Catalina Mir

About

Since April 15, 2025, Catalina Mir has been a Margalida Comas postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Balearic Islands, on a contract funded by the Balearic Islands Government (CAIB). She was awarded this position in December 2024 with an outstanding score of 90.7 out of 100. Dr Mir holds a PhD with international distinction from the University of Barcelona (2023), where she was awarded the Extraordinary Doctorate Prize for her thesis 'Space, Violence, and Gender in Crime Fiction: The Female Writers in the Series “La Negra” (1986–1998)'. Her dissertation, the first study entirely devoted to Catalan women writers of crime fiction, was recognised with an honourable mention from the Institut d’Estudis Catalans’ Manuel Milà i Fontanals Prize for Literary History (2024). Among its innovations are the study of genre/gender relations in Catalan literature, and the introduction of two new theoretical concepts: a) the violentope (which designates a space connoted with violent and intimidating values), and b) the topicide (referring to the physical, social and cultural devastation of a space). Her PhD dissertation is part of the results of the VANACEM funded research project (FEM 2014-55057-P) and was awarded Excellent Cum Laude. In 2018, Dr Mir was awarded an FPU pre-doctoral grant at ADHUC, a Research Center for Theory, Gender, and Sexuality based at the Universitat de Barcelona. ADHUC has had more than 25 I+D+i projects funded by the Spanish Government throughout its history, as well as an ERC Consolidator Grant for the project 'The Cultural History of the Black African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain' (dir. Diana Berruezo-Sánchez). There, she also joined the UNESCO Chair Women, Development and Cultures team. During this period, she was also a member of the SGR Research Group ‘Women’s Creation and Thinking’. In 2021, she completed a research stay at the University of Amsterdam (15/04/2021 - 22/07/2021). This international stay allowed Dr Mir to perfect her command of English. Dr Mir has been a member of the working team of four I+D+i projects funded by the Spanish Government. She has presented her research on 19 occasions at both national and international conferences, including events in Palma, Barcelona, Malaga, Amsterdam, Venice, and Poznań. She has been part of the organising committee for two international conferences and coordinated panels at the VI Jornada LitCat of research groups Literatura catalana contemporània: canvi i continuïtat (University of the Balearic Islands, 13/05/2022. Palma, Spain) and at the Seminar Teoria dels afectes: cinema, cultura popular i poesia (University of the Balearic Islands, 20/05/2021. Online). She also participated as a ‘respondent’ in the ongoing research seminar “Representar els afectes des de l’escriptura: espai, violència, dolor” (University of the Balearic Islands, 24/09/2020. Online). She has published 11 works in high-impact academic journals and publishers, including 3 articles, 3 book chapters, 1 monograph, and 1 edited volume, among other contributions. She has also reviewed submissions for the journals 452ºF. Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada (Issue 32/2025) and Rivista Italiana di Studi Catalani (Issue 14/2024), as part of a double-blind peer review process. Her research dissemination activities are extensive. Furthermore, she has taught over 300 hours across Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes, supervising 8 end-of-degree projects. Some of these projects resulted in the creation of educational resources, including books on grief, adapted stories, and empathetic communication guides. Throughout her career, Dr Mir has received five research grants, including the FPU pre-doctoral and the Margalida Comas postdoctoral grants. She was also awarded a research grant by the Fundació Mallorca Literària to work in the archive of Blai Bonet (2018). Later, she obtained a research grant from the Fundació Mercè Rodoreda (2019), with which she published the monograph 'Vint-i-dues aproximacions a la traïció com a tema literari' (Barcelona, Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2021) [Twenty-two approaches to betrayal as a literary theme. For a global analysis of ‘Vint-i-dos contes’ by Mercè Rodoreda]. In 2020, she obtained a grant for training stays abroad, funded by Fundació Montcelimar and Universitat de Barcelona. During the 2023-24 academic year, she worked as an associate lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Barcelona. In 2024-25, she joined the Department of Catalan Philology and General Linguistics at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) as a substitute assistant professor. She now carries out her research at the UIB as a Margalida Comas postdoctoral fellow.

Education

Publications