About

Irene Gomez-Castellano is a Full Professor of Modern and Contemporary Iberian and Transatlantic Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has been a faculty member since 2008. Her research and teaching interests include a wide range of topics such as Contemporary Spanish Poetry, Contemporary Spanish Women Writers, Famine Studies, Memory, the culture of the Spanish Civil War, Iberian Romanticisms, the Spanish Enlightenment, 18th-century queer studies, Cuban 19th-century abolitionist literature, Spanish 19th-century poetry and drama, and intersections between art and literature, music and literature, Rococo aesthetics, and Francisco de Goya. She has published extensively, with scholarly articles and book chapters in prominent international journals, and is the author of the academic book 'La cultura de las máscaras' (2012). She co-edited 'Dissonances of Modernity: Music, Text, and Performance in Modern Spain' (2021) and is working on her next scholarly book, 'The Hunger Artists of Spain' (2026). Additionally, she is an award-winning poet, author of the poetry book 'Natación' (2015), and her poetry has been featured in various anthologies and journals. She served as the editor of the academic journal Romance Notes from 2018 to 2023 and is affiliated with UNC's MEMS and ISA programs.

Research topics

• Humanities
• Art
• Philosophy
• History
• Theology
• Archaeology
• Classics
• Ancient history
• Literature

Selected publications

• Pablo Neruda in Context

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2026-02-27

  book

  Pablo Neruda in Context includes forty-two essays by some of the main experts on Pablo Neruda's oeuvre that focus on how his places of residence and travel (Mexico, Argentina, Spain, France, Asia), the landmark event of the Cold War, as well as literary and political influences affected his poetic evolution. It also considers the other genres of his writing, including memoirs, letters, translation, and drama, as well as the musical and film adaptions of his work throughout the world. Other essays study his anti-colonial and ecocritical messages, his complicated relationships with women and other writers, as well as his take on race and the significance of his plausible assassination by Augusto Pinochet's military junta. The last section explores Neruda's poetry as world literature as well as his impressive reception in India, Japan, China, the Arab world, the Anglophone world, Russia and Eastern Europe, and his overall lasting legacy.

  PublisherDOI

• The Adolescent Poetry of Pablo Neruda (1920–1924)

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2026-02-27

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Tears in translation: Carolina Coronado's Sapphic poems

  UNC Libraries · 2025-07-29

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The title of this article, “Tears in Translation”, emphasizes two aspects of Sappho's works that are central for an understanding of the poetic corpus of Spanish Romantic poet Carolina Coronado, especially the poems that she wrote as homages to the Greek classical poet. On the one hand, there is the ragged or torn state of Sappho as a source, which allows her translator(s) to fill in the blanks and to pour themselves into the process of translation. On the other hand, the second meaning of tears (lágrimas) alludes to Sappho's and Carolina Coronado's complex uses of liquid motifs for the transmission/translation of affects/emotions in their poems. Assuming an implicit correlation between the translation of texts and the transmission of emotions embedded in them, “Tears in Translation” is an attempt to give visibility to a liquid poetic genealogy and acts as a transhistorical vessel/transfusion linking the bodily fluids overflowing in the work of Carolina Coronado, the main Spanish female Romantic poet, and Sappho's original texts.

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• Sara Mesa, Un amor (2020) y la resurrección feminista del tremendismo ibérico

  MLN · 2024-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract: La literatura de ambiente rural ha experimentado un boom en España en la última década, pero los parámetros bajo los que se ha estudiado no logran explicar sus últimas manifestaciones. En Un amor (2020), la sexta novela de Sara Mesa (Madrid, 1976), se presenta una confluencia del discurso de la precariedad económica propia de la "literatura de la crisis" con el discurso del acoso machista, representado en la figura antagónica del casero/violador de Nat, la protagonista. Se interpretará Un amor como una adaptación/revisión en clave feminista de los postulados literarios del tremendismo de ambiente rural, representado en la obra icónica La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942), de Camilo José Cela. Retornar a los textos brutales de la tradición española del tremendismo de posguerra nos puede permitir ver con mayor precisión cómo Mesa construye su texto y lo ancla a tradiciones globales y autóctonas, y cómo lo reescribe desde la perspectiva de una mujer, y cómo este estilo sirve para dar forma al trauma de no tener vivienda ni trabajo estables, familia, ni hijos. Se analizará el uso de la narración impersonal, el énfasis en la pobreza y la violencia sexual, y se profundizará en la importancia del discurso animal y la descripción del paisaje como vehículo estético para comunicar nuevas preocupaciones ancladas a la modernidad líquida, conectando la novela a otras obras de la misma autora (como Cuatro por cuatro, Silencio administrativo o Cicatriz ) y de otras autoras de su misma generación como Ana Iris Simón.

