She takes advantage of her time in her native Barcelona to drop by the Bar, early in the morning, just as she is: an early riser, who gets up and immediately starts working. She orders a green tea and asks to turn off the radio, "which I only listen to when I drive."
A university professor of literary training and a researcher in gender and sexuality studies, Marta Segarra worked for several decades at the University of Barcelona (UB), with which she still maintains an academic link, "there I founded the first research center in feminist literary studies, which has trained dozens of specialists in this field."
Author of numerous books and scientific articles, in Catalan, Spanish, French, and English, in addition to directing collective volumes, her last two essays are: Gender: A Quick Immersion (Tibidabo), "which, as its title indicates, is an introduction to the concept of gender and the social and individual issues related to it"; and Humanimals: Opening the Borders of the Human (Galaxia Gutenberg), "a reflection on the borders of humanity, from philosophical thought, the gender perspective, and ethology."
She currently resides in Paris, where she dedicates herself "almost exclusively to research and the dissemination of knowledge about gender and sexuality for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)."
--- And how did you decide to go to Paris?
--- It was a clear turning point. I decided to leave the UB and look for a position abroad, in the United States or France. In 2015, I won a competition at the CNRS, and it's the best thing that has happened to me in my professional life!
A full-vocation job
Marta assures that she loves her job, "which occupies many hours of my day, sometimes too many, and almost every day of the year." What she highlights about her work is "transmission, especially on the academic level. I am very proud of all the theses I have supervised, that is, of the people who have done them and who now, for the most part, are good friends. I also love contact with students from younger generations who, in general, I find much more awake and motivated than people of my generation when we were their age."
This love for her work is encouraged by "the many social changes that have occurred in the field of feminism, gender, and sexuality in the last five or ten years. