicting Mercury (Hermes) guiding Amphion as he played the Lyre, an instrument of Hermes’ own invention. The image connotes the idea that while Amphion’s lyre is associated with the civic form that is the polity, it is also a figure that represents the power of lyric to deconstruct. This was a poignant suggestion made by Middlebrook as Thebes was reputed to be a political disaster. It was a city that, although capable of keeping its enemies out, could not, however, deter its own social erosion. Middlebrook described this dynamic as ‘The mercurial Poesis’, since the Theban stones represent both construction and destruction. The lyre animates collective action, but that action can result in ruin.

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José Iglesias de la Casa (1749-1791), a Problematic Pastoral and Satirical Poet, Friday 8 March 2024 – Seminar write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2023-2024.

On Friday 8^th March, Noelia López-Souto (Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife) delivered a seminar on her research into Salamancan poet José Iglesias de la Casa, focusing on his life and poetry in 18^th century Spain.

Noelia López-Souto (photo by Modern Languages CDRG)

To begin her presentation, Dr López-Souto presented us with a portrait of José Iglesias de la Casa, and highlighted how elements included in this portrait represented his life as a priest and poet. However, his dual role of priest and poet posed a problem, as there was sometimes a tension between his religious life and the content of his poetry including, for example, his use of satire. Writing in the 18^th century, at a time which fell between the Golden Age and Romantic period of literature, his work is part of the School of Salamanca, an important Spanish literary group with a new poetry influenced not only by the European Rococo movement but also by traditional Spanish poetry and classical models.

Dr López-Souto highlighted how many of his works were subject to posthumous editing, leading to the modification of controversial sections of the original texts, and their division into volumes to facilitate publishing. Despite this, his Poesías Póstumas (1793) were widely successful, and were included in various collections of classical Spanish poetry. However, these works were later silenced and removed from these publications. Dr López-Souto then explained how she has released a new manuscript with poems by Iglesias. Her research aims to recover the poet’s lost works and make them more widely available.

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Postgraduate student interviews: Isabella Gammon-McConville (MRes)

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2023-2024.

Can you tell me a bit about your academic experience at Queen’s so far?

I started at Queen’s back in 2018 and I did my undergraduate [degree] in Spanish. I did my [first] two years at Queen’s and then I went abroad to Spain, where I worked as a language assistant. That was during Covid, so it was a bit of a different experience, but I was in the south of Spain there. I came back and did my final year, then went on and did the MRes, also looking at Spanish.

Isabella Gammon-McConville, personal archive

What topic did you choose for your MRes and what drew you to it?

I handed in my dissertation back in September [2023] and the title was ‘Language Acts and World (Un)Making: The Poetics of Power and Resistance in the Drama of Ana Caro and Leonor de la Cueva’. I was looking at Golden Age drama and specifically the comedia. I’d done a bit of that in my undergraduate work, I’d looked at a few different areas but I hadn’t seen a lot of work done by female dramatists. I was interested in how they wrote resistance into a lot of their work, because they followed the societal norms and expectations of writing literature in order to be able to write in the period, and they also managed to get in things that made their work different to the canonical work of the period.

What was the highlight of your post-grad experience?

That’s a difficult one. Honestly, probably handing my dissertation in! No, making my work and research fit within the field and seeing links between the research done by everyone else. The collaborative idea of research is that you get to do something that’s a bit different, but you get to draw on work that has already been written by other people and make your own space within the field. For me, this was developed throughout the MRes: the research methods classes which introduced various lenses to look at Caro and Cueva’s work, the discussions with my supervisor, and my own research into publications on the authors. Coming to conclusions using different research methods was really interesting. I guess it’s [about] coming up with something new, isn’t it?

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Postgraduate student interviews: Claire Whyte (PhD)

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2023-2024.

What has your academic journey looked like so far? What did you study during your undergraduate and previous postgraduate experiences?

I undertook my PhD in Spanish as a mature student. For my undergraduate degree I did Languages and Latin American Studies [at the University of Essex]. After university I didn’t go straight on to postgraduate study. I travelled after my degree and I lived abroad for several years, teaching in a number of countries (South Korea, New Zealand). In 2016, when I was made redundant from the language program I was teaching on, I applied for a Master’s in Modern Languages at Queen’s. I then had a year between finishing my master’s and applying for the PhD. I enjoyed the return to studying and university life. So, I put a proposal together, applied for the PhD, and got accepted, which I hadn’t really expected! I just finished my PhD in November [2023] – there were some interruptions to my studies, especially because of the pandemic, so my journey was a bit more protracted.

