Irene Villaescusa Illán is Assistant Professor in the Literary and Cultural Analysis Program (LCA). She also teaches in the Spanish Program and the AUC. She has been working at the UvA since 2015. Prior to the Netherlans she was a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong and at the University of Utrecht.

She obtained her PhD at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) in 2017 with a project on Hispano-Filipino literature. Her research interests include peripheral or border Hispanic literatures with an emphasis on gender, ecofeminism and translation.

2017 PhD Cultural Analysis – ASCA, University of Amsterdam 

2012 MA Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies – University of Hong Kong

2010 MA Applied Linguistics to Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language – Universidad Antonio de Nebrija

2002 Postgraduate Certificate of Education (CAP) – Universidad de Granada

2001 BA English Philology – Universidad de Murcia and University of Leeds

Conference papers

“Transcultura y raíces en la literatura hispano-filipina”, IV CILLEC  Congreso Internacional de Lingüística, Literatura y Estudios Culturales. Universidad Católica de Murcia “Cambios y transiciones: enfoques múltiples dentro de la lingüística, el bilinguismo, la literatura y cultura”, 2016

“Aspiraciones nacionalistas en la literatura hispano-filipina en la novela de Antonio Abad El Campeón (1940)” Lazos, Simposio Internacional, University of Leiden, 2016

“Transnational modernity in Hispano-Filipino Travel writing: Maria Paz Mendoza Guazon’s Notas de Viaje (1929), ASCA International Workshop, Univeristy of Amsterdam, 2015

"The representation of Japan in Hispano-Filipino literature: a history of bittersweet love”, International Workshop “All I need is Love? Nation, Affect and Aversion in a Post-Imagined-Community Asia”  Normal Taiwan University and Monash University, Taipei, 2015

“Tasting Modernity in Hispano Filipino Literature: Paz Mendoza’s Notas de Viaje (1929)”, European Summer School Cultural Studies (ESSCS) “The Politics of Taste”, University of Paris 8, 2015

“Propuestas metodológicas para la enseñanza de la cultura en el contexto universitario. Estudios culturales para aprender español”, III CELEAP (Conference of Spanish as a Foreign Language in Asia Pacific)  Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, 2013  

“Enlazados en tres canciones”, strategies to improve Spanish word linking through music. Workshop. I Teacher training conference organised by Edinumen and The University of Hong Kong, 2013

“Más allá de los pares mínimos, ideas para integrar la pronunciación en la clase de ELE”. SinoELE. III Teacher Training Session at the Cervantes Institute in Beijing, 2010    

Conference organization

4-5 July 2017 Other Globes: Past and Peripheral Imaginations of the Global. Two-day international conference, sponsored by the Amsterdam Centre of Globalisation Studies (ACGS) and the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA). Member of the organizing committee and panel moderator.

21-23 March 2016 ASCA International Workshop “Transparency/Opacity” Three-day international conference organized by ASCA PhD students. Member of the organizing committee and panel moderator.

9-10 October 2014 - Inverting Globalization Two-day conference sponsored by the Amsterdam Centre of Globalisation Studies (ACGS). Assistant to the organizing committee and panel moderator.

15-16 February 2013 I Jornadas de Formación de Profesores de Español en Hong Kong. Three-day conference organized by the Spanish Publisher Edinumen and the Spanish Department of the University of Hong Kong. Member of the organizing committee and workshop deliverer.