The Posthuman Wound

We are delighted to share some wonderful news for the TYPH research group: our Principal Investigators, Prof. Sonia Baelo-Allué and Prof. Mónica Calvo Pascual, have both been promoted to Full Professor.

This is an outstanding and well-deserved recognition of their distinguished academic careers and their many contributions to research, teaching, and university life. Throughout the years, Sonia and Mónica have established themselves as leading scholars in their respective fields while also mentoring generations of students and early-career researchers with remarkable generosity and dedication.

As leaders of TYPH, they have played a fundamental role in developing an internationally recognised research community devoted to the study of posthumanities, contemporary literature, trauma studies, ecocriticism, and related interdisciplinary fields. Their vision, commitment, and collaborative spirit continue to inspire everyone in our group.

We are incredibly proud to celebrate this milestone with them and grateful for their continued leadership. We look forward to the many exciting projects, publications, conferences, and collaborations that lie ahead.

Congratulations, Sonia and Mónica, on this exceptional achievement. We wish you every success in this new stage of your academic careers!

We are delighted to announce that our team member Sergio Salvador has successfully defended his doctoral thesis, Wired for Inequality: Power and Privilege in the Cyberpunk Dystopia, supervised by María Ferrández San Miguel and Francisco Collado Rodríguez.

Sergio’s dissertation offers an in-depth examination of cyberpunk fiction as a critical lens through which to explore contemporary questions of power, inequality, technological development, and social privilege. By analyzing dystopian worlds shaped by advanced technologies, corporate domination, and widening social divides, his research demonstrates how cyberpunk narratives continue to provide valuable insights into the structures and tensions that characterize the twenty-first century.

Cyberpunk has long been one of the most influential subgenres of science fiction, imagining futures in which technological innovation coexists with social fragmentation and economic disparity. Sergio’s work investigates how these narratives challenge dominant assumptions about technological progress, revealing the ways in which systems of power and privilege are reproduced, transformed, and contested within speculative futures.

The successful defense of Wired for Inequality represents a significant contribution to the fields of science fiction studies, cultural studies, and contemporary literary criticism. More broadly, the thesis highlights the continuing relevance of speculative fiction as a space for reflecting on urgent social, political, and ethical concerns.

We warmly congratulate Dr. Sergio Salvador on this important achievement and thank María Ferrández San Miguel and Francisco Collado Rodríguez for their supervision and support throughout the project.

We look forward to following the next stages of Sergio’s academic career and the future development of his research.

We are delighted to share that our team member Lucía Bennett Ortega has successfully defended her doctoral thesis, Posthuman Disabled Ontologies in Richard Powers’ Fiction, supervised by Dr. Miriam Fernández Santiago at the University of Granada.

This milestone marks the culmination of years of dedicated research supported by a highly competitive FPU fellowship awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education. Lucía’s dissertation offers an innovative examination of disability, embodiment, and posthuman subjectivity in the fiction of contemporary American novelist Richard Powers, contributing to ongoing debates in critical posthumanism, disability studies, and literary criticism.

Lucía graduated in English Studies from the University of Granada in 2020, receiving the Extraordinary End-of-Degree Distinction. During her undergraduate studies, she was awarded a Departmental Collaborative Grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education. She subsequently completed a Master’s degree in English Literature and Linguistics before obtaining an FPU fellowship to pursue her doctoral research.

Throughout her academic career, Lucía has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to research and international collaboration. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Glasgow and at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she carried out a six-month research stay funded by a Fulbright Scholarship.

Her research interests include critical posthumanism, disability studies, feminist criticism, and contemporary literature. Her work has appeared in prestigious journals, including English Studies, Alicante Journal of English Studies, and Atlantis. Since September 2024, she has also served as Young Scholars Coordinator of the Spanish Association of American Studies (SAAS), contributing to the development of emerging scholars in the field.

Lucía’s successful defense represents not only a remarkable personal achievement but also an important contribution to the growing body of scholarship exploring the intersections of literature, disability, and posthuman theory.

We warmly congratulate Dr. Lucía Bennett Ortega on this outstanding accomplishment and wish her every success in the next stage of her academic career.

We are delighted to share that our team member María Abizanda Cardona has been awarded First Prize for Oral Presentations at the 2026 Early Career Scientist Symposium, organized by the Postdoctoral Association at the University of California, Riverside.

The symposium brought together researchers from a wide range of disciplines, providing an opportunity for early-career scholars to present their work, exchange ideas, and build new interdisciplinary connections. María’s presentation, titled “Why Scientists Should Read Crime Fiction: Literature as a Laboratory for Scientific Ethics,” explored how literary narratives can serve as valuable tools for reflecting on ethical questions in science and technology.

Her research demonstrates how crime fiction can function as a space for examining complex issues such as scientific responsibility, emerging technologies, and the social consequences of innovation. By bringing together literary studies and scientific ethics, the project highlights the important contributions that the humanities can make to contemporary debates about science and society.

Receiving the symposium’s top award is a significant achievement and a recognition of both the originality and relevance of María’s research. It also reflects the growing importance of interdisciplinary approaches that bridge the humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields.

In addition to presenting her work, María described the symposium as a valuable opportunity to meet fellow researchers, learn about projects across disciplines, and strengthen connections within the academic community.

We warmly congratulate María on this well-deserved recognition and look forward to following the continued development of her research.