Would you be able to give a brief explanation of your PhD research?

I will try! My broad area is Mexican Studies; in my thesis, “Frida Kahlo and Astrid Hadad: Performing Woman and Nation in 20^th Century Mexico”, I look at artist Frida Kahlo, and cabaret político [political cabaret] performer Astrid Hadad. I examine how they perform, resist and contest the hegemonic constructs of Mexican womanhood. So, I look at Kahlo’s self-portraits against the background of cultural nationalism in post-revolutionary Mexico (the period following the Mexican revolution of 1910-1920). I contextualise her work against the art history and discourse of the period. In relation to Astrid Hadad, I examine her work against the backdrop of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed towards the end of the 20th century. I look at how she uses her cabaret performances as political commentary and how she performs womanhood in that context.

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Travel Experiences and Illness in Early Modern Female Religious Communities, 17 April 2024 – Seminar write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2023-2024.

On Wednesday 17th of April 2024, Dr María D. Martos Pérez (UNED, Madrid-Bieses) delivered a seminar on the topic of “Travel Experiences and Illness in Early Modern Female Religious Communities”, based on her research into female religious pilgrimages from Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Her research for this seminar focused on recovering female authors. She considered themes of female authorship and the history of female participation in the production of literary works.

Dr Martos Pérez began the seminar by explaining how she used women’s writing about their travel experiences to further understand the Early Modern female experience. The majority of the texts she examined were written by nuns travelling from the Iberian Peninsula to establish new convents in Spanish colonies. Their writings took the form of biographies, autobiographies or letters. The aim of this research was to compare the nuns’ individual experiences, investigate what these texts emphasise about the travelling conditions, study descriptions of the illnesses that the nuns’ endured while travelling, and consider how their suffering was transmitted through discursive rhetoric in the texts. She noted that the majority of female written manuscripts were addressed to the members of their religious community for informative purposes, while male-written texts were more often used as propaganda.

Dr Martos Pérez outlined three main purposes of the travel narratives: they acted as points of reference for the other nuns, established the social role of religious women, and depicted a model for women’s writing. The manuscripts provide subjective accounts from the nuns, and give authority and legitimacy to their experiences, therefore legitimising women in public and scholarly roles.

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Postgraduate student interviews: Isabel Buckley (MRes)

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2023-2024.

What has your university journey been like so far?

During my A-level studies I au-paired in Spain and I really enjoyed using the language there. I did History and Spanish for my undergraduate degree [at Queen’s] because I didn’t want to lose my Spanish and I found the Spanish side more interesting for me and that’s how I have come to do an MRes [Master of Research] now.

So, tell me about your current research project: ‘Genre and gender in female authored narco-novelas’.

It looks at female narco-novelas which are women-authored books about drug trafficking. I’m looking at Perra Brava by Orfa Alarcón, who is a Mexican author, El Leopardo al Sol by Laura Restrepo, who is a Colombian author, and Pistoleros by Paula Castiglioni, who is an Argentinian author. So, my scope is across Latin America. From what I have seen, most of the productions on drug trafficking, like TV series, focus on male figures so I thought it would be interesting to look at a female-narrated point of view and the portrayal of women and see how that is different.

Where did your interest in this topic come from?

I enjoyed Sarah Bowskill’s module on US/Mexican border issues during second year and then in final year I did Sarah’s other module, on Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, which touched on the issue of drug trafficking. I really enjoyed the further readings that were set within these two modules and believe the good grades I achieved were down to how much I enjoyed the content. Then when I heard about the MRes and how flexible it was, I decided to do that, and I also got funding which has helped.

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Postgraduate student interviews: Rochelle Marsh (MRes)

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2021-2022.

Hi Rochelle, what has your university journey been like?