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• Offensive to pious ears: Obscenity and censorship in eighteenth-century Spanish and New Spain poetry by Elena Deanda-Camacho (review)

  Eighteenth-Century Studies · 2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Humanities
  • Art
  • Literature

  Reviewed by: Offensive to pious ears: Obscenity and censorship in eighteenth-century Spanish and New Spain poetry by Elena Deanda-Camacho Irene Gomez-Castellano Elena Deanda-Camacho, Ofensiva a los oídos piadosos: Obscenidad y censura en la poesía española y novohispana del siglo XVIII [ Offensive to pious ears: Obscenity and censorship in eighteenth-century Spanish and New Spain poetry] ( Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt: Vervuert, 2022). Pp. 272. €46.00 cloth. This book provides a fresh approach to the topic of obscenity and the Inquisition in the Spanish-speaking eighteenth century. Comparing texts that were deemed "offensive to pious ears" in New Spain (colonial Mexico) and Spain, Elena Deanda-Camacho puts together a culturally relevant cluster of texts that have been extensively studied by dieciochistas but not paired in this way. In this rich context of interpretations, the originality of Deanda's approach lies in the comparative/transatlantic perspective and the archival work related to inquisitorial practices across the Atlantic that she deftly employs for her reading. As Deanda states, her book is written from the vantage point of Transatlantic Studies, since "Spain, in the eighteenth century, was not only the [Iberian] Peninsula but a whole Empire" (15, my translation here and elsewhere). Deanda's writing style is elegant and sassy at the same time, entertaining, not afraid of polemic, and very contemporary, so the book is a pleasure to read even if one does not agree with some of her propositions regarding classical texts, such as the brutal medieval Carajicomedia or Meléndez Valdés's delicate Besos de amor. Deanda reviews foundational inquisitional texts and the changing ideas surrounding the role of the inquisitor. Exploring reactions to canonical texts like Fernando de Rojas's Celestina or King Solomon's Song of Songs, Deanda offers an eye-opening discussion of the modus operandi of inquisitorial censors. Especially interesting is the review of the different indexes of forbidden books and the process by which books ended up there. Deanda situates in the Index of Sandoval the first connection of the notion of the sacred, love, and obscenity, and notes how texts such as Ovid's Ars Amatoria were allowed in Latin "due to their elegance" (53) since that was the language of the inquisitorial reader. The same text was censored in Spanish. This introduces the fundamental question of class and race as factors [End Page 139] that are attached to the notion of obscenity in early modern Spain and the colonial territory of New Spain. Deanda argues that "lascivious propositions" were the most prosecuted from then on. Chapter 1 is an utterly brilliant introduction to the notion of obscenity and another enlightening discussion of the notion of censorship. Following Deleuze's The Fold, Deanda states that "obscenity and censorship exist in a relationship of fold, they are the two faces of the same coin … I argue that obscenity and censorship, even when they appear to be opposites, are inherently defined by their relationship to the other term" (28). Deanda traces the alliance established between the monarchy and the Inquisition and describes the professionalization of the "calificadores inquisitoriales" (31). Creating a case study that illuminates these processes, Deanda chooses to analyze the Estragos de la lujuria by Antonio Arbiol, a guide for newlyweds that "synthesizes the expression and repression of the sexuality of the Spanish people in the premodern era" (55). Deanda demonstrates how in Arbiol's text the female body and its sartorial accessories were the incarnation of "lujuria" (56). Women were considered repulsive and offensive and surrounded by sensorial elements that provoked disgust in the reader. Deanda connects this discussion involving gender to broader issues such as the polemic surrounding theater, but she also returns to the texture of the inquisitor's text to claim that "[w]hen analyzing the Estragos de la lujuria, the fear of Arbiol appears like the undergarment of his desire … He conjures with morose delight the fragrant cleavage, the luciferin foot, the daring dance, only to expel them from himself, to make them go away and protect himself from their power" (64). In chapter 2, Deanda approaches the anonymous Carajicomedia (1519) from three vantage points: the pornotopia, the prostibularian census, and the genital...

