Category: Other

We are proud to celebrate the publication of El Gran hilo que todo lo une, un cuento posthumano, the new children’s book by our colleague María Ferrández San Miguel.

BUY IT HERE

The book brings together academic research, literature, and ethical engagement with the more-than-human world, translating ideas from critical posthumanism into an accessible and meaningful story for children.

Inspired both by her research and by her personal experience as a mother, the book emerges from a desire to encourage values of respect, interdependence, and care toward all beings and environments with which we coexist.

This project is a wonderful example of how university research can engage with artistic creation and reach audiences beyond academia. Through storytelling and imagination, the book invites readers to reflect on our relationship with the world and on the importance of building more sustainable and empathetic futures.

We would also like to congratulate illustrator @eimoncayo, whose artwork beautifully brings the story to life, and the publisher @babidibulibros for supporting this project.

We are proud to see how the ideas explored within our research group continue to find new forms of cultural and social impact.

We are delighted to announce the publication of a new book chapter by Rubén Peinado-Abarrio in Women Who Write Animals, published by Brill.

Titled “An Animal State”: the Human-Dog Entity in Drifts (2020), the chapter offers a compelling posthumanist reading of Zambreno’s novel, centring on the intimate relationship between the autodiegetic narrator and her dog, Genet. Through this bond, the study explores how the text gestures toward a human–dog assemblage that challenges conventional distinctions between human and more-than-human animals.

Drawing on critical posthumanist and feminist frameworks, the chapter examines how experiences such as pregnancy, care, and cohabitation lead to a dissolution of bounded subjectivity. In particular, it engages with the concept of “decreation” to show how the narrator’s sense of self is reconfigured through relationality and shared affect. The domestic space emerges as a multispecies community in which meaning is produced collectively, rather than through hierarchical or utilitarian human–animal relations.

By foregrounding the animal subject and its entanglement with human experience, this work contributes to ongoing debates in posthumanist theory, animal studies, and feminist literary criticism. It also highlights how literary form itself can become a site for imagining alternative modes of being and belonging.

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004754584-017

We warmly congratulate Rubén on this thoughtful and original contribution!

A new session of the Literary Criticism Workshop will take place on Friday, 20 March at 12:00 in Room B3.2 at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Zaragoza.

The session, titled “Autotheory and Kate Zambreno’s short story: Insekt or Large Verminous Thing,” will be led by Rubén Peinado Abarrio.

This workshop series provides a collaborative space where students and researchers can engage with different approaches to literary theory and criticism through the discussion of specific texts. In this session, participants will explore the concept of autotheory through the work of contemporary writer and critic Kate Zambreno, whose experimental writing often blurs the boundaries between literary criticism, personal narrative, and creative practice.

The discussion will focus on Zambreno’s short story Insekt or Large Verminous Thing, examining how autotheoretical writing challenges conventional distinctions between scholarship and personal reflection while opening new possibilities for literary analysis.

The Literary Criticism Workshop aims to foster a dynamic and welcoming environment for discussing literature and critical theory.

📍 Location: Room B3.2, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
🗓 Date: Friday, 20 March 2026
⏰ Time: 12:00

The session is open to anyone interested in literature and literary criticism. 📖✨

Our research team recently participated in the IX Jornadas del Observatorio Permanente de Innovación Docente, organized at the Universidad de Zaragoza. The event brings together faculty members interested in sharing experiences and best practices in university teaching, particularly those that integrate research and pedagogical innovation.

During the poster session, our colleagues M. Ferrández, S. Martínez, S. Baelo, M. Abizanda, and F. Collado presented the contribution: “Posthumanismo, relacionalidad e Inteligencia Artificial en la docencia de literatura norteamericana: una reflexión pedagógica desde la innovación docente universitaria.”

The poster reflects on how emerging theoretical and technological frameworks can reshape literature teaching in higher education. Drawing on posthumanist thought, the project explores relational approaches to knowledge that challenge anthropocentric models of learning and emphasize interconnectedness between humans, technologies, and cultural texts.

At the same time, the proposal considers the growing presence of artificial intelligence tools in the classroom and reflects on how they may be integrated critically into the teaching of American literature. Rather than treating AI merely as a technological aid, the project frames it as a pedagogical opportunity: a way to foster critical thinking, collaborative interpretation, and reflexive engagement with digital tools.

Participating in these jornadas offered a valuable space for dialogue with colleagues across disciplines and reaffirmed the importance of collective reflection on the future of university teaching.

We are pleased to share a Call for Papers for the symposium Unbound, Unfinished, Ongoing: A Kate Zambreno Symposium, a one-day online event dedicated to the work of Kate Zambreno, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary experimental writing and literary criticism.

