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Dr. Catherine Barbour
Assistant Professor, Hispanic Studies

Biography

Dr Catherine Barbour is currently Head of the Department of Hispanic Studies and Director of Global Engagement for the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies. She joined Trinity as Assistant Professor in Hispanic Studies in January 2022 and was previously Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Surrey as well as holding posts at Queen's University Belfast and the University of St Andrews, where she was awarded her PhD in 2016. In 2018, she was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, School of Advanced Study, University of London on the Open World Research Initiative Translingual Strand.

Catherine specialises in intersectional approaches to gender in contemporary Iberian (especially Galician) literature and visual culture. She also has keen interests in comparative literature and multilingual education. Her publications include the monograph Contemporary Galician Women Writers (Legenda, 2020) and the edited volume Women's Historical Fiction Across the Globe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). In 2024 her article on Galician diaspora film received an Honourable Mention in the I International Prize for Galician Studies, awarded by the International Association for Galician Studies (AIEG).

Catherine is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and in 2019 was awarded the University of Surrey Vice Chancellor's Award for Early Career Teacher of the Year.

She welcomes PhD proposals relating to any of her areas of interest, especially on topics focusing on gender, migration, decoloniality and minority cultures.

Publications and Further Research Outputs

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Estraga-festas divertidas: O humor como ferramenta de resistencia no audiovisual galego feminista in, editor(s)Laura Lesta García, Iolanda Martínez Suárez, Marta Pérez Pereiro & Saleta de Salvador Agra , Actas do I Congreso Internacional Feminismos e Humor: Humor-Sofías, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Edicións Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2025, [Catherine Barbour] Book Chapter, 2025 TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour and Karunika Kardak, Women's Historical Fiction Across the Globe, 1, Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, 1 - 218pp Book, 2025 URL

Otros mundos: Translingüismo y feminismo en El expediente Albertina (2016) de Ioana Gruia in, editor(s)Alexandra Santos Pinheiro and Céire Broderick , Decolonialidade e interseccionalidade: Literatura em diálogos múltiplos / Decolonialidad e interseccionalidad: Literatura en diálogos múltiples, Campinas, Brazil, Mercado de Letras, 2025, [Catherine Barbour] Book Chapter, 2025 TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour, Ainda invisíveis? Narradoras e margens na literatura galega contemporânea, Review of Ainda invisíveis? Narradoras e margens na literatura galega contemporânea, by Lorena López López , Galicia 21: Journal of Contemporary Galician Studies, M, 2024, p115-118 Review, 2024 TARA - Full Text URL

Catherine Barbour, Cocaine Cowboys: Visualizing Aging Masculinities in Galician Narco Noir, Romance Quarterly, 71, (1), 2024, p134 - 145 Journal Article, 2024 URL DOI

Luciana Romano Morilas, Marilene Proença Rebello de Souza, Violeta Sun, Luciana Dadico, Rosana Retsos Signorelli Vargas, Suzy Sayuri Sassamoto Kurokawa, Maria Paula Costa Bertran, Catherine Barbour, Unpaid Extra Work and Unfair Division of Home Tasks, Revista Querubim: Revista eletrônica de trabalhos científicos nas áreas de Letras, Ciências Humanas e Ciências Sociais, 12, 2024, p91 - 102 Journal Article, 2024 URL

Las lenguas minoritarias atravesando fronteras in, editor(s)Luis García Jambrina , Construyendo nuevos mundos, derribando viejas fronteras. La recepción en Europa de las Letras españolas actuales, Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte; Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2024, pp1 - 5, [Catherine Barbour] Book Chapter, 2024 TARA - Full Text URL

Land, Art and Activism in Galician Writing by Women: Teresa Moure's A intervención (2010) in, editor(s)Kate Averis, Margaret Littler and Godela Weiss-Sussex , Contested Communities: Small, Minority and Minor Literatures in Europe, Cambridge, Legenda - Modern Humanities Research Association, 2023, pp39 - 50, [Catherine Barbour] Book Chapter, 2023 DOI TARA - Full Text URL

Catherine Barbour, Galician Women Writers: Language, Politics, Identity - Women Writers, Women's Books, 2023, - Miscellaneous, 2023 URL

Catherine Barbour, 'Gabriela Ybarra - Author Page', Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing, Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London, 2023, - Bibliography, filmography, etc., 2023 URL

