Prof. Dr. Diana Villanueva Romero

Diana Villanueva Romero is an assistant professor in the English department at the University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Spain. Her field of expertise is Anglophone environmental literature, with a special focus on literary animal studies. She has been deeply involved in the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE) and was a member of its advisory board from 2012 to 2016. She also collaborates regularly with its journal, Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, as one of the managing editors. In 2015 she was invited to give a lecture on literary animal studies at Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines. As a Fulbright scholar at Georgetown University in 2018, she worked on a project on Philippine women’s literature. In July 2018, together with Dr. Carmen Flys Junquera, she co-organized the first European conference on Environmental Humanities entitled “Stories, Myth, and Arts to Envision Change.”

She has recently been involved in two research projects: Acis & Galatea, which centers on cultural myth criticism, and HUAMECO, a project on environmental humanities that connects fine arts with the study of literature. Both have given her the opportunity to work with scholars across different disciplines, as well as local organizations and NGOs. 

Diana was previously a visiting scholar in 2017, working on the project The New Alliance: Environmental Humanities.

RCC Research Project: Intimate Encounters: Primate Literature as a Narrative of Relationship

Lunchtime Colloquium Video - Reading Primatology in Ape Fiction

Selected publications:

• “The Modern Pygmalion: Crossing Boundaries in Peter Goldsworthy’s Wish.” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 77 (2018): 177–89.
• “Posthuman Spaces of Relation: Literary Responses to the Species Boundary in Primate Literature.” Relations: Beyond Anthropocentrism 4, no. 1–2 (2016): 81–94.
• “Dismantling ‘Conceptual Straitjackets’ in Peter Dickinson’s Eva.” In International Ecocriticism: Young Voices, edited by Serpil Oppermann, 187–99. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.
• “A Material Reading of Brenda Peterson’s Animal Heart.” Forum for World Literature Studies 6, no. 1 (2014): 6–23.
• “‘Savage Beauty’: Representations of Women as Animals in PETA’s Campaigns and Alexander McQueen’s Fashion Shows.” Feminismo/s 22 (2013): 147–75.
• “Reflections on Literature and Environment: An Interview with Scott Slovic.” Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 1, no. 2 (2010): 67–86.