Rosalía Baena

Rosalía Baena is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Navarra, Spain, working within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and Department of Modern Languages. She currently serves as Vice President for Students and International Affairs at the University, demonstrating her significant administrative leadership alongside her academic work.

Her educational background includes a Doctorate from the University of Salamanca with the thesis "La perspectiva narrativa en la obra novelistica de Nadine Gordimer" (1997), supervised by Dr. Catalina Montes Mozo.

Professor Baena's research primarily focuses on narrative theory, contemporary life writing, and narrative empathy. She has made significant contributions to the study of illness memoirs, exploring how personal narratives influence cultural perceptions of illness and disability. Her work also examines cultural identity in postcolonial literature, particularly focusing on Englishness in colonial autobiographies and TV period dramas. She investigates how narratives of childhood in colonial contexts reshape cultural and national affiliations, analyzing the ambivalent identities of British children growing up in colonies.

Her most recent publications reveal a clear trajectory from early work on postcolonial narratives toward contemporary focus on illness and disability memoirs. The thematic evolution shows increasing attention to the phenomenological aspects of reading and the emotional dimensions of narrative engagement. Her scholarship consistently centers on how personal narratives function as cultural mediation, challenging societal stereotypes and reshaping perceptions of identity.

Professor Baena actively mentors students and has supervised numerous research projects. She currently leads the Erasmus+ REMAP project (2024-2027) focused on meaningful reading among university students, building on her earlier work "Reading for Pleasure: from Narrative Competence to Character Education" (2021). She also participates in the RELY research project (2023-2026) on assemblage theory in Anglophone literature.

Her academic work extends to the development of research groups, particularly the "Escritura autobiográfica" (Autobiographical Writing) group at the University of Navarra, where she continues to shape scholarly discourse on life writing and narrative theory.