Dr. Mercedes Peñalba

is Lecturer of English at the University of Salamanca, where she regularly teaches contemporary short fiction, and British and American satire. Her research interests include the short story, autobiographical and documentary comics, and Holocaust narratives. She has contributed essays to several edited volumes and to such journals as Signa, AdVersuS, Texto Crítico, Culture, Language and Representation, Epos, and Short Story Criticism. She is a current member of the American Network for Short Fiction Research, and the GIR Research Group on Discourse and Identity (GI-1924) led by the University of Santiago de Compostela.

In this research project, Mercedes Peñalba critically examines the intersections of gender, race, class, and nationality in contemporary short stories by British women writers (Zadie Smith and Ali Smith, among others). Her research approach combines attention to narrative theory and postcolonial criticism, with special emphasis on the generic specificity of the short story.

Publications

2019. “Posmemoria y ética de la imaginación en la novela gráfica de Joe Kubert Yossel: 19 de abril de 1943.” Los géneros de la memoria. Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (Jean Monnet Papers: Cultural Studies in European Integration).

2018. “Brevity as Form: Towards an Aesthetics of the Short Story.” Short Story Criticism, ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 258, Detroit: Gale, Cengage, pp. 71-79. ISSN: 0895-9439.

2017. “Intertextualidad e hibridación genérica en La solución final de Michael Chabon.” La globalización del crimen. Literatura, cine y nuevos medios, Santiago de Compostela: Andavira, pp. 365-372. ISBN: 978-84-8408-979-7.

2016. “Re-escritura y parodia: La adaptación ‘noir’ de La tierra baldía de Martin Rowson.” El género negro: De la marginalidad a la normalización. Santiago de Compostela: Andavira, pp. 695-706. ISBN: 978-84-8408-905-6.

2015. “La novela gráfica como palimpsesto: Ciudad de cristal de Paul Auster, Paul Karasik y David Mazzucchelli.” El género eterno. Estudios sobre novela y cine negro. Santiago de Compostela: Andavira, pp. 643-654. ISBN: 978-84-8408-803-5.

2015. “Writing the Self, Drawing the Self: Identity and Self-Reflexivity in Craig Thompson’s Graphic Memoir Blankets.” Culture, Language and Representation, vol. XIV, pp. 155-180. ISSN: 1697-7750.

2015. “My World Is Sight”: H.G. Wells’s Anti-Utopian Imagination in “The Country of the Blind.” EPOS. Revista de Filología, vol. XXXI, pp. 475-484. ISSN: 0213-201X.

2014. “La temporalidad en el cómic.” Signa. Revista de la Asociación Española de Semiótica, vol. 23, pp. 687-713. ISSN: 1133-3634.

2013.  “Intermedialidad e Intertextualidad en la Serie The Spirit de Will Eisner.” AdVersuS. Revista de Semiótica, vol. 25, pp. 150-176. ISSN: 1669-7588.

2012. “Estética de la brevedad.” Texto Crítico (Nueva época), vol. 30, pp. 137-155. ISSN: 1048-6380.

2012. “Judging a Book by Its Cover: Reading Comics as Literature.” Teaching Literature in English. Universitat de València, pp. 177-187. ISBN: 978-84-15323-54-9.