International Symposium: Women in the Latin American and Iberian Press

This two-day symposium brings together scholars from across Europe and South America to explore the contributions of women to the Spanish- and Portuguese-language presses in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America. Women intellectuals had a pivotal presence in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century press, but this presence has often been forgotten or concealed by literary and cultural studies. Our key objective is to foster the exchange of knowledge on the similarities, intersections, and differences in women’s roles in local journalism, as well as their engagement in transnational networks.

Focus panels will examine the work of influential figures such as Júlia Lopes de Almeida, Carmen Dolores, Pagu, Délia, Paulina Luisi, Ruth Stephan, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Miguelina Acosta Cárdenas, and Dora Mayer. Research roundtables will present ongoing work on mapping women’s presence in the press and exploring both the challenges and opportunities of digital archives. The symposium will also feature a book launch highlighting the research of UCL scholars and their partners: Periodicals in Latin America: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Serialised Print Culture, edited by Professor Claire Lindsay and Dr Maria Chiara D’Argenio (University of Florida Press, 2025), and As Mulheres no Jornal ‘O Paiz,’ volumes 1-6, organised by Professor Alexandro Henrique Paixão, Dr Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva, and Prof Tania Regina de Luca (FE – Unicamp and CNPq, 2022-2025).

The symposium is sponsored by UCL Global Engagement, the Institute of Advanced Studies and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil).

PROGRAMME

Day 1

10:00-10:15: Opening remarks
Dr Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva, Professor Claire Lindsay, Dr Maria Chiara D’Argenio and Professor Nicola Miller (UCL)

10:15-10:45: Conference
When Júlia Lopes de Almeida met Eva Canel, Dr Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva (UCL)   

10:45-11:00: Coffee break

11:00-12:15: Panel – Júlia Lopes de Almeida’s Crônicas
1. Júlia Lopes de Almeida in the province: journalistic essays from Gazeta de Campinas, 1881 to 1884 (Professor Lucia Granja, University of Campinas) 
2. Women’s roles in Júlia Lopes de Almeida’s crônicas in Brasil-Portugal (1900) and in O Paiz (1906) (Dr Ana Carolina Sá Teles, University of Campinas and UCL) 
3. Pressures and conflicts in Júlia Lopes de Almeida’s chronicles (Dr Milena Ribeiro Martins, Federal University of Paraná)

12:15-13:45: Lunch break

13:45-15:00: Research Projects Roundtable – The Politics of the Archive: Digitisation Projects on Women & the Latin American Press
1. Digitisation of Latin American cultural magazines (1860-1930): a project report (Dr Ricarda Musser, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut) 
2. Mapping women’s presences in Argentine vanguard magazines: a data-driven approach (Dr Camilla Sutherland, University of Groningen)
3. Anáforas: prensa de mujeres (Professor Inés de Torres, University of the Republic Uruguay)

15:00-15:15: Coffee break

15:15-16:15: Research Projects Roundtable – Women's Voices and Gender Dynamics in the Latin American Press
1. Some reflections on the project ‘We need to talk about the absent—women chroniclers in the nineteenth-century press’ (Professor Tania Regina de Luca, São Paulo State University, Assis)
2. Women’s press: from the ‘archive as a problem’ to the ‘eclectic archive’ (Professor Claudia Montero, University of Valparaiso)

16:15-16:30: Coffee break

16:30-17:30: Book Launch and Book Exchange Session
1. Periodicals in Latin America: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Serialized Print Culture (University of Florida Press, 2025), edited by Dr Maria Chiara D’Argenio and Professor Claire Lindsay
2. As Mulheres no Jornal ‘O Paiz,’ volumes 1-6 (FE – Unicamp and CNPq), organised by Profesor Alexandro Henrique Paixão, Dr Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Professor Tania Regina de Luca
3. O poder da voz feminina na literatura: de musa inspiradora à autora de sua própria história (2024), edited by Sueli Lopes

Day 2

10:30-12:00: Panel – Women’s Editorial Spaces and Transnational Networks 
1. Women and fashion and family magazines in nineteenth-century Spain (Dr Henriette Partzsch, University of Glasgow)
2. Some reflections on the history of the women’s press in Chile (Professor Claudia Montero, University of Valparaiso)
3. Beyond borders and boundaries: women’s editorial networks in nineteenth-century Spain and Portugal (Dr Christina Bezari, Université Libre de Bruxelles)
4. Ruth Stephan in Peru: transnational Andean bonds in The Tiger’s Eye magazine (Mariana Rodriguez-Barreno, University of Oxford)

12:00-13:30: Lunch

13:30-14:45: Panel – Feminisms and Femininity
1. Lucia Miguel Pereira reads Virginia Woolf: feminism and literature in the pages of Correio da Manhã (Gabriela Costa, Federal Fluminense University)
2. The female gaze in the journalistic writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán (Dr Gareth Wood, UCL)
3. We need to talk about an absent writer: Délia’s life and work and the phenomenon of libido in 19th-century Brazilian literature (Professor Alexandro Henrique Paixão, University of Campinas)

14:45-15:00: Coffee break

15:00-16:30: Panel – Women and Political Activism 
1. A rebel storms the press: Pagu’s journalism (Professor Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos, University of São Paulo)
2. Carmen Dolores, a professional of letters (1905-1910) (Dr Alvaro Santos Simões Junior, São Paulo State University, Assis)
3. ‘Acción Femenina:’ Paulina Luisi and the bulletin of the National Council of Women of Uruguay (1917-1925) (Professor Inés de Torres, University of the Republic Uruguay)
4. La Crítica (1917-1920) by Miguelina Acosta Cárdenas and Dora Mayer: anarchism, syndicalism and feminism (Professor Ainaí Morales Pino, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú)

16:30-17:00: Closing remarks

Image: Fon-Fon 16 May 1914, source: FBN, Brazil