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• "Sin más paracaídas que tu agujereado corazón": identidades múltiples y microrrelato en La fugacidad del color (2018) de Elga Reátegui

  Romance notes · 2022-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  En este artículo se analiza La fugacidad del color de Elga Reátegui tomando como foco el tema de la creación de identidades múltiples en la microficción. Se postula el trauma de la separación maternofilial como motor creativo que cohesiona la propuesta del libro, que aprovecha de modo original la breve longitud del formato narrativo para abrir su propuesta a ejercicios en los que el lector puede jugar a encontrarse y perderse en un juego de espejos que transmite el desasosegado ritmo de la comunicación contemporánea, que impide profundizar en nuestro propio yo y favorece relaciones en la superficie. Reátegui explora los temas de la identidad múltiple, la experiencia de la emigración y hasta el tema del suicidio, y tiñe sus cuentos de una transgresión irónica que desautomatiza discursos tradicionales a los que superpone referencias a las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación de masas. Además, el uso de elementos procedentes de lo insólito sirve para dar una dimensión trascendente a las relaciones fallidas exploradas por esta periodista peruana afincada en España cuya original y abundante obra merece más atención por parte de la crítica. Entre el desasosiego y el humor, Reátegui crea un experimento social y literario profundo.

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• Del <i>Freak Show</i> al compromiso: <i>La niña gorda</i> (1917) de Santiago Rusiñol desde una mirada contemporánea

  Bulletin of Hispanic Studies · 2022-10-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  En este artículo presento un análisis panorámico de La niña gorda de Santiago Rusiñol y someto el texto a un doble ejercicio de revisionismo: por un lado, cuestiono la lectura algo limitada de la novela como humorística o carnavalesca hecha desde el contexto catalán; y por otro, argumento mediante secciones temáticas el carácter comprometido de esta novela para el propio Rusiñol y defiendo la actualidad de los debates sobre identidad, capitalismo, catalanismo, matrimonio, feminismo y estética que aparecen en sus páginas. Con La niña gorda, Rusiñol revisa la validez o los límites de los principios estéticos que guiaron su propia obra artística en el pasado, especialmente su representación de la mujer, y critica mediante la parodia la ubicuidad de heroínas tísicas y flacas en su propio imaginario cultural teñido de los ideales del simbolismo y del decadentismo.

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• Form and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Spain: Utopian Narratives and Socio-Political Debate

  Utopian Studies · 2021-04-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
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• El poético envejecer de un novísimo: sobre Regiones devastadas de Guillermo Carnero

  Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos · 2021 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Humanities
  • Humanities
  • Art

  Pocos poetas han logrado expresar la emoción de envejecer como hombre y como artista con la dignidad y complejidad artística del novísimo Guillermo Carnero. En este artículo se explora cómo Carnero comunica en el último ciclo de su poesía la experiencia vital de envejecer. Al igual que Tiziano y que Cernuda, Carnero elige el motivo de la mano del artista como leitmotiv. Esta mano, el punctum de Regiones devastadas (2017), nos ayuda a recoger varios hilos en su obra que conectan el tema de la vejez, el amor, la masculinidad y el papel del artista, enfrentado al trauma de la propia mortalidad frente a la eternidad artificial de lo creado.

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• Hunger, Protest, and the Madrid Famine of 1811

  2021-03-24

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The chapter argues that famine scenes were highly popular in the long eighteenth century and that hunger was a site of protest across different esthetic conventions. It focuses on several representations of the historical episode of the Madrid famine of 1811–1812 during the Spanish Peninsular War, and shows how this traumatic event was approached by artists in different ways. Francisco de Goya portrays the plight of starving people in his Desastres de la Guerra, a collection of etchings that focuses on suffering and violence in a very simple, intimate format. From Rome, Neoclassic painter José Aparicio creates the monumental El año del hambre de Madrid, the most famous painting in his time, that stresses the heroic attitude of those who refused the food offered by the French troops. The changing reception of these and other works can help us to elucidate the many uses of hunger in politics and art, especially in connection with issues of Spanish national identity that return to foundational moments in the history of Spain such as Calagurria and Numantia, sites of rebellion against invaders where an imposed siege is turned into a symbolic hunger strike, turning victims into symbolic agents of change.

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Frequent coauthors

• Heather Minchew

  University of Kansas Medical Center

  1 shared

• Earl E. Fitz

  1 shared

Labs

• Irene Gomez-Castellano LabPI

Awards & honors

• Natación (2015), award-winning poetry book