- Research
My research sits in the field of Comparative Literature and is inherently interdisciplinary and transcultural, as it bridges the gaps between art and literature, Portuguese and transnational studies.
I study feminist and gendered approaches to Portuguese art and literature, particularly focusing my research on contemporary women artists and writers. I am also interested in transcultural dialogues: I have analysed Anglo-Portuguese cultural relations, and published extensively on Portuguese artists and writers who, developing their practice whilst living in Britain, have probed fixed national and subjective identities. This transcultural approach is also reflected in my current research on other diasporic identities in the Portuguese-speaking world, which explores the work of Afropean women artists from the modern and contemporary periods.
- Teaching
Portuguese language modules (translation, grammar, writing and oral skills)
Paper III (Lídia Jorge)
Paper XII (Art, Literature and Gender in the Lusophone World since 1950)
Lecturer for the MSt in Women's Gender and Sexualities Studies: Option course 'Gender Bodies in Visual Art and Culture'. Thesis supervisor
Lecturer on Art Theory for the Sarah Lawrence Programme
- Selected Publications
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2024). “Bertina Lopes: Cartographic Notes on a Transnational Artist,” in Ana Gabriela Macedo, et al (eds.), Women, the Art and Dictatorship in the Portuguese Speaking Context: Tensions, Disputes, and Post-memory Heritage (Berlin: De Gruyter) Culture and Conflict series, vol. 27, 145–165.
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2023). “Working from home: Portuguese women artists during Estado Novo,” in Imogen Racz and Jill Journeaux (eds.), Artists at Home: Studio, Practices and Identities (London: Bloomsbury Publishing), 87–102.
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2020). “Retrato de família: A figura do pai na obra de Helena Almeida,” Diacrítica: WOMANART - Mulheres, Artes e Ditadura: Os casos de Portugal, Brasil e Países Africanos de Língua Portuguesa, 34(2), 92–106.
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2020), “Transnational, palimpsestic journeys in the art of Bartolomeu Cid dos Santos,” in Hilary Owen and Claire Williams (eds.), Transnational Portuguese Studies (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), 91-108.
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2019), “O Mapa Cor de Rosa by Maria Velho da Costa: migration, dis-location and the production of unstable cartographies,” Portuguese Studies, 35:2, 199-215.
Coelho, Maria Luísa, and Claudia Pazos-Alonso (eds.) (2019). Portuguese Studies, 35:2 (special issue: Transnational Portuguese Women Writers).
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2017), “Woman-Body-Paint: Helena Almeida and the Visual Inscription of Sexual Difference,” in Luso-Brazilian Review, 57:1, 55-77. doi: 10.3368/lbr.54.1.55
Coelho, Maria Luisa (2017), “The Eccentric Self-portraits of Helena Almeida,” in Maria-José Blanco and Claire Williams (eds.), Feminine Singular: Women Growing up through Life-writing in the Luso-Hispanic World (Oxford; New York: Peter Lang), 311-40.
Coelho, Maria Luisa and Márcia Oliveira (2016), “On Appropriation and Craft: Considering the Feminist Problem of De-politicization,” in n.paradoxa: International Feminist Art Journal on Polemics/ Contestations, 38 (London: KT Press), 5-13.