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Faculty Scholarship Showcase

McKillop Library supports and promotes the scholarship and research of faculty through its faculty lecture series and through this virtual and ongoing display of recent faculty publications. The display of faculty publications is updated biannually.

Esther María Alarcón Arana, Ph.D.

Esther María Alarcón Arana, Ph.D.

Associate Professor | Modern Languages

Dr. Esther María Alarcón Arana received her M.A. in English (2001), and both her M.A. (2010) and Ph.D. (2015) in Hispanic studies from the University of Pennsylvania. While she is interested in Transatlantic Cultural Studies, her main focus is Spain, whose artistic production she studies from a feminist and antiracist perspective. In addition to teaching at Salve Regina, she serves as secretary in the Asociación Hispánica de Humani­dades. Her recent publications include two edited volumes, Muerte y crisis en el mundo hispano (Peter Lang, 2020) and El reflejo de Medusa: Representaciones mediáticas contemporáneas de las mujeres (Advook, 2023); “Mafalda’s Music: Care Against the Patriarchal Culture of Romantic Love” in Revista de Estudios de Géne­ro y Sexualidades (2023); and “Using the Web to Educate Spain About Its Af­ro-Identity: Afroféminas” in Colonialist Gazes and Counternarratives of Black­ness. Afro-Spanishness in 20th and 21st Centuries (Routledge, 2024). She is currently working on a book studying how feminism and affect intersect in the creation of a conscious culture through contemporary Spanish music.

Featured Spring 2025

Using the Web to Educate Spain About Its Afro-Identity: Afroféminas

Esther M. Alarcón Arana

Summary:   This essay examines the role of the online magazine Afroféminas in educating the white Spanish community about its connections to the African continent. Through the analysis of the content and discursive strategies employed in a selection of articles, the essay argues that Afroféminas’s antiracist activism challenges two prevailing notions in contemporary Spain: national identity and feminism. Ultimately, the magazine’s didactic mission seeks to decenter hegemonic ideas of being a Spaniard and a feminist to create a hospitable space for all individuals living within Spanish territory.

Access:
Colonialist Gazes and Counternarratives of Blackness: Afro-Spanishness in 20th- and 21st-Century Spain, edited by Ana León Távora and Rosalíta Cornejo Parriego
Published by Routledge, August 2024
Chapter 4, pp. 88-110
McKillop Library Main Collection:   DP53.B45 C65 2024