Irene Melé-Ballesteros

Irene Melé-Ballesteros received a B.A. in English Philology from the Universitat de Barcelona and an M.A. in International Relations, Security and Development from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She joined the Spanish and Portuguese doctoral program in 2010, in which she has also obtained an M.A. in Hispanic literatures and cultures. Irene is interested in contemporary Iberian theatre and cinema, with a focus on feminist film theory, performance studies, and affect theory from a gender perspective. She has given papers at academic conferences on topics including the works of Angélica Liddell and female spectatorship. She has edited a special issue of Ámbitos feministas devoted to “Feminism and Gynocinema,” and has published articles on Elena Jordi’s pioneering pop culture in Barcelona and the relationship between Lluïsa Cunillé’s theater and the Spanish transition to democracy. Irene’s dissertation studies Spanish and Catalan women’s fiction in film and theatre, analyzing how different levels of fictionality translate across genres and navigate intersectionality in a multi-layered-media representation paradigm.