October 12th, 2023 (4:30pm – 6:00pm Boston | 22:30pm Madrid) | In Person & Via Zoom
RSVP: https://bit.ly/RSVP-Observatorio or info-observatory@fas.harvard.edu
The historical and literary imaginary of the colonization of the Americas has been crystalized in epic deeds and hardworking, valiant men. The near-total absence of women in a centuries-long process would lead us to think the men were there alone, even if it is manifestly obvious that this could not have been the case. When the voices of minoritized groups arrive on the literary and historiographical scenes (only in the 20th century), we understand that women had been silenced, though, of course, they had had much to do and to say. Thanks to collaborative history and to historiographic metafiction, among other critical perspectives that help, little by little, to register notable absences, we can now approach colonization in its multiple perceptions. In this session––the Observatorio's contribution to Harvard's Worldwide Week 2023––the speaker, as a professor of literature, will address the topic by resorting to literary texts and auto/biographical memoirs.
M.A. Suárez Lafuente, Full Professor of English Philology, taught English Literature and English Language Literatures at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She co-founded the Seminario Mujeres y Literatura [Women and Literature Seminar] as well as the Centro de Investigaciones Feministas [Center for Feminist Research], which oversees both the doctoral program in Women’s Studies and the Erasmus Mundus GEMMA Master’s Program at the same university. She was President of AUDEM (Spanish Association of University Women), Director of the Cátedra Jovellanos, and President of AEDEAN (Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies); she was the Spanish representative for English Philology in ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) and Fellow at the English Association. Her research centers on literature and literary theory, topics on which she has published extensively in books and academic journals, including the following monographs: Crónicas de anglosajones y demás mestizos (1999), Desasosiegos éticos en cine y literatura (2017), and Fausto y Mefistófeles en la cultura occidental (2020).
Language: Spanish