My current Irish Research Council-funded fellowship at UCD examines the sociocultural impact of Spanish romantic comedy, a genre that has flourished in the twenty-first century. Challenging critical, feminised deprecation of the genre - and assumptions that it offers little more than feel-good escapism and/or reconciliatory aesthetics - the project examines how these films have reshaped sociocultural norms related to perceived national crises regarding gender, sexuality, and nationhood. In doing so, it treats Spanish romantic comedy as a serious site where passion and pleasure intersect with politics and play, and where contemporary Spanish identities are negotiated on screen.
A monograph is forthcoming with Bloombsbury (2027). Watch this space!
A monograph is forthcoming with Bloombsbury (2027). Watch this space!
PUBLICATIONS
2026 [In press] ‘Age Against the Machine: Assessing Older Women’s Desire in the New Age-Gap Romcom’. Screen, 67:3 (Autumn). https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjag024. OA.
2026 [In press] ‘The Trolling Tradwife? The Parodic Politics of Spanish Influencer Rocío “Roro” Bueno’. Signs: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society. OA.
2026 [In press] ‘Lost in the East: Comedy and Racial Stereotyping in Perdiendo el este/Off Course to China (Paco Caballero, 2019) and Los Japón/The Japon (Álvaro Díaz Lorenzo, 2019)’. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. Winner - 2025 AHGBI Edgar Allison Peers Prize.
2026 [In press] ‘Retail Romance: Humor, (Super)Marketised Love, and Spanish “Pineapple-Gate” Phenomenon’. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies. Summer.
2026 [In press] ‘Rehabilitating Romance: Gender, Metatextuality and Brand Management in Netflix Spain’s Valeria and Alpha Males’. In Imagining ‘We’ in the Age of ‘I’: Romance and Social Bonding in Contemporary Society, eds. D. Negra, S. Leonard, & M. Harrod (Routledge).
2026 ‘Stuck on Repeat: Serial Time and Romantic Fatigue in Netflix’s In Love All Over Again (2023)’. VIEW: Journal of European Television History & Culture. 15:29, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.18146/view.411. OA.
2026 ‘‘It doesn't make me feel the way you do’: Reading Dating Apps and Digital Intimacies in Smiley (Netflix 2022)’. International Journal of Iberian Studies, 38:3, 227-254. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijis_00166_1. EBSCO most downloaded article in 2025.
2025 ‘Beyond Buenismo: Javier Fesser’s Ayoub’s Birthday and the Limits of Spanish Multiculturalism’. In II Congreso Internacional Feminismos e Humor: Humor-Sofías, eds. S. de Salvador Agra et al. (Ediciones Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), pp. 195-208.
2025 ‘A High Price Toupee: The Costs of Baldness in Por los pelos’, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Issue #Ageing, eds. L. Freijo, A. Makarević, & B. Vidal. December 2. Editors’ Commendation. https://doi.org/10.25969/MEDIAREP/25273. OA.
2025 ‘Tough Love: Violence & Revenge in Contemporary Spanish Romantic Comedy’, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies, 9:2, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/24741604.2025.2513709. OA.
2025 ‘A High Price Toupee: The Costs of Baldness in Por los pelos’, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Issue #Ageing, eds. L. Freijo, A. Makarević, & B. Vidal. December 2. Editors’ Commendation. https://doi.org/10.25969/MEDIAREP/25273. OA.
2025 ‘Tough Love: Violence & Revenge in Contemporary Spanish Romantic Comedy’, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies, 9:2, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/24741604.2025.2513709. OA.