Bio

Will Kirby is a PhD student in Catalan Studies at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. He graduated in Middle Eastern Studies and Modern Languages from the same university, where he also completed a master's in European Literatures and Cultures. His doctoral research work is funded by an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP studentship in collaboration with the Institut Ramon Llull, in the framework of which he is also involved in the project of establishing the David Vilaseca Archive at the Royal Holloway (University of London). Will’s research focuses on queer theory and dissident sexual and gender identities in Catalan literature and culture, Catalan nationalism and popular culture.

Project

At Faberllull, he will develop part of the chapter of his doctoral thesis focused on the novelistic work of Sebastià Portell. His doctoral project investigates queerness in contemporary Catalan narrative with the aim of developing a new framework for understanding the post-Procès present in Catalonia from a theoretical approach informed by queer theory. Besides Portell, the research delves into the work of David Vilaseca, Eva Baltasar and Pol Guasch to challenge the marginalisation of queer subjectivities in the dominant discourses on Catalanism and Catalan identity.