Dylan Brennan is studying for a PhD in Hispanic Studies under the supervision of Prof. Nuala Finnegan. Dylan has completed a BA in Italian and Spanish & Portuguese at Trinity College Dublin (1998-2002) and a MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management at UCD (2003-2004). Dylan's PhD research will focus on the work of Juan Rulfo with particular attention being paid to his photographic output, mainly carried out between the late 40's and mid-50s and his cinematic works which date from the early to mid-60s. Dylan spent much of 2009 in Mexico City where he continued his research at UNAM under the supervision of Rulfo biographer Alberto Vital. This was made possible by a scholarship awarded by the Mexican Foreign Affairs Secratariat which he applied for through the Mexican Embassy in Dublin. He recently assisted the Fundación Juan Rulfo on their forthcoming publication on the translated work of Rulfo and he has provided the Fundación with a definitive version of Rulfo's text for the experimental film- La fórmula secreta.

Emer Clifford, BA (ITT) HDip (NUI-UCC)

Emer Clifford is a final year PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, University College Cork. She holds a H.Dip in Hispanic Studies from University College Cork (2008-2009) and a BA in Information Systems Management from the Institute of Technology Tralee (2000-2004). In 2011 Emer was awarded the Mexican Government Scholarship for International Students of Mexican Studies and an Erasmus Mobility Grant; these awards facilitated a three month research stay in both Mexico City and Valencia respectively. Under the supervision of Professor Nuala Finnegan, Emer’s doctoral thesis involves the examination of contemporary representations of gender violence in Mexican visual culture. Her work specifically focuses on the work of Marisa Sistach, Yamina del Real and Rodrigo Cruz. Emer’s other research interests include: Chicano literature, human rights, migration studies, women’s studies and teaching and learning.   

Kerrill was awarded a BA in International Business with Spanish and French from DCU (2007), spending her Erasmus year in the University of Valencia. She then completed the MA in Hispanic Studies in UCC in 2009 with a thesis entitled "An Historic Review of the Major Methods and Approaches used for the Teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language". Having spent a year as a secondary school languages teacher, she then returned to UCC in 2010 to pursue a PhD in the Department of Hispanic Studies entitled "A Corpus Based Investigation into the Levels of Communicative Competence of Learners of Spanish in Irish Secondary Education" under the supervision of Dr Helena Buffery. Research areas include: Applied Linguistics, Learner Corpus Research, Second Language Acquisition, Foreign Language Learning and Pedagogy, Materials for Foreign Language Learning and Pedagogy. Kerrill will be spending a seven month research period in the University of Alicante in 2012

My name is Karel Matula and I have been a student at UCC since 2004. In 2007 I was awarded a BA in Art History and Hispanic Studies; in 2008 an MA in Hispanic Studies. At present I am pursuing a PhD entitled 'The Promotion of Painting as a Liberal Art in the Work of Diego Velázquez', under the supervision of Mr Stephen Boyd.

Originally from Cork, I received a joint honours degree in Spanish and English from N.U.I Galway in 2005. From there, I moved to the University of Edinburgh, where I discovered Chicana/o literature though my MSc. in Literature and Transatlanticism. I am currently a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Nuala Finnegan. My thesis focuses on the works of contemporary Chicana writer Helena María Viramontes.

Profile: Academia.edu

My name is Adrian O h-Ealuithe and I am currently a PhD student at the Department of Hispanic Studies at UCC. Having completed an MA on the life of Martín Sarmiento, an eighteenth-century advocator of the use of the Galician language in all apsects of education and culture, I have decided to continue my research in this area. While living in Santiago de Compostela, I sourced unedited Sarmientan texts on the field of education and hope to transcribe one or more of these texts with a view to compiling a critical edition and study of the texts. I have also become a member of a research team for the Proxecto Sarmiento, under the supervision of Henrique Monteagudo, a renowned expert on Galician culture and literature and professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela.

When I first came to Cork in 1989 I never thought I was going to come back again, but I did, nine years ago, and I am still here in spite of the rain. I got my degree in Geography in 1986, and after a year travelling, and another in the Spanish army I became a part-time lecturer in the Geography department of UAB, where I taught the Geography of Catalunya until 1992. I worked for the next few years as a field researcher for the Generalitat de Catalunya  in the Pyrenees. Back from the mountains (where I found time to read a lot) I started writing short stories and some poetry, both in Catalan and Castilian. My grandmother used to tell me many stories when I was a child, and I guess that she left a seed somewhere in my head which started growing in  search of the light, developing into a hybrid of historical fiction and the everyday life. Between 1998 and 2000 I attended theliterature workshops  of Flavia Company in Sabadell, my other hometown.

In 2009-2010 I completed the Higher Diploma in Hispanic Studies at UCC, and the following year I completed an MA on The press and theCatalan uprising of 1934. I am currently a Ph.D student under the supervision of Dr. Helena Buffery. My doctorate research focuses on the Republican  exodus towars France during the winter of 1939, also knonw as “La retirada”.