Speakers

Belén Martín-Lucas is Professor in English at the University of Vigo where she is a member of the interdisciplinary research team “BIFEGA: Literary and Cultural Studies, Translation and Interpretation.” She is also affiliated to the Interuniversity Centre for Research on Atlantic Landscapes and Cultures (CISPAC). Her research combines feminist studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, globalization studies, and Canadian studies. She has published extensively in well ranked journals as well as with international academic publishers and university presses. She is currently translating into Spanish a selection of essays by Indigenous women published in Canada for the series Women and Cultures: Essays on Gender and Sexuality, with Editorial Icaria (forthcoming 2025). She has been guest speaker at numerous institutions in Canada, the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Portugal and Spain. She is most proud of her mentoring tasks: she has supervised or co-supervised 14 Ph.D. students, and she is currently supervising 3 more.

Sara Tabuyo-Santaclara is a final year PhD student at the University of Vigo. She is a member of Research Feminar: Feminisms and Resistance, within the wider research group BiFeGa: Literary and Cultural Studies, Translation and Interpretation, and she is affiliated to the Interuniversity Research Centre for Atlantic Cultural Landscapes (CISPAC). She is currently part of the project “Communitas/Immunitas: relational ontologies in Atlantic anglophone cultures of the 21st century”. In 2021, she was awarded a 3-year predoctoral contract by the Xunta de Galicia to develop her PhD thesis, which focuses on an intersectional analysis of representations of girlhood in The Handmaid’s Tale universe. She has collaborated with the journal Femspec as a media reviewer and her most recent article, entitled “Abortion Bans and Handmaid Protests: The Connectedness of The Handmaid’s Tale with the Disruption of Reproductive Rights” (2024), has been published by the International Journal of English Studies (IJES). Her interests include feminist, cultural, postcolonial/decolonial and girlhood studies, among others.

Fernando Apolinar-Rodríguez is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Philology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. He received his master’s degree in Advanced English Studies from the same university, with a Master’s dissertation delving into Maugham’s travelogue on Spain, The Land of the Blessed Virgin. He has participated in several conferences across Galicia and in international conferences, such as the international conference on William Somerset Maugham in Le Mans. His research interests range from the development of utopian and dystopian fiction in the late nineteenth century to the study of Victorian and Edwardian travel writing.

María Benítez Utrera holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Studies, and a Master’s Degree in Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Studies, both from the University of Seville, where she is currently pursuing a PhD in English and American Literature and Culture. Her thesis focuses on contemporary feminist artistic productions. Thus, analysing popular culture from a feminist perspective is essential for her work, which has led her to participate in conferences such as Creando Con-ciencia Filológica in Seville or the VI International Conference on Women, Culture and Society in Almería. Moreover, she is part of the SAAS Young Scholars Reading Group team.

Virginia Cattolica is a Teacher and a Translator of English from Rosario, Argentina. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature and a Master in Cultural Studies from Universidad Nacional de Rosario. She is currently finishing her PhD in Advanced English Studies: Linguistics, Literature and Culture at Universidade da Coruña under the supervision of Prof. María Jesús Lorenzo Modia and Prof. José Manuel Estévez Saá. In Argentina, she is a lecturer in English Language and Literature, in Comparative Anglophone Culture and in Analysis and Translation of Technical-Scientific Discourse in English Language at Facultad de Humanidades y Artes from Universidad Nacional de Rosario.

Keah Amy Dixon is a PhD student at the Universidade da Coruña, having previously achieved the Premio Extraordinario for her master’s in Advanced English Studies. A member of Amergin, Keah has authored "'It is time for her to dislocate this "within"': Heterotopias, Concealment and Endometriosis in Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends" in a 2023 collection on Irish fiction edited by David Clark and Eduardo Barros-Grela, and co-authored with Laura Vázquez-González “'Inside of a Glass Jar': Visibilising Insidious Trauma in Conversations with Friends" in The Routledge Companion to Sally Rooney (forthcoming), edited by Angelos Bollas. Her research to date has revolved around literary translation, transculturality, contemporary Irish and Galician literature and feminist studies.

Angie Gomez-García is a PhD candidate at University of Santiago de Compostela, specialising in North American literature and culture. She holds a degree in English Language and Literature and completed a master's in Applied English Studies, focusing on North American culture and gender studies. She has continued widening her training with courses in gender, translation, transcreation, text-editing and proofreading, and has been working as an English teacher in private companies and at the University of Cantabria since 2019. Currently, she combines her doctoral studies with teaching English Communication at Cesine University Centre in Santander.

Noelia López Fernández is a PhD student specialising in North American and Irish studies, member of the Irish Studies research group at the University of A Coruña. She has completed the Interuniversity Master's Degree in Advanced English Studies and its Applications (Imaes) and the Double Degree in English and Spanish Studies. Her scientific production includes her participation as organiser of the “I Congreso de Tecnoculturas” (UDC, 2024) and as speaker at the conferences “III Congreso Interdisciplinar sobre Literatura e Imagen” (UCM, 2024) and “I Seminar on Eurasian Cavalry” (UDC, 2022). Her interests include Fan Studies, video games and Gothic fiction.

