MARÍA JOSÉ RAGUÉ ARIAS, A PIONEER IN THE STUDY OF SPANISH AND CATALAN CONTEMPORARY THEATRE WITH A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

María José Ragué Arias (Barcelona 1941-2019) was a Catalan scholar, theatre critic, playwright and feminist activist. This article focuses on a particular aspect of Ragué’s career: her contributions to the study of contemporary Hispanic and Catalan theatre from a feminist perspective. Following an overview of her intellectual career, this article explores the different aspects of this part of her work: the study of the contemporary rewritings of ancient Greek theatre female characters, the reception of feminist anglophone theatre studies, the analysis of the theatre field from a gender perspective and the understanding of female authorship as a differential value. The ensemble of these contributions represents a pioneer approach to contemporary theatre within the late 20th century Spanish academia and is still current at multiple levels, standing as a referent to claim for the study of the relationships among gender, feminisms, women and theatre in the 21st Century.