Erasmus+ researchers visit UCC Women's Studies to learn more about women’s & gender studies-focused curriculum & teaching

24 Sep 2026

UCC Women’s Studies Programme Director Dr Evelien Geerts (Philosophy & Women’s Studies) recently hosted two international Erasmus+ researchers from Spain and Austria.

Prof Olaya Fernández Guerrero, a moral philosopher with interests in gender studies and Greek mythology from the Universidad de La Rioja, Spain, and Dr Karin Reisinger, Senior Researcher at the School for Transformation, die Angewandte (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Austria, visited UCC’s Women’s Studies Unit at the end of September. They came through the Erasmus+ exchange programme to learn about interdisciplinary, feminist epistemologies-driven women’s and gender studies-focused curriculum design and teaching.

Prof Fernández Guerrero attended several Feminist Theories MA sessions and gave a guest lecture on feminist approaches to classical mythology. She was impressed by UCC’s Women’s Studies programme and student community:

“The Women’s Studies programme at UCC presents students with a great opportunity to engage with a wide range of cutting-edge debates in feminist theory. Its interdisciplinary, intersectional approach makes it an enriching space for exploring and expanding perspectives on gender, sex, and related questions and topics. With an internationally renowned teaching team, this postgraduate programme is not afraid to touch upon complex issues and debates.”

Dr Karin Reisinger researches mining areas, the ethics of care, and feminist collaborative methods. She shadowed Programme Director Dr Geerts and took part in a postgraduate, methodologies-focused conversation on “Extractivism in mining, research & the classroom”. The event was well attended by Women’s Studies MA students, as well as PhD students and postdocs from CACSSS interested in feminist epistemologies, critiques of extractivism, and more community-based knowledge-making processes and methods.

Reflecting on the “Extractivism in mining, research & the classroom” event and her week at UCC, Dr Reisinger appreciated the event’s feminist epistemological focus on knowledge production as a collective process. As she put it, “This focus gave the overall conversation on extractivism a unique, experience-driven, and situated touch.” The conversation will continue later this year, when Dr Geerts visits die Angewandte (University of Applied Arts Vienna) to work with local PhD students on positionality-based and diffractive research methodologies.

For more on this story contact:

Dr Evelien Geerts EGeerts@ucc.ie