GYNOCINE PROJECT
BARBARA ZECCHI
GYNOCINE PROJECT FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR
Barbara Zecchi (Ph.D. University of California Los Angeles, 1998) is Professor and Head of the Film Studies Program of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She specializes in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas and Gender Studies, Film Adaptation and the Video-Graphic Essay. In addition to about a dozen video-graphic essays (shown in the US, UK, Spain, Italy, and Mexico), and about 50 articles and book chapters, she authored, edited or co-edited eight volumes: the monographic books La pantalla sexuada (The Gendered Screen, Cátedra, 2015) and Desenfocadas: Cineastas españolas y discursos de género (Out of Focus: Spanish Women Filmmakers and Gender Discourses, Icaria, 2014), and of the edited volumes Tras las lentes de Isabel Coixet: Cine, feminismo y compromiso (PUZ, 2017), Gynocine: Teoría de género, filmología y práxis cinematográfica (Univ. Zaragoza, 2013), Teoría y práctica de la adaptación fílmica (Complutense, 2011), La mujer en la España actual, ¿evolución o involución? (co-edited, Icaria, 2004), and Sexualidad y escritura (1850-2000) (co-edited, Anthropos, 2002), among others.
MARIBEL RAMS
FOUNDING MEMBER
Maribel Rams is Visiting Assistant Professor at Western Washington University. She holds a B.A. in Hispanic Philology, a B.A. in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature, and a M.A. in Construction and Representation of Cultural Identities from the University of Barcelona (UB), Spain, and a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has published numerous articles in journals such as Katalanistik (ZfK), Revista d'Estudis Catalans, and book chapters in edited volumes such as Gynocine. Teoría de género, filmografía y praxis cinematográfica (Barbara Zecchi ed.), among others. Maribel's research examines the articulation of memory, subjectivity, and cultural identity in 19th to 21st century Spain. Her areas of specialization are literature, autobiography, autoetnography, testimony, postmemory, and the documentary,
She has been collaborating to the Gynocine Project since 2011.
EVA PARIS-HUESCA
FOUNDING MEMBER
Eva París-Huesca is Assistant Professor of Modern Foreign Languages at the Wesleyan Ohio University. She holds a B.A from the Universidad de Valencia, Spain, an M.A. from the University of Nebraska and a Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her teaching and research interests include contemporary Spanish detective fiction and film noir, Spanish literature of female authorship from 19th Century to the present, as well as topics on film adaptation and historical memory. Her courses include: Contemporary Spanish narrative and cinema, Spanish detective fiction, and language courses from beginning to advance levels. She is currently working on a volume of interviews with women filmmakers in Spain.
She has been collaborating to the Gynocine Project since 2011
IRENE MELÉ-BALLESTEROS
FOUNDING MEMBER
Irene Melé Ballesteros has a BA in English Philology and a Master in International Relations from the University of Barcelona (UAB), and a Master from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a thesis on Catalan film pioneer Elena Jordi. She specializes on the origins of Catalan cinema by women, and on film adaptations of Spanish novel and drama. The avant-garde and its relationship with the then emerging film phenomenon are also topics of interest.
She has been collaborating to the Gynocine Project since 2011.
STEFANIA BENINI
ITALIAN CINEMA COORDINATOR
Stefania Benini is Assistant Professor of Instruction in Italian at Temple University. Already a Ph.D. in Italian from Stanford University, she has been the recipient of the prestigious "Lauro De Bosis" Fellowship at Harvard University (2014-2015). She has taught Italian Language, Literature, and Cinema at various institutions, such as the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Bryn Mawr College, Franklin & Marshall College, and Temple University. Her main research interests are the theory of the sacred in Italian literature and cinema, and the gaze and voice of Italian and Italophone women writers and filmmakers. Her book, Pasolini: The Sacred Flesh (Toronto University Press, 2015), explores Pasolini's immanent vision of the sacred. Her numerous articles discuss the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alina Marazzi, Amelia Rosselli, Igiaba Scego, Ornela Vorpsi, and Liliana Cavani, among others. Her most recent essay on Pier Paolo Pasolini and European Queer Cinema, "From Blasphemy to Saint Paul: Multistable Subjectivities Between Queer Cinema and Pasolini's Subversive Hagiographies," was published in Biblical Interpretations in 2019.
