Maria Carpintero Torres-Quevedo

Thesis title: Contemporary American life-writing through the lens of postmodern feminism

Biography

Background

Maria Elena Torres-Quevedo studied English Philology at the University of Seville (BA Hons, 2014), receiving scholarships each year. During her undergraduate degree she benefitted from an Erasmus scholarship that allowed her to spend a year at the University of Edinburgh. She then went on to do funded research at Cornell University on gender and genre in contemporary coming of age stories. This research led to her funded MScR at the University of Edinburgh, which consisted of a 30,000-word thesis entitled "A Postmodern Feminist Perspective on the Contemporary American Bildungsroman." Maria's current research explores contemporary American women's narratives of identity construction, focussing on the relationship between genre conventions and identity. 

In addition to her research, Maria is a writer, editor, and social media officer for IncitingSparks.org, an interdisciplinary arts and humanities website. She is also an editor for ProjectMyopia.com, a website devoted to diversifying university curricula through crowdsourcing material from students, revolutionising the way that curricula are designed. Furthermore, she is co-editor of FORUM: The Postgraduate Journal of Culture and the Arts at Edinburgh.  Maria is also the co-founder of the Contemporary American TV Reading Group.

Qualifications

PhD in English Literature (Edinburgh University, Sep 2016- Present) • Researching contemporary American women’s narratives of identity construction

MscR in English Literature (Edinburgh University, Sep 2015- Aug 2015) • Researching gender and genre in the contemporary American Bildungsroman

1-year Graduate Research Grant in American Literature (Cornell University Aug 2014 - May 2015)

English Philology (BA (Hons) equivalent) (University of Seville Sep 2010 - June 2014)
 Erasmus exchange program- English Literature and Language (University of Edinburgh Sep 2012 - May 2013) 

Responsibilities & affiliations

Coeditor, FORUM: The Postgraduate Journal of Culture and the Arts at Edinburgh

 

Writer, Peer Editor, and Social Media Officer, IncitingSparks.org (Sep 2016-Present)

  • Member of a writing and editing team that is responsible for publishing one article monthly on the site
  • Member of the social media team that publishes posts for the site on both Twitter and Facebook.

Co-founder, Contemporary American TV reading group

  • Organising and leading sessions
  •  Managing of social media accounts
  •  Student Outreach 

Peer editor, Project Myopia.com

Founder and teacher of a literature group for children aged 9-12

Research summary

Gender and Genre, Coming-of-age, Feminism, Postmodernism, Intersectionality, Life-Writing, Contemporary American Literature. 

Articles

  • “Subversive Renegotiations of Identity in Female Coming-of-Age Narratives.” The Dangerous Women project, December 2016 

  • "Caucasia." Project Myopia, Janary 2018 

  • “Marilynne Robinson’s Lila: Reimagining the Marriage Plot in the Contemporary American Bildungsroman.” Edited Collection on the Writing of Marilynne Robinson. Manchester University Press. (Forthcoming 2018) 

  • "A Host of Questions: Artificial Agency in Westworld." The Science Fiction Western: Representation of Female Characters in the Late Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Media. (Forthcoming 2018)

Blog Posts

  • “Social Media Strikes Back.” Inciting Sparks.org (Oct 2016) 

  • "A Host of Questions: Artificial Agency in Westworld." Inciting Sparks.org (Feb 2017)

  • "A Few Reasons Why Not."  Inciting Sparks.org (May 2017)

  • "Antidepressants After Prozac Nation."  Inciting Sparks.org (June 2017)

  • "On Trump, Truth, and Poststructualism."  Inciting Sparks.org (July 2017)

  • "Responding to Charlottesville."  Inciting Sparks.org (Aug 2017)

  • "Netflix's Alias Grace and Female Testimony"  Inciting Sparks.org (Nov 2017)

“Marilynne Robinson’s Lila: Reimagining the Marriage Plot in the Contemporary American Bildungsroman.” Marilynne Robinson Symposium, Nottingham Trent University (June 2016) 

"Breaking the Autobiographical Pact: Truth and American Women's Life-Writing." Post-Truth and American Myths, University of Essex (November 2017)

"'Mine is Not a Success Story': Illness as Protest in Women’s Memoirs." EBAAS Environment, Place, and Protest, Kings College London (April 2018)

"'We' is the new 'I': Autobiography in the age of Netflix." LIT TV Symposium, Napier University (May 2018).

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