Alicia Martínez-Martín holds a degree in English Studies and is a pre-doctoral researcher at the University of the Basque Country. The focus of her research rests on science fiction and speculative fiction, with a special emphasis on dystopian fiction written by female authors. The aim of her research is to analyze and compare characters framed within totalitarian or oppressive societies from cognitive, postcolonial, and ecocritical perspectives. She has participated in international congresses like the VIII International Conference on the Myth in the Arts (2023) with the paper entitled “Coping Strategies in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Dealing with Loss” where she followed an interdisciplinary approach ranging from psychology to sociology including the study of the context and its implication in identification processes.

Irene Martínez Misa is currently a third year PhD student in Advanced English Studies at Universidade da Coruña. Her dissertation focuses on the subject of Instapoetry. Her main objective is examining not only the topics, but also the forms of the compositions of this new poetic subgenre, from a feminist perspective. Other of her research interests include digital humanities, media studies, and ecofeminism. She has written a book chapter titled “Instapoetry and the Creation of Affective Online Communities” and participated in several conferences sharing her investigation on the poetic subgenre. She has also been a visiting doctoral student in the Digital Humanities Institute, at the University of Sheffield. 

Ian Raymond Matthews is an experienced teacher and lecturer specialising in the fields of Videogames and Learning, English Literature, and Film Studies. His PhD thesis investigates the notion of 'commodified futures', i.e. the depiction of character agency and the representation of women in science fiction movies and, most notably, the female characters of Blade Runner 2049.

Recent publications and conference presentations include an analysis of representations of gender within Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, “Cold Spots and Hot Takes”: a look into privilege, class, and foreign language learning leading up to Brexit, and “Abject AI”: Julie Kristeva and the Language of Female Robots in Modern Cinema.

Francisco Guillermo Millán-Meana is a PhD student at the philological studies programme in the University of Seville. His area of research is literary theory and criticism, focusing on the representation of power structures and marginalization in contemporary media. He is also part of the reviewer team of the Journal of Artistic Creation and Literary Research.

Denisa Alexandra Mircea is an early-career researcher specializing in English literature at the University of Zaragoza. She graduated with a degree in English Studies from the University of Zaragoza in 2023. The following year, in 2024, she obtained a Master’s Degree in Teacher for Mandatory Secondary Education, Baccalaureate, Vocational Training and Language, Arts and Sports. She received an outstanding for her master’s final project which investigated the implementation of drama and drama techniques in the EFL classroom. Her main research interests lie in memory and trauma studies, poetry, and cultural studies.

Alba Sánchez is a recent graduate in English Studies from the University of A Coruña. Currently, she is pursuing the Inter-University Master’s in Advanced English Studies. Next year, she plans to begin her thesis; furthermore, her academic interests are centered around gender studies, feminist, and myth criticism. She has a deep passion for research and literature; hence, her ultimate goal is to become a professor and researcher, contributing to academia through critical analysis.

Dr. Iria Seijas-Pérez has a PhD in Advanced English Studies from the University of Vigo. In her thesis, she studied the representation of sapphic adolescent protagonists in Irish Young Adult fiction novels written in English by Irish authors. She is a member of the research project “Communitas/Immunitas: relational ontologies in Atlantic anglophone cultures of the 21st century” PID2022-136904NB-I00 MCIN/AEI. She has shared her research at both national and international conferences, and has also published several articles, reviews, and book chapters; the most recent is “‘Of Course Muslims Can Be Gay’: Sexuality and Religion in Adiba Jaigirdar’s Young Adult Fiction” in the journal Irish University Review. Her research interests include Irish literature and culture, LGBTQ+ and feminist studies, and young adult literature.

Fátima Silva holds a Master’s degree in Virginia Woolf’s work and a PhD focused on Jeanette Winterson, exploring posthumanism, rewriting, and autobiography. With over 15 years of experience as a language teacher at the Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal, she is now focusing on the intersections between literature, identity, and technology, examining how narratives shape and redefine human experience.

Silvia Vázquez Lorenzo is a PhD student specialising in the intersection of neurodiversity and fan studies in Irish literature and culture. She is part of the University Institute of Research in Irish Studies Amergin at the University of A Coruña. She holds a degree in English Studies and a MA in Advanced English Studies at the same university. She participated as speaker in the conference “Health/care in (Times of) Crisis” (Zaragoza University, Maynooth University, 2024) and took part as organiser of the “I Congreso de Tecnoculturas” (UDC, 2024). Her main academic interests include neurodiversity studies, fan studies and Irish literature.

Aslihan Yucel is a doctoral candidate from the University of Santiago de Compostela in the program of Advanced English Studies. She holds two bachelor’s degrees from Ankara University, as well as a master’s degree from the same institute. She has completed her second degree in American Culture and Literature as a high honor student, during which she spent a semester in the Basque Country University. She has attended conferences in several universities, such as University of Vigo and University of Siena. While contributing to academic journals, she is also working on her dissertation on African American stereotypes under the supervision of Jesus Varela Zapata. She is a part of the research group Discourse and Identity, led by Laura Lojo. Her research interests include contemporary American literature, film studies, postapocalyptic studies and adaptations.

Alba Zels is a PhD candidate in Literature at the Universidad de Vigo, specializing in gender, postcolonial, and historical studies. Her research focuses on the herstory of the race riots in Singapore and Malaysia, with an emphasis on historical works written by women. Drawing from feminist and intersectional perspectives, her work examines the role of gender and race in shaping historical narratives. Alba has presented her research at various academic conferences, including the II Congreso de Jóvenes Investigadores en Estudios Literarios Feministas at the Universidad de Barcelona and the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Gender Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She is passionate about shedding light on underrepresented voices in historical contexts and advocating for gender equality through her research and presentations.