Verónica Mondragón Paredes (Mexico)

veronica mondragon paredes
MSt in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

I graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in International Relations from Tecnológico de Monterrey in México in the fall of 2022. During my undergraduate years, I studied English at Yale University in the summer of 2019 under a Banco Santander grant and worked on young-adult literature and sexual violence as a MITACS Globalink Research Intern at the University of Alberta in 2021. My first journal publications, “Gender and the Monstrous-Feminine: Subversion in Naomi Alderman’s The Power” and “The End of Rape? Essentializing Masculinity in Male Extinction Dystopias”, were published by *Contemporary Women's Writing* and the SFRA Review respectively in the summer of 2022. My other work has also been featured in conferences by Fantastika Journal and the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung eV [Association for Research in the Fantastic]. Before coming to Oxford, I worked as a consultant in the tech industry and involved myself in leadership associations, especially those that worked in favour of gender equality and inclusion.

 

As an incoming student in the MSt in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Oxford, I will analyse complex representations of the monstrous body in contemporary speculative fiction that configure the body as a site of resistance against misogynistic violence. I intend to demonstrate the link between these representations and the context of feminist activism in which they are developed, specifically to understand why the monstrous-feminine has evolved to represent a protection mechanism against patriarchal sexual oppression. The goal of my project will be to articulate the context that has repositioned the archetype as a site of catharsis and female agency and advance theoretical understandings of sexual violence.

 

I am infinitely grateful to the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities for providing me with the generous support I need to attend Oxford. The honour of being selected as an Ertegun scholar is both a privilege and a gift that I will forever cherish.