BENJAMIN SEPINUCK
UNITED STATES CINEMA COORDINATOR
Benjamin Sepinuck is an undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts, majoring in Film Studies through the BDIC program. His academic interests in cinema are primarily in regards to experimental and genre film, particularly international horror. He has been working on the Gynocine Project since 2019 and is currently pursuing postgraduate opportunities in film directing.
MAYBEL MESA MORALES
CUBAN CINEMA COORDINATOR
Maybel Mesa Morales is Visiting Assistant Professor at Providence College. She holds a B.A in Hispanic Language and Literature from the University of Havana and earned a PhD in Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University (2018). Her teaching and research interests focus on contemporary literature, film, performance and new journalism in Latin America, with emphasis on issues of intermediality, transmedia narratives and digital globalization. She has held research and teaching positions in Cuba, Greece and the USA. Her courses include Cuban Film, Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Film, Multimodal Spanish Composition, Spanish for Business Communication (LSP) and all levels of Spanish as second language. Currently, she is working on a manuscript that explores intermedial strategies as an archival reconfiguration in contemporary Cuban artistic production.
ANTONIO TERRON BARROSO
Antonio Terrón Barroso es licenciado en traducción e interpretación (Universidad de Granada), licenciado en publicidad y relaciones públicas (Universidad Oberta de Cataluña) y diplomado en turismo (Universidad de Granada). Cuenta también con el máster en formación del profesorado con especialización en lengua extranjera inglés (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) y actualmente cursa estudios de doctorado dentro del programa «Lenguas, textos y contextos» de la Universidad de Granada. Durante el curso académico 2014-2015 ha sido lector de español (graduate teaching associate) en la Universidad de Massachusetts Amherst. Anteriormente ejerció la docencia en España tanto en formación profesional como en bachillerato durante varios años. Entre sus intereses investigadores se encuentran la didáctica del español, la traducción audiovisual, el análisis crítico del discurso y el cine español.
He has been a Gynocine Project core team member since 2014.
CARLA SUÁREZ VEGA
Carla Suárez Vega is a Ph.D. candidate in the Spanish and Portuguese Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Film Studies from the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies. She holds a BA in English Studies (Universidad de Oviedo, 2012) and two Master’s Degree, one in Gender and Diversity (Universidad de Oviedo, 2013), and another one in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language(Universidad de Oviedo, 2014). Her work and research interests revolve around Spanish cultural studies and graphic narratives. Her current research focuses on the representations of queer subjectivities and practices within contemporary Spanish comics, literature, and film.
She has been a Gynocine Project core team member since 2014.
GINA MALAGOLD
Gina Malagold is a Ph.D. candidate in the Spanish and Portuguese Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies. She holds a BA in Spanish Literature (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 2011) and a Master's Degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2013.) She is a Fulbright Scholar (Argentina, 2012), Ronald E. McNair Scholar, and is currently a visiting researcher at Georgetown University (2018.) Her work and research interests revolve around themes of Jews in the diaspora, US-Mexico cross-border networks, and racial and ethnic formation. Her current research project focuses on the life and work of Mexican-Jewish anthropologist, Anita Brenner.
She has been a Gynocine Project adjunct team member since 2017.
ERIN K. HOGAN
Erin K. Hogan is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Maryland Baltimore County where she teaches courses in Spanish literature and film and Latin American cinema. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California Los Angeles in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. Dr. Hogan has published on the construction of childhood in the Spanish literary, visual, and cinematic arts from the eighteenth century to the present. She is the author of a genre study of over fifty years of the child-starred cinemas of the "two Spains" and their transatlantic dialogism: The Two cines con niño (Edinburgh University Press 2018). Her broader work, including two articles on Isabel Coixet’s films, touches upon Hispanic and transnational cinemas and their portrayal of interculturality. Dr. Hogan scholarship has appeared in Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas, Hispanic Research Journal, International Journal of Iberian Studies, The Comparatist, edited volumes, and elsewhere. She has been a Gynocine Project team member since 2017
MARÍA GARCÍA PUENTE
María García Puente is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at California State University San Bernardino. She earned a B.A in English Philology and M.A in Applied Foreign Languages from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and a M.A and Ph.D in Hispanic Literature from the University of Kansas. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Spanish language, and Hispanic literature, cinema and culture. Her research areas are contemporary Spanish literature and cinema with a focus on fairy tales and gender studies. Her scholarship focuses mainly on feminist rewritings of fairy tales in 21st century Spanish cinema.
She has been a Gynocine Project team member since 2017
CHRISTINA BEAUBIEN
Christina Beaubien received her B.A in Spanish from Framingham State College and a M.A in Spanish Language and Literature from St. Louis University in Madrid. Her area of study includes 19th and 20th century Spanish Literature and Culture with an emphasis on the Guerra Civil and the Franco Dictatorship. She is also interested in the problematics of gender, memory, and trauma in contemporary Spanish literature in film. Her dissertation will focus on the experiences of various authors, directors, and essayists during their exile from Spain after the end of the Guerra Civil.
ASIER GIL VÁZQUEZ
Asier Gil Vázquez es estudiante de doctorado en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid desde 2014. Su tesis se centra en la intersección del género con la edad en el cine del primer franquismo. También ha presentado comunicaciones acerca del discurso de género en la copla, modelos de feminidades en las tele-comedias de Jaime de Armiñán, relatos de posmemoria en el cine de la Transición o nacionalismo banal en programas gastronómicos.
SANDRA GALVÁN
Sandra Galván, doctoranda en el programa de español de la universidad de Massachusetts, es licenciada en Historia por la Universidad de Girona, donde también ha cursado el Master Oficial en Gestión del Patrimonio Cultural. Asimismo, cuenta con un Postgrado en Educación y Cultura de la Cátedra UNESCO de Políticas Culturales y Cooperación de la misma universidad. Responsable del departamento educativo del Museu del Cinema, donde ha organizado y coordinado multitud de programas, festivales, cursos y eventos relacionados con el séptimo arte, es también colaboradora del Catalan Film Festival de la Universidad de Massachusetts
DOLORES JUAN-MORENO
Dolores Juan Moreno is Lecturer at Clark University. She received her first Ph.D. in 2015 from UIB (Balearic Islands, Spain) with a dissertation on the Spanish poet Aurora Luque and she earned her second PhD at UMass-Amherst in 2016 with a dissertation about Food, Film and Poetry. Her research interests include Women Writers and Filmmakers of the 21st century; Food, Cinema and Poetry and the interdisciplinary connections between the cultures of the Mediterranean. At Clark University she teaches all levels of Spanish language as well as Contemporary Spanish literature, culture and cinema courses. She also serves as the director and coordinator of the project HCH (Hispanic Culture and Heritage), which she created along with undergraduate students in 2016.
FLAVIA LAVIOSA
Flavia Laviosa is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Italian Studies at Wellesley College where she teaches Italian language and culture as well as European women filmmakers. Her research interests are in the representations of violence against women in cinema and media. She is the founding editor of the book series Trajectories of Italian Cinema and Media (2019- present) and of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies (2012-present) both published by Intellect. She has published chapters in edited volumes including He Was my Father (eds. S. Gastaldi and D. Ward (Peter Lang, 2018), The Blackwell Companion to Italian Cinema (ed. F. Burke) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), The Italian Cinema Book (ed. P. Bondanella) (British Film Institute, 2014), A New Italian Political Cinema? Emerging Themes (ed. W. Hope) (Troubador, 2013), Popular Italian Cinema and Politics in a Postwar Society (ed. F. Brizio-Skov) (Bloomsbury, 2011), and articles in refereed journals like Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Studies in European Cinema, JOMEC, Rivista di Studi Italiani. She also guest-edited the special issue of SEC, Cinematic Journeys of Italian Women Directors’ in 2011, and edited the collection of essays Visions of Struggle in Women’s Filmmaking in the Mediterranean (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
INÉS MÉNDEZ FERNANDEZ
Inés Méndez Fernández es graduada por la Universidad de Oviedo (2014), donde también realizó el máster en Español como Lengua Extranjera (2015). En esta misma institución cursa actualmente sus estudios de doctorado en el programa de Investigaciones Humanísticas por la línea de Literatura, Lenguaje y Comunicación. Su proyecto doctoral trata la representación autorial en el cine. Asimismo, es becaria del programa Severo Ochoa para la investigación y docencia del Principado de Asturias desde el curso 2017-2018. Sus líneas de interés académico se centran en la narrativa audiovisual y los vínculos entre el cine y la literatura, así como en los mecanismos ficcionales que rigen estas manifestaciones artísticas.
