About
Mónica is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Humanities at Reed College. She received a PhD in Comparative Literature and a Graduate Certificate in Film Studies from the University of Michigan. She also holds a Law degree from the University of Valencia (Spain) and a LL.M. in Jurisprudence from the European Academy of Legal Theory (Belgium). At Reed she teaches a variety of interdisciplinary courses in film theory, political documentaries, law and violence, justice and the senses, cinema and human rights, and comparative literature. She has also taught at the Faculty of Law of the University of Helsinki, the Peter A. Allard School of Law of the University of British Columbia, and the School of International Relations of the Kyrgyz State National University.
Mónica’s research interests include contemporary Spanish film and literature, with particular emphasis on film theory, gender, aesthetics, politics, memory, and cultural and theoretical aspects of law. She is the author of Sensing Justice through Contemporary Spanish Cinema: Aesthetics, Politics, Law (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), co-editor of Rancière and Law (Routledge, 2018) and editor of Cartografías in/justas: Representaciones culturales del espacio urbano y rural en la España contemporánea (Editorial Comares, forthcoming 2024). She is currently working on a new book project tentatively titled Documentaries Against the Law: Evidence, Affect, and Reflexivity. From 2012 to 2017 she was editor-in-chief of No-Foundations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice. She serves as an editorial board member of the Journal of Media and Rights. She also serves on the Executive Committee on 20th and 21st Century Spanish and Iberian Languages, Literatures and Cultures (2019-2024).
Mónica has been a recipient of numerous fellowships, such as the Finnish Cultural Foundation Grant, the Jean Monnet Graduate Fellowship, and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Research Fellowship. Publications
Books :
Sensing Justice through Contemporary Spanish Cinema: Aesthetics, Politics, Law, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and the Humanities, Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
Edited books:
Cartografías in/justas: Representaciones culturales del espacio rural y urbano en la España contemporánea. Granada: Editorial Comares. Forthcoming 2024.
Rancière and Law (with Etxabe J.), Nomikoi Critical Legal Thinkers, Routledge, 2018.
Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters:
“Resisting Ruination: The Termites of Corruption in Democratic Spain,” Special Issue “‘Ruinas Modernas:’ Untimely Spaces and Multiple Temporalities in Modern & Contemporary Spanish Culture”, eds. Pedro Aguilera-Mellado, Antonio Cordoba and Jacqueline Sheean, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, forthcoming 2024.
“Introducción: Espacios y límites de la (in)justicia” in Cartografías in/justas: Representaciones culturales del espacio rural y urbano en la España contemporánea. Granada: Editorial Comares, pp. 1-30. Forthcoming, 2024.
“The Evidence of Juridical Documentaries” (De Nens and Ciutat Morta) in The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Legal Studies, edited by Karen Crawley, T. Giddens and T. Peter, forthcoming 2024.
“The Right to the City: Spatial (In)Justice in Alberto Rodriguez’s Grupo 7” special issue “Critiquing Human Rights Cinema” (eds Barry Collins and Qudsia Mirza), Studies in Law, Politics and Society, forthcoming.
“Justice between Terror and Law” in Rancière and Law, Nomikoi Critical Legal Thinkers, Routledge, 2018, 189-205.
“Witnessing Francoism: Ethics of Non-Violence in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.” NAVEIÑ REET: Nordic Journal of Law and Social Research, n. 6. vol. 2. 2015, 35-56.
“What Judicial Memory for the Amnesty Law of 1977?” in Europe at the Edge of Pluralism. Eds. D. Gozdecka and M. Kmak. Benelux: Intersentia. 2015, 183-200.
“Aesthetic Irruptions: Politics of Perception in Alex de la Iglesia’s La Comunidad,” in Rancière and Film, Ed. Paul Bowman. Edinburgh University Press, 2013, 99-112.
“Disenso en La Comunidad de Alex de la Iglesia,” Política Común. Issue 4, 2013.
“Law in High Heels. Performativity, Alterity, and Aesthetics,” Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal Vol. 20. 2. (Winter 2011): 289-324.
“The Ghosts of Justice and the Law of Historical Memory,” Conserveries Mémorielles. # 9 (2011).
“Memoria histórica, legal o cultural?” in F. Navarro, Mª Candelaria et alii (eds.). II Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores en Historia Contemporánea: Granada 22-25 septiembre, 2009. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2010, ISBN: 978-84-338-5094-2.
“City and Globalization in Amores Perros,” XIV Hispanic Culture Review (2008): 69-74.
“Pourquoi un contrat juridique pour le pacte ‘faustien’?” Revue Interdisciplinaire d’Etudes Juridiques (R.I.E.J.), 50 (2003): 189-222.
Edited journal volumes:
“Judging Democracy, Democratic Judgment,” Co-Editor Special Issue, No-Foundations. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice. vol. 10. June 2013.
“Law’s Justice. A Law and Humanities Perspective,” Co-Editor Relaunch Special Issue, No- Foundations. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice. vol. 9. June 2012.
Guest Editor, No Foundations. Journal of Extreme Legal Positivism (Number 8) (2011).
Book Reviews:
“Marco Wan, Film and Constitutional Controversy: Visualizing Hong Kong Identity in the Age of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021” in Social & Legal Studies (2022), 1-4.
“Anne Wagner and Le Cheng (eds), Law, Cinema, and the Ill City. Imagining Justice and Order in Real and Fictional Cities, Abingdon: Routledge 2019” in International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (2020).
Translations:
(with J. Etxabe, trans. from the French), Benoit Dejemeppe, “François Ost: Shakespeare. La Comedie de la Loi” NoFo: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice 10 (2013).
(with J. Etxabe, trans. from the French), François Ost “To Avenge, to Forgive, and to Judge? Literary Variations,” NoFo: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice 9 (2012).
