Making Women´s History Visible in Europe

A European Learning Partnership (Grundtvig 2)

Spain - Seminario de Estudios de la Mujer de la Universidad de Oviedo (SEMUO)

The Seminar of Women’s Studies at the University of Oviedo was founded in 1994 by members of the faculty of Humanities. It is a space for interdisciplinary studies and for intertextual cultural exchanges. The common ground is the feminist perspective for all analyses and women in all their aspects as subjects to be studied. The number of members vary from year to year, but there is a permanent group of ten to twelve women to keep the lamp alight.

 We organize a conference every three years, with the aim of bringing together the research on women that is being done throughout the University of Oviedo. Every year we organize a one-day seminar on Diverse Women, to which we invite women from other cultures, to make our students aware of the variety of experiences. The Seminar is the basis for an official programme that teaches women around the region of Asturias about history, literature and film from a feminist perspective; this programme (“Time of their own”) takes several of us in itinerant tours, once or twice a week, along the length (100 kms to the east or to the west) and width (30 kms to the north or 70 to the south) of Asturias.

 We publish proceedings from the conferences, or compilations of the different research projects we have. The jewel of the crown is a collection of feminist research called Alternativas, with a distinctive design that is beginning to be recognized in Spain, due to the 18 books we have already published (and two more to be out before the summer).

 The Seminar is also in charge of the Postgraduate Programme on Women’s Studies, with 32 credits (10 teaching hours per credit) and an average of 20 students per year. The Programme is now in its eleventh year and has a long list of M.A. and Ph.D. theses already presented.

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