Its’s been a very long one! I studied French and Spanish at A-Level and carried on with those two languages here at Queen’s [in my undergraduate degree]. In my third year, I went to Asturias and took the risky decision to stay there during the Covid pandemic to complete my year abroad. I later returned to Queen’s to complete my final year and started thinking about my next steps. Initially, I wanted to do a PGCE [Postgraduate Certificate in Education] but after speaking to my lecturers I learned about the Master of Research [MRes]. Intrigued, I submitted a proposal, then I was awarded a scholarship to help with funding, and now I am at the end of my Masters with a dissertation deadline this September.

Your dissertation is entitled ‘Female Voices and Testimonies From the España vacía/vaciada’, can you tell me more about this?

The female voices refer to these texts written by contemporary female Spanish authors: Tierra de mujeres, by Maria Sánchez, Feria by Ana Iris Simón and Un amor by Sara Mesa. They each focus on a unique aspect of the countryside, a motif that has long been discussed in Spanish literature but was recently brought into conversation after Sergio del Molino’s book La España vacía. The title means ‘empty Spain’ but critics challenged that La España ‘vaciada’, meaning ‘Spain emptied’, would have been a more accurate title to describe the changing countryside. His book explored the portrayal of the Spanish countryside and rural to urban migration trends in literature, film and press articles. My dissertation therefore analyses how these three texts dialogue with the concept of ‘España vacía’ and how these texts challenge the mistreatment of the countryside and rural women. I also look at the extent to which these texts can be a form of provocation or activism and if there is a correlation between the success of these texts and the fact there is a wide female readership in Spain.

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Prizes for Spanish American Literature and the Changing Role of the Author in Society, Friday 11 February 2022 – Seminar Write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2021-2022.

On Friday 11^thFebruary, Dr Sarah Bowskill (Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies, QUB) delivered a seminar entitled ‘Prizes for Spanish American Literature and the Changing Role of the Author in Society’ at the 2021-2022 Modern Languages Core Disciplinary Research Group Seminar Series. Dr Bowskill’s talk explored the link between power and literary prestige, focusing particularly on how politics underpins Spanish American literary prizes and award ceremonies, and the role of the author in society.

image: cover of Sarah Bowskill’s new monograph

The talk commenced with an overview of the intertwining of literature and politics in Latin America. Dr Bowskill drew on the work of Doris Sommer to explain that in the nineteenth century, post-independence Latin American nations were built by author statesmen, such as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Bartolomé Mitre. Writing formed an important part of their political work, and the texts written by these author statesmen were taught in schools, and intended to inspire love for the nation. By the early twentieth century, national prizes for literature were used by the state to further connect literary and political fields. Dr Bowskill highlighted the motivation behind introducing such prizes, since Latin American countries looked to prizes for science and literature as a way to establish international status and national pride.

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Sewing Thoughts Together: Pandemic, Texts, and Textiles, 10 December 2021 – Seminar write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2021-2022.

On Friday 10^th December 2021, Dr Fiona Clark (Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies at Queen’s University Belfast) delivered a seminar entitled ‘Sewing Thoughts Together: Pandemic, Texts, and Textiles’ at the 2021-2022 Modern Languages Core Disciplinary Research Group Seminar Series. Dr Clark’s seminar analysed the interactions between art, environmental justice, health and wellbeing, reflecting on how Level 3 students in the Protecting Paradise cursillo (mini-module) have used their personal experiences as inspiration for creative work.

Image of a student arpillera — Anonymous student arpillera (2020) from collection held by Fiona Clark

Dr Clark opened up the seminar with an overview of the arpillera, a Chilean textile art form. The word arpillera is used for sackcloth in Spanish. This material was used to package coffee beans, potatoes and flour. From this humble background grew the arpillera textile art form used by Chilean women in the 1970s to capture their experiences of loved ones who were disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. Since many of these women were from the poorer end of the social classes in Chile, re-using sackcloth and other materials from around the home (such as school uniforms and old shirts) made this art form accessible and personal through the introduction of materials from the disappeared loved ones. The materials were arranged and sewn together to create an image. Many of these arpilleras reflect on a violent political regime, which Dr Clark later related to the idea of ‘craftivism’: using handcraft as a form of activism. Arpilleras also served as a way to keep alive the memories of loved ones. Dr Clark explained how women would gather together to sew and tell stories. In this way, textiles were used as a way to work through personal trauma and bring communities together.

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