The symposium will take place online on 23 October 2026 and is hosted by the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Zaragoza. The event is organized by literary scholar Rubén Peinado, a member of our research team.

Zambreno’s work—spanning fiction, autofiction, literary criticism, and hybrid writing—has played a significant role in reshaping contemporary discussions around authorship, archives, feminist criticism, and the boundaries between life writing and literary scholarship. This symposium seeks to bring together scholars working on Zambreno’s oeuvre as well as those interested in the broader questions her work raises about contemporary literary culture.

We welcome proposals that engage with topics such as:

• Autofiction and hybrid literary forms
• Feminist criticism and experimental writing
• Archives, fragments, and literary memory
• Contemporary literary criticism and creative practice
• The intersections between scholarship and creative writing

Researchers from a wide range of disciplines within literary and cultural studies are encouraged to submit proposals.

🗓 Abstract deadline: 1 July 2026
📅 Symposium date: 23 October 2026
💻 Format: Online

For the full Call for Papers and submission guidelines, please visit:
https://sites.google.com/view/kate-zambreno-symposium/inicio

We warmly encourage colleagues and researchers interested in contemporary experimental literature, feminist criticism, and hybrid writing to consider submitting a proposal and to share this call with their networks.

We’re thrilled to share that you can now visit The Posthuman Wound Research Team on ResearchGate 👩‍🔬📚✨

Discover our latest publications, explore ongoing projects, and meet the researchers behind our work on posthumanism, crime fiction, and 21st-century literature 🖋️🔬📖.

Stay connected with us and follow our journey here 👉 https://www.researchgate.net/lab/The-Posthuman-Wound-Research-Team-Sonia-Baelo-Allue 🌐💡

We are delighted to share that our predoctoral researcher María Abizanda-Cardona has presented a conference poster at the XVIII Conference on Teaching Innovation and Educational Research organized by the University of Zaragoza. The presentation took place in the thematic panel “Rethinking Teaching Innovation in the New Regulatory Context”, a space devoted to reflecting on how higher education is adapting to new institutional and pedagogical frameworks.

The poster, entitled “Fostering Critical Thinking through Literature: Assessing the Literary Criticism Workshop as a Teaching Innovation Experience in English Studies,” was developed collaboratively by a group of PhD students in Literature from the Department of English and German Studies. Its aim was to present and analyze the outcomes of our three-year ongoing teaching innovation project, which has been exploring how literary studies can be used as a powerful tool to enhance students’ critical thinking, interpretive skills, and reflective engagement.

At the core of the project lies the Literary Criticism Workshop, an innovative teaching model that places students in an active role as critics and interpreters of literary texts. Rather than approaching literature as a set of fixed meanings, the workshop encourages students to debate, question, and construct arguments collectively, helping them to develop key transversal skills such as critical reasoning, analytical writing, and collaborative learning.

The poster session provided an excellent opportunity to share our results with colleagues from different disciplines and institutions, and to reflect on how teaching innovation projects like this one can respond to the evolving demands of higher education. The interest generated during the session confirmed the relevance of literature-based pedagogies for fostering deeper forms of learning in today’s university classroom.

We have exciting news… our research group now has an official Instagram account! 🎉📸

Why follow us? Because we’re bringing posthumanism, literature, and research closer to you in a fun and dynamic way. Expect:

• 🔬 Research updates – See what our team is working on, from cutting-edge projects to international collaborations.
• 🎙️ Podcasts and videos– Dive into conversations about American literature, posthumanism, and contemporary culture.
• ✨ Events and conferences
• 📚 Publications and resources – Discover our latest open-access articles, books, and innovative research projects..

Our team member María Ferrández-San Miguel will be delivering the lecture “Consejos para presentar los méritos a una plaza de Asociadx o AYD” for SAAS Young Scholars.

📅 Friday 14th March

⏰ 17h.

🔗 Formulario inscripción gratuita: https://surl.li/yrcida

Find out more info here!

Our team member Miriam Fernández Santiago will be delivering the keynote “The Neo-Apollonian: A Posthumanist Sign of the Digital Times” next Wednesday as part of the cycle of conferences Literature(s) in English (I): Imaginative Encounters.

Literature(s) in English (I): Imaginative Encounters is a seminar organized by the Master in Advanced English Studies at the University of Salamanca and the University of Valladolid. It brings together experts from several international universities working on different periods of English and American literature.

The Literature(s) in English (I) seminar will be mostly held online, via Zoom. Anyone who wishes to attend the seminar is expected to register, using the following link.