Dr Mercedes Carbayo-Abengozar

Spanish & Latin American Studies, Motherhood Project, School of Modern Languages, Sexualities and Gender

Lecturer / Assistant Professor

Rye Hall Building, Block D
Second
F
(01) 474 7120

Biography

My first degree was in Spanish Literature and Linguistics. I did it in the University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, and at the time I thought that my career would be in linguistics as I loved sociolinguistics, in particular the gender perspective. However, after a postgraduate year at the University of Durham in the UK studying literature, I realized that my heart was split into the two disciplines but that there was something linking them: my interest to understand Spanish society through the parameters of gender. I did my PhD at Durham on the work of the Spanish writer Carmen Martin Gaite. After analysing the critical reception of her work in different periods in terms of a specific rhetoric about women and writing I came to the conclusion that despite Gaite´s contradictory public relationship with feminist theory and practice in Spain, her writing was informed by feminist struggles in Spain in a number of ways. Within the same framework and driven by Gaite´s and my own interest on popular culture, I developed an interest in popular music. In the same contradictory ways that Gaite related to a particular kind of feminism, “coplas” have been identified with specific discourses and particularly with the conservative of the Franco regime. As in the case of Gaite, I argue that “coplas” have been historically informed by feminist struggles in a number of ways and that they have negotiated with different discourses in order to keep their popularity and to carry on opening a window in women’s lives.  

After 24 years as a Senior Lecturer in different universities in the UK I arrived in Maynooth in February 2015. My intention is to carry on with my research in the same areas but also adding new perspectives within gender studies. In particular, I am interested in the fluidity of identity in adoption studies. 
 

Book

Year Publication
1998 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (1998) Buscando un lugar entre mujeres: buceo en la España de Carmen Martín Gaite, Universidad de Málaga: Atenea-Estudios sobre la mujer, 1998, 197 pp., ISBN: 84-7496-686-8.

Book Chapter

Year Publication
2014 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengzar (2014) 'Carmen Martin Gaite y la cultura popular' In: Carmen Martín Gaite: Nuevas Perspectivas. Universidad Complutense de Madrid : Especulo. [Full-Text]
2004 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (2004) '“Lo raro no es sólo vivir, lo raro es también hablar”' In: Carmen Martín Gaite. Madrid : Ediciones Orto.
2003 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (2003) '“Almudena Grandes: Sexo, hambre, amor y literatura”' In: Mujeres Novelistas. Jóvenes narradoras de los noventa. Madrid : Narcea.
2002 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (2002) ' “Modernas y posmodernas: de Juanita Reina a Martirio en la búsqueda de prototipos femeninos para el siglo XX”' In: Prototipos e imágenes de la mujer en los siglos XIX y XX.
2000 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (2000) '“Feminism in Spain: a History of Love and Hate”' In: Women into the new Millennium: Perspectives on the Woman of the Nineties in Spain and France.

Peer Reviewed Journal

Year Publication
2013 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (2013) ' “Dramatizando la construcción nacional desde el género y la música popular: la copla”, ALEC, Vol. 38.3 2013, Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies, pp. 509-533. '. 38.3 .
2007 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengzar (2007) 'Epitomising the Modern Spanish Nation through Popular Music: Coplas from La Caramba to Concha Piquer, 1750-1990, Gender and History, Vol. 19, November 2007, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 419-441. ISSN: 0953-5233'. 19 . [Full-Text]
2001 Dr Mercedes Carbayo Abengzar (2001) 'Women, the Baroque Language and the Franco Regime, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 7, January 2001, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 75-93. ISSN: 1354-5078 (2001) 7: 1; 1- C'. 7 . [Full-Text]
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