PILAR OSORIO
Pilar Osorio is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Spanish and Portuguese Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is also pursuing a Certificate in Film Studies. She works on Latin American Literature and Cinema, with a focus on the role of emotions/feelings in the narrative construction of political consciousness. Before joining the University of Massachusetts, Pilar held teaching positions at the Colegio Los Nogales and at the Colegio Tilatá in Colombia. In 2010, she worked as coordinator of the National Memory Program and of the Publishing Promotion Program at the Ministry of Culture of Colombia. From 2010 to 2014 she coordinated the Literature Programs in Red de Bibliotecas del Banco de la República de Colombia (Colombia's Libraries Network) leading and developing workshops for vulnerable populations, curating exhibitions, selecting books for national purchase, and organizing international conferences, (as CILELIJ, among others).
She is currently the chief curator of the Latin American Film Festival at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
CELIA SAINZ
Celia Sainz is a doctorate student in the Hispanic and Linguistics program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, also perusing a Certificate in Film Studies. She received her B.A from the Universidad Carlos III, Spain. Her research focuses on film and gender studies in the Iberian space. Currently, she is working on her master’s thesis, researching poetic cinema in the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. She co-directs the Catalan Film Festival and the Latin American Film Festival at UMass. She has been collaborating to the Gynocine Project since 2017.
ELISABET PALLÀS MASSÓ
Elisabet es estudiante de doctorado en el programa de Hispanic Literatures and Linguistics de la Universidad de Massachusetts Amherst, donde cursa su último año. Es licenciada en Humanidades (2012) por la Universitat Pompeu Fabra y cuenta con un máster de gestión lingüística de la Universitat de Barcelona (2013) y otro de literatura y cultura española, también de la universidad de Massachusetts Amherst (2015). Interesada en la cultura visual, sus líneas de investigación incluyen el estudio del cine y teatro contemporáneo ibérico, con énfasis en la producción independiente y los estudios de género. Su tesis doctoral se centra en el desplazamiento y expropiación poblacional en las espacialidades del Raval barcelonés, en el marco de una crítica más amplia sobre las políticas de urbanidad y las deficiencias del modelo Barcelona.
EMILY KO
Emily is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a Philosophy, Film Studies, Psychology, and French major. She is interested in international cinema; she especially loves watching French and South Korean films. She won First Place in the Teaching Category during the 2020-2021 Michael S. Roif Awards for her work with the Gynocine Project!
Click here to watch her explain some of the work that she has done with Gynocine!
ALMA MILETO
Alma is a PhD student in Music and Spectacle at the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Art and Spectacle of Sapienza - University of Rome. She is working on a thesis about the relationship between the visual plane and the sound plane in the contemporary documentary, with a particular insight into the use of archive editing. She has written essays and articles on scientific and class A magazines and collective volumes. She has collaborated with publications such as Doppiozero, Costellazioni, Amadeus, alfabeta2. She co-edited the volume Inside / Outside. The work of the imagination and the forms of editing (il lavoro culturale, Siena 2017). She has been a speaker at several Italian and international conferences. She coordinates the editorial staff of Fata Morgana Web.
KAYDENCE - UYÊN LÊ
Kaydence is an international undergraduate student from Vietnam at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Having done a year-long thesis in 2020 on the male gaze in modern mainstream film production, Kaydence is also fostering the dream of becoming a feminist cinematographer in the future. Other interests are film photography, make up, drag shows, plants, and fashion!
AD HOC COLLABORATORS
Ana Corbalán (University of Alabama)
Ramón Girona (Universitat de Girona)
Carmen Santamaría
Raquel Medina (Aston University, UK)
Jaime Orejero Rodríguez (Universidad de Oviedo)
Lucía Tello
Carmen Santamaría (Universidad de Oviedo)