Bio

Marie Lorena Zettl did a degree in French Philology and Germanic Linguistics at the University of Bayreuth and a master's in French and Spanish Philology at the University of Regensburg, where in 2022 she also obtained the supplementary qualification 'Katalanicum'. She began her PhD at the University of Regensburg on 2025 thanks to a scholarship from the Institut Ramon Llull. Her doctoral thesis analyses the portrayal of ‘the Retreat’, the mass exodus of Republicans who fled to France in early 1939, in Catalan, Spanish and French graphic novels. Since 2022, she has collaborated on the Catalan Film Weekend organised every year in Regensburg.

Project

At Faberllull, Marie Lorena will develop her doctoral thesis on the depiction of the Retreat within the field of cultural and literary studies. The Retreat was a highly complex historical event crossing and transcending borders between nations, cultures, languages and generations. It has been shown in literature from the outset and, based on a corpus of more than 70 works, the thesis aims to analyse how these represent and contribute to the dynamics of collective memory surrounding exile.