Catherine Barbour, Of Monsters and Women: Feminist Response to Gender-based Violence in Galician Noir, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 35, (3), 2022, p271 - 291 Journal Article, 2022 DOI TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour, Translingual Empowerment: Exophonic Women's Writing in Catalan and Spanish, Parallax, 28, (1), 2022, p58 - 73 Journal Article, 2022 DOI TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour and Danny Barreto, Feminisms at Work: The (Re)Production of Gender and Culture in Contemporary Galicia, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 35, (3), 2022, p225 - 232 Journal Article, 2022 DOI TARA - Full Text

International Journal of Iberian Studies, 35, 3, (2022), 223 - 339p, Catherine Barbour and Danny Barreto, [eds.] Journal, 2022 URL

Catherine Barbour, 'Teresa Moure - Author Page', Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing, Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London, 2022, - Bibliography, filmography, etc., 2022 URL

Catherine Barbour, Review of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism, by Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian (eds.) , Journal of Specialised Translation, 36, 2021, p351-355 Review, 2021 URL TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour, Contemporary Galician Women Writers, Cambridge, Legenda - Modern Humanities Research Association, 2020, 1 - 146pp Book, 2020 URL DOI

Catherine Barbour and Karina Lickorish Quinn, Los pájaros are feliz and are dreaming about gwiazdy: Facilitating Translingual Creative Writing in the Primary Classroom, English in Education, 54, (1), 2020, p6 - 26 Journal Article, 2020 URL TARA - Full Text DOI

Journal of Romance Studies, 20, 3, (2020), 395 - 549p, María Alonso Alonso, Catherine Barbour and Gustavo San Román, [eds.] Journal, 2020 URL

María Alonso Alonso and Catherine Barbour, Galicia on the Move, Journal of Romance Studies, 20, (3), 2020, p395-407 Journal Article, 2020 TARA - Full Text DOI

Catherine Barbour, Staking a Claim: Dispute, Displacement and Galician Identity in Marta Rivera de la Cruz's Hotel Almirante (2002), Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 96, (6), 2019, p993 - 1014 Journal Article, 2019 DOI URL TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour, Review of Canon y subversión. La obra narrativa de Rosalía de Castro, by Helena González Fernández and María do Cebreiro Rábade Villar (eds.) , Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 92, (4), 2015, p624-625 Review, 2015 DOI TARA - Full Text

Catherine Barbour, Review of Contemporary Galician Cultural Studies: Between the Local and the Global, by Kirsty Hooper and Manuel Puga Moruxa (eds.) , Forum for Modern Language Studies, 49, (3), 2013, p347-348 Review, 2013 DOI TARA - Full Text

Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Catherine Barbour, 'Killjoys' divertidas: Humor e vinganza no audiovisual galego feminista, I Congreso Feminismos y Humor: Humor-sofías, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 7-8 May, 2024, Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigacións Feministas e Estudos de Xénero (CIFEX), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Invited Talk, 2024

Catherine Barbour, Construyendo nuevos mundos, derribando viejas fronteras. La recepción de las letras españolas actuales en Europa, Casona de Verines (Pendueles, Asturias), 13-15 September, 2023, Dirección General del Libro y Fomento de la Lectura, Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte, y la Universidad de Salamanca Invited Talk, 2023

Catherine Barbour, 'Post' Crisis? Relationships Between Women in Two Short Fictional Films of the New Galician Diaspora, ECR Keynote Address, Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland, University College Dublin, 17-18 April, 2023 Invited Talk, 2023

Eire García Cid, 'Manifesto', CRU Producións (Principal Investigator: Catherine Barbour), 2022, - Film production, 2022

Catherine Barbour, A (in)mobilidade feminina na cultura audiovisual diaspórica, Narrativas da Nova Diáspora Galega, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, October, 2022, Concello da Cultura Galega Invited Talk, 2022 URL

Catherine Barbour, Monsters and Killjoys: Feminist Activism in Galician Audiovisual Culture, Modern Languages Core Disciplinary Research Group Seminar Series, Queen's University Belfast, 2022 Invited Talk, 2022 URL

Catherine Barbour, Translingual Feminisms in Contemporary Iberian Narrative, Let's Consider Borderlands, Faberllull Olot, 2022 Invited Talk, 2022 URL

