PANDORA
Literary Gender Studies

Name: PANDORA Literary Gender Studies
Address: ES

Vindicating women’s literature from an interdisciplinary, feminist, and gender analysis perspective

@pandoraliterarygenderstudies

Upcoming Events

PLGS International Conference 2026: "Female CorpoRealities"
15 Apr 2026, 09:00 – 17 Apr 2026, 14:00
Universidad de Alcalá (UAH), Colegio de Málaga (Facultad de Filosofía y Letras), C. Colegios, 2, 28801 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid
How is the female body inscribed in literature and culture? This conference examines how gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, and technology shape embodied realities, engaging with intersections of the corporeal and the real in representations, experiences, and theories of the female body.
Registration closed

Meet our conference Plenary Speakers:

Kathryn Laing

Wednesday April 15

Dr Kathryn Laing is Lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick (Ireland), where she teaches and conducts research on late nineteenth-century Irish women’s writing, New Woman fiction, and modernist women writers, among other topics. She holds degrees including a BA (Hons) from Rhodes University and both an MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University. Her academic work is distinguished by its depth, interdisciplinary reach, and commitment to recovering and reframing the contributions of women authors whose voices have been historically marginalised. She has published widely on Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, George Moore and Hannah Lynch. Dr Laing is also a co-founder of the Irish Women’s Writing Network (1880–1920), a dynamic research network that promotes scholarly exchange, digital humanities initiatives, and enhanced access to resources for the study of Irish women writers and their literary networks.

Silvia García Hernández

Thursday April 16

Dr Silvia García Hernández is a permanent Lecturer at the University of Alcalá. She holds a BA in English Studies and a PhD in Modern Languages, Literature and Translation from the University of Alcalá. Her main research interests focus on contemporary narrative written by British women, on which she has published numerous articles analysing the work of authors such as Hilary Mantel and Michèle Roberts, as well as on the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). More specifically, her research on the contemporary historical novel examines the perspectives and narrative techniques employed by twenty-first-century British women writers to challenge conventional historical narratives and to integrate women’s experiences into historical fiction.

Xinran

Friday April 17

Once a well-known radio broadcaster in China, Xinran is now a non-fiction writer, journalist, and speaker with a long-standing commitment to advocating for women’s rights. Her acclaimed call-in radio program, Words on the Night Breeze, focused on women’s lives and experiences across China. After conducting extensive interviews with Chinese women between 1989 and 1997, Xinran moved to London, where she began publishing works inspired by the stories she had heard, as well as by the cultural traditions and social realities that shaped these women’s lives. Among her most notable books are The Good Women of China (2002), based on testimonies from her radio show; Sky Burial (2004), a narrative drawn from a true story; and Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother (2010), which portrays the heartbreak and tragedy surrounding the fate of female orphans in China. Xinran has also contributed numerous columns to The Guardian, writing on topics such as Chinese culture and identity, life abroad, and China’s one-child policy, among many others.