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Research

Hilary is a Senior Research Fellow in the Sub-Faculty of Portuguese at Oxford and Professor Emerita in Portuguese and Luso-African Studies at the University of Manchester.  She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2022. She is currently the Portuguese co-investigator for a large AHRC-funded research project, 2021-2026, entitled: 'Invisibles e insumisas / Invisíveis e insubmissas: Leading Women in Portuguese and Spanish Cinema and Television, 1970-1980'.  PI: Prof. Sally Faulkner (Exeter University). Co-I: Prof. Nuria Triana Toribio (University of Kent). Website: Home > Leading Women (leadingwomenproject.com)  

Hilary has worked extensively on Portuguese and Lusophone African women writers and feminist theory as well as researching on Postcolonialism and contemporary Portuguese and Lusophone African cinema. She has been a co-investigator for two FCT-funded research projects “Intersexualidades” directed by Prof. Ana Luísa Amaral at the University of Oporto and “Narrativas Escritas e Visuais da Nação Pós-colonial” directed by Prof.  Ana Mafalda Leite at the University of Lisbon.

Teaching

Hilary taught at Queen’s University, Belfast, and the University of Leeds, before being appointed to Manchester University in 1995. She retired in 2016. She has taught across the modern and contemporary Portuguese and Lusophone African curriculum, with a particular focus on Mozambican literature, as well as specialising in women’s writing, feminism and gender theory, and developing more recent interests in Portuguese and Lusophone African Cinema.  She has also delivered a wide range of guest lectures and seminars including at Universidade de Coimbra, Universidade de Lisboa, Universität Wien, Universiteit Utrecht, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Rutgers-New Brunswick and University of California-Irvine.

Publications

Monographs and Edited Volumes

Mariana Liz and Hilary Owen, org. Realizadoras Portuguesas: Cinema no Feminino na Era Contemporânea.  Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2023. Portuguese translation of Women's Cinema in Contemporary Portugal.  

Mariana Liz and Hilary Owen, eds. Women's Cinema in Contemporary Portugal. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-501-34972-0

Hilary Owen and Claire Williams, eds. Transnational Portuguese Studies. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-789-62139-6

Ana Mafalda Leite, Ellen W. Sapega, Hilary Owen and Carmen Lúcia Tindó Secco, eds. Nação e Narrativa Pós-colonial - III. Literatura e Cinema. Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissau e São Tomé e Príncipe, Ensaios. Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 2018. ISBN: 978-989-689-468-9. 

Hilary Owen and Anna M. Klobucka, eds. Gender, Empire and Postcolony: Luso-Afro-Brazilian Intersections.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2014. Anna M. Klobucka and Hilary Owen, “Introduction.” 1-16. ISBN: 978-1-137-34341-3

Ana Mafalda Leite, Hilary Owen, Rita Chaves and Livia Apa, eds. Narrating the Postcolonial Nation. Mapping Angola and Mozambique. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 2014.    ISBN: 978-0343-0891-5

Ana Mafalda Leite, Hilary Owen, Livia Apa e Rita Chaves, eds. Nação e Narrativa Pós-colonial. Angola e Moçambique. Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 2012. ISBN: 978-989-689-285-2

Sheila Khan, Ana Margarida Dias Martins, Hilary Owen and Carmen Ramos Villar, eds. The Lusotropical Tempest. Postcolonial Debates in Portuguese. Bristol: Bristol University HiPLA. Lusophone Voices Series.  2012. Intro. “Taming the Lusotropical Tempest.” i-xiv. ISBN:  0-9553922-8-4

Hilary Owen and Cláudia Pazos Alonso, Antigone’s Daughters? Gender, Genealogy and the Politics of Authorship in Twentieth-Century Portuguese Women’s Writing. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2011. 250 pp.  ISBN: 978-1-61148-002-3

Hilary Owen, Mother Africa, Father Marx: Women’s Writing of Mozambique. 1948-2002. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2007. 274 pp.   ISBN-13:978-0-8373-5657-7