Catherine Barbour and Karina Lickorish Quinn, Making Space for Multilingual Creativity, 2019, - Miscellaneous, 2019 URL TARA - Full Text

Research Expertise

Projects

  • Title
    • Interseccións Poshumanas nas literaturas irlandesa e galega / Posthuman Intersections in Irish and Galician Literatures
  • Summary
    • The PHIRGAL project is a transnational consortium consists of 15 researchers based in Spain, Ireland and Poland which explores the numerous posthuman configurations and intersections in Irish and Galician literary production since the year 2000 from both transversal and multilingual perspectives. Through comparative analysis of Irish and Galician literary texts, PHIRGAL investigates the synergies between different posthuman typologies, such as those found between humans and non-human animals, the environment and the latest technological discoveries, with the aim of fostering the protection of subaltern subjectivities and equal rights. https://irgal.es/
  • Funding Agency
    • Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Government of Spain and European Regional Development Fund
  • Date From
    • 2023
  • Date To
    • 2026
  • Title
    • Creating Community: The Role of Creative Practice in Empowering Donegal Women
  • Summary
    • This partnership between Trinity College Dublin and Women"s Collective Donegal breaks new ground in its investigation of the role of creative writing and artwork as a means of empowerment in times of 'crisis' for women in Co. Donegal. Workshops were held across the county in June 2023 in locations representing the north, south and west (Buncrana, Donegal Town and Downings respectively), using creative methodologies through which different groups of local women explored the theme of 'crisis'. The sessions concluded with focus groups in which participants evaluated the role of community arts practice in confronting local issues as well as their own creative process. The research examines the participants' creative outputs and evaluations, demonstrating the value of creative writing for rural and border communities from an intersectional feminist perspective. Topical issues explored include the Mica scandal, excess fish-farming, lack of public transport, difficulties with access to healthcare and failures of political representation in the north west. The outputs consist of a public engagement docu-film documenting the workshops and embedded with interviews with participants, practitioners and researchers; a community engagement showcase of the creative work and findings; a film screening and a digital compilation of the women's work. Findings will be published in a white paper recommending best practice in facilitating creative writing for rural women's empowerment, as well as a peer-reviewed journal article.
  • Funding Agency
    • Irish Research Council New Foundations Award
  • Date From
    • 2022
  • Date To
    • 2023
  • Title
    • Women's (Im)Mobility in Times of Crisis
  • Summary
    • This transnational collaboration takes a multidisciplinary, intersectional feminist approach to examining the gendered impact of global environmental, health, political and economic crises on women's geographical and social (im)mobility. The project investigates how the dramatic societal shifts caused by moments of crisis provoke, inform or prevent the local, national and transnational movement of women. How are women's experiences of (im)mobility during crises underscored by race, class, nation, sexuality, disability, language and health? How do these issues play out in distinct cultural, geopolitical, judicial and behavioural contexts? Informed by a range of expertise across the Humanities and Social Sciences, the research draws on digital, judicial and ethnographic case studies, cultural texts and quantitative data, bringing into dialogue the 'Global South' (Brazil, Mexico) and the 'Global North' (UK, Ireland, Spain).
  • Funding Agency
    • University Global Partnership Network
  • Date From
    • 2021
  • Date To
    • 2022

Keywords

20th and 21st Century Spanish Literature; Contemporary Galician Literature; Galician audiovisual culture; Galician Studies; Gender Studies; Iberian Studies; Migration Studies

Recognition

Representations

Invited member of judging panel of International Ethnographic Film Festival, Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Xurado Seccións Oficiais, 19a Mostra Internacional de Cinema Etnográfico, Museo do Pobo Galego 2024

Elected member of the executive committee of the Modern Language Association Galician Forum (2020-2024)

Strand Convenor 'Writing in Society, Trinity Centre for the Book, Trinity College Dublin

Awards and Honours

Honourable Mention, I International Prize for Galician Studies, International Association of Galician Studies (AIEG) 2024

Aurora Women's Leadership Programme 2023-2024

Irish Research Council New Foundations Award 2022

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 2022

Vice Chancellor's Award for Early Career Teacher of the Year, University of Surrey 2019

Memberships

Modern Language Association

Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland

Asociación Internacional de Estudos Galegos

Associación Internacional de Literatura y Cine Españoles del Siglo XXI

Associate Member, Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing, Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of London