Catherine Davies, Claire Brewster and Hilary Owen, South American Independence: Gender, Politics, Text. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006. 321 pp.  ISBN: 1-84631-027-X (hardback) ISBN 978-1-84631-027-0 (paperback)

Hilary Owen and Phillip Rothwell, eds. Sexual/Textual Empires. Gender and Marginality in Lusophone African Literature. Lusophone Studies 2. Bristol: University of Bristol. HiPLA. Humanities Series. 2004.   Intro. “Sexing the Differences: A Lusophone African Perspective.” i-xvi. ISBN: 0-86292-553-5.

Hilary Owen, Portuguese Women’s Writing, 1972-1986. Reincarnations of a Revolution. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. 140 pp.  ISBN: 0-7734-7517-6

Hilary Owen, ed. and intro. Gender, Ethnicity and Class in Modern Portuguese-Speaking Culture. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. Intro. “Old Certainties/New Citizens.”  1-19. ISBN:  0-7734-8849-9

Selected Articles

with Cláudia Pazos Alonso, “'Em Portugal, ainda não foi dita uma palavra subversiva': imaginar Adelaide Cabete em tempos de epidemia.” Colóquio/Letras. 205, 2020: 9-20.

“The Empires Write back: Tracing Transnational Indias in the Work of Maria Ermelinda dos Stuarts Gomes.” Portuguese Studies. 35.2, 2019: 154-66.

“Intersectional Spectres: Sex, Race and Trauma in Fernando Vendrell's O Gotejar da Luz and Pele.Portuguese Studies. 34.2, 2018: 195-209.

“Filming Ethnographic Portugal: Miguel Gomes and the Last Taboo.” Journal of Romance Studies.16.2, Summer 2016: 58-75.

“O Jardim de Tantos Homens. A Mulher Nova e a Nova Libertação em Virgem Margarida e O Jardim de Outro Homem.” Revista Cerrados. Áfricas em movimento: literaturas, culturas, histórias, sociedades. 25.41, 2016: 296-303.

with Cláudia Pazos Alonso, “Memória Cultural e Ironia Sexual em Fanny Owen.” Colóquio/Letras. 187, 2014: 16-25.

“Filhas de Antígona no País das Três Marias. Uma Questão de Género e Geneologia.”  Cadernos de Literatura Comparada. Novas Cartas Portuguesas e os Feminismos.  26/27, 2012: 15-40.

“Silence from beyond the Abyss in Manoel de Oliveira’s A Talking Picture.” New Cinemas 9, no. 1 & 2. 2012:115-126.   

“As mulheres à beira de um império nervoso na obra de Paulina Chiziane e Ungulani Ba ka Khosa.” Via atlântica, no. 18, 2011: 43-56.   

“Killing Visuality in Solveig Nordlund’s Comédia Infantil.” Journal of Romance Studies. 11. 3. Winter 2011: 43-52.

“Sexualizando os Luso-Trópicos. Lília Momplé e as Mulheres em Branco.” Metamorfoses, 9, 2008: 211-223.

“Third World/Third Sex:  Gender, Orality and a Tale of Two Marias in Mia Couto and Paulina Chiziane.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, July 2007: 84.4.

“‘Out’performing the Mátria in Natália Correia’s A Madona.” Italienistica Ultraiectina. 1. 2007.  Igitur. Utrecht.  

“Que importa quem fala? Ana de Barandas e as Feministas do Rio Grande do Sul.” Presença Literária. Porto Alegre: Academia Literária Feminina do Rio Grande do Sul, 2006: 87-98.

“The Serpent’s Tongue. Gendering Autoethnography in Paulina Chiziane’s Balada de Amor ao Vento.” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies 10, Spring 2003: 169-84.

“Engendering the Aesthetics of Solidarity in Lina Magaia’s Dumba Nengue.” Luso-Brazilian Review 39. 2, Winter 2002: 79-90. Special number on Cultural Studies in Portuguese, guest co-edited with Paulo de Medeiros.  Introduction: “Cultural Studies. Where Next?” 5-8.

“Do outro lado do espelho da história em Paisagem com mulher e mar ao fundo de Teolinda Gersão.” Mealibra. Revista de Cultura  10, 3, Julho 2002: 26-30.  (Special number on Teolinda Gersão).

“The Politics of the Imagination in Lina Magaia’s Dumba Nengue.” Journal of the Institute of Romance Studies 8, 2000: 267-77.  

With Margaret Littler, “Barbara Köhler’s cor responde. German and Portuguese Correspondences:  Dialogue or Palimpsest?” German Monitor. “Entgegenkommen”: Dialogues with Barbara Köhler. Ed. Georgina Paul and Helmut Schmitz. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000. 147-73.

“Back to Nietzsche: The Making of an Intellectual/Woman. Lídia Jorge’s A Costa dos Murmúrios.” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies 2, Spring 1999: 79-98.

“New Cartographies of the Body in Novas Cartas Portuguesas: The (Counter-)Narrative of the Nation and the Sign of the Voyage Back.” Ellipsis. Journal of the American Portuguese Studies Association 1, 1999: 45-61.

“Uma Inconclusão Superadora. A Machereyan Feminist Reading of A Sibila by Agustina Bessa Luís.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Liverpool) LXXV, April 1998: 201-212.

“Um quarto que seja seu: The Quest for Camões`s Sister.” Portuguese Studies. 11, November 1995: 179-91.

“Feast or Faminism: Women, Revolution and Class in Works by Hélia Correia and Olga Gonçalves.” Forum for Modern Language Studies. 28, 4, 1992: 363-75.

“The Three Marias: The case re-opened.” ACIS Journal.  2, 1, Spring 1989: 25-31

Selected Book Chapters and Introductions

“In the Name of the Rosa: The Ethnographic Reflex in the Cinema of Licínio Azevedo.” In Paulo de Medeiros and Livia Apa, eds. Contemporary Lusophone African Film. Transnational Communities and Alternative Modernities. London: Routledge, 2021. 113-130.

“Monsters, Mutants and Maternity: The Politics of the Posthuman in the Cinema of Teresa Villaverde, Raquel Freire and Solveig Nordlund.” In Mariana Liz and Hilary Owen, eds. Women's Cinema in Contemporary Portugal. London: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2020. 65-97.

“Becoming Portuguese: New Europes for Old in Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights.” In Hilary Owen and Claire Williams, eds. Transnational Portuguese Studies. Liverpool. Liverpool University Press, 2020. 109-126.

“In Search of the White Father: Filming the Island of Fogo in the Cinema of Pedro Costa and Leão Lopes.” In Ana Mafalda Leite, Hilary Owen, Ellen W. Sapega and Carmen Tindó Secco, eds. Postcolonial Nation and Narrative III. Literature and Cinema. Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé e Princípe. Oxford. Peter Lang, 2019. 21-33.

“The Garden of So Many Men? Women, Equality and Liberation in Mozambican Cinema.” In Francisco Bethencourt, ed. Inequality in the Portuguese-Speaking World. Global and Historical Perspectives. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2018. 141-151.

“Em Busca do Pai Branco: Filmando a Ilha de Fogo no Cinema de Pedro Costa e Leão Lopes.” In Ana Mafalda Leite, Ellen W. Sapega, Hilary Owen and Carmen Lúcia Tindó Secco, eds. Narrativas Escritas e Visuais da Nação Pós-Colonial - Cabo Verde, Guiné-Bissau e São Tomé e Princípe. Volume III. Lisboa: Colibri, 2018. 171-83.

“White Faces / Black Masks. The White Woman’s Burden in Pedro Costa's Down to Earth.” In Mariana Liz, ed. Portugal's Global Cinema: Industry, History and Culture. London: I. B. Tauris, 2017. 185-201.

With Ana Margarida Dias Martins, “Introduction to the Reception of New Portuguese Letters: Ireland United Kingdom.” In Ana Luísa Amaral, Ana Paula Ferreira and Marinela Freitas, eds. New Portuguese Letters to the World. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015. 49-67.

With Ana Margarida Dias Martins, “Introdução à recepção de Novas Cartas Portuguesas: Irlanda e Reino Unido.” In Ana Luísa Amaral and Marinela Freitas, eds.  Novas Cartas Portuguesas. Entre Portugal e o Mundo. Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 2015. 239-63.

“Making War on the Isle of Love. Screening Camões in Manoel de Oliveira’s ‘Non’ ou a Vã-Glória de Mandar.” In Anna M. Klobucka and Hilary Owen, eds. and intro. Gender, Empire and Postcolony: Luso-Afro-Brazilian Intersections.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 111-125.

“Women on the Edge of a Nervous Empire in Paulina Chiziane and Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa.” In Ana Mafalda Leite, Hilary Owen, Rita Chaves and Livia Apa, eds. Narrating the Postcolonial Nation. Mapping Angola and Mozambique. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. 199-2011.   

“Recoding the Colonial Borders. Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, Novas Cartas Portuguesas.” In Cláudia Pazos Alonso and Stephen Parkinson, eds. Reading Literature in Portuguese. Commentaries in Honour of Tom Earle. Oxford: Legenda, 2013. 203-11.

“Sexualidade, Oralidade e Narrativa Nacional nas Obras de Mia Couto e Paulina Chiziane.” In Ana Mafalda Leite, Hilary Owen, Livia Apa e Rita Chaves, eds. Nação e Narrativa Pós-colonial. Angola e Moçambique. Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 2012. 211-228.

With Cláudia Pazos Alonso, “Women Writers up to 1974.” In Stephen Parkinson, Cláudia Pazos Alonso and T. F. Earle, eds. A Companion to Portuguese Literature, London: Tamesis, 2009. 168-81.

“Portuguese Actually.” In João Cézar de Castro Rocha and Víctor Mendes, eds. Producing Presences. Branching out from Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht's Work.  UMass, Dartmouth: Adamastor, 2007. 287-296.

“Ironic Nations and the Women’s State in Paulina Chiziane’s Niketche. Uma História de Poligamia.”  In Paulo de Medeiros, ed.  Postcolonial Theory and Lusophone Literatures. Utrecht: Utrecht Portuguese Studies Series. 2007. 109-118.

“‘Antígonas Antagónicas’: Género, Génio e a Política de Performance.” In Maria de Fátima Sousa e Silva, ed. Furor: Ensaios Sobre a Obra Dramática de Hélia Correia. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2006. 77–92.

“Histories of a Homeless Empire in the Writings of Lília Momplé.” In Anthony Soares, ed. Towards a Portuguese Postcolonialism. Bristol: HiPLA. Humanities Series. 2006. 147–56.

“Luso-sexo-tropicalidade. Lília Momplé e as Mulheres em Branco.” In Inocência Mata e Laura Cavalcanti Padilha, eds.  A Mulher em África: Vozes de uma margem sempre presente. Niterói: EDUFF, 2005. 112-124.

“A Hybridity of One’s Own: Rereading Noémia de Sousa.” In Hilary Owen and Phillip Rothwell, eds. and intro. Sexual/Textual Empires. Gender and Marginality in Lusophone African Literature.  Lusophone Studies 2. Bristol: University of Bristol. HiPLA. Humanities Series. 2004. 1-22.

“La vie en rose. Post-scriptum a um Império Assombrado (Sobre A Árvore das Palavras de Teolinda Gersão).” In Margarida Calafate Ribeiro and Ana Paula Ferreira, eds. Fantasias e Fantasmas Imperiais no Imaginário Português Contemporâneo.  Porto: Campo das Letras, 2003. 165-78.   

“Clarice Lispector: Re-Joycing in ‘The Dead.’” In Charles M. Kelley, ed. Fiction in the Portuguese-speaking World. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000. 176-93.

“Discardable Discourses in Patrícia Galvão’s Parque Industrial.” In Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira and Judith Still, eds.  Brazilian Feminisms. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Monographs in the Humanities 12, 1999. 68-84.

“Masculine Impostures and Feminine Ripostes: Onetti and Clarice Lispector.” In Gustavo San Román, ed. Onetti and Others. Comparative Essays on a Major Figure in Latin American Literature. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. 133-43.   

“Noémia de Sousa:  Engendering Mozambique.” In Ana Maria Mão-de-Ferro Martinho, ed.  A Mulher Escritora em África e na América Latina.  Évora: NUM, 1999. 19-29.

“Relendo James Joyce à luz de Lispector. Uma análise crítica de ‘A Partida do Trem’ e ‘O Morto.’” In T. F. Earle, ed. Actas do Quinto Congresso da Associação Internacional de Lusitanistas 2. Oxford-Coimbra, 1998. 1169-1175.  

“Adultério Textual/Adulterando o Texto.”  Introduction to Hélia Correia, O Número dos Vivos. Lisboa: Relógio d’Água, 1998. 7-20.

“Giovanni Pontiero’s Translation of Clarice Lispector’s Discovering the World.” In Pilar Orero and Juan Sager, eds. The Translator’s Dialogue: Giovanni Pontiero. Amsterdam: Benjamin, 1997. 135-144.

“The Anxiety of Confluence. James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ and Clarice Lispector’s ‘A Partida do Trem.’”  In Catherine Davies and Jane Whetnall, eds. Hers Ancient and Modern: Women’s Writing in Spain and Brazil. Manchester: Manchester Spanish and Portuguese Studies 6, 1997. 101-111.

“Medieval Images Spitting in the Wind.” Introduction to Gil Vicente, The Boat Plays. Translated and adapted by David Johnston. London: Oberon Press, 1997. 4-13.

“Fairies and Witches in Hélia Correia.” In Cláudia Pazos Alonso, ed. Women, Literature and Culture in the Portuguese-speaking World. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. 85-104.

“Clarice Lispector beyond Cixous. Ecofeminism and Zen in A Paixão segundo G.H.” In Hilary Owen, ed. and intro. Gender, Ethnicity and Class in Modern Portuguese-speaking Culture. Lewiston:  Edwin Mellen Press 1996. 161-184.

“The Three Marias on their Marx: Inequality/Praxis.” In Bernard McGuirk and Mark I. Millington, eds. Novas Cartas Portuguesas.” Inequality and Difference in Hispanic and Latin American Cultures.  Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995. 73-83.

Forthcoming

 “Home Thoughts from Home in the Poetry of Ana Luísa Amaral and Eavan Boland.” In Maria Luísa Coelho and Claire Williams, eds. The Most Perfect Excess: Essays on the Works of Ana Luísa Amaral. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2023.

Guest Editorships of Journals

Portuguese Studies 35.2 (2019). Guest co-editor with Paulo de Medeiros. Special issue: The Cinema of Fernando Vendrell. Co-authored with Paulo de Medeiros “Introduction” 143-47.

Via atlântica 18 (2011). Guest co-editor with Ana Mafalda Leite and Rita Chaves.

Journal of Romance Studies 11.3 (2011). Guest co-editor with Paulo de Medeiros. Special issue on Psychoanalysis and Portuguese Studies. Co-authored with Paulo de Medeiros “Introduction” 1-7.

Luso-Brazilian Review 39.2 (2002). Guest co-editor with Paulo de Medeiros. Special issue on Portuguese Cultural Studies. Introduction: “Cultural Studies in Portuguese. Where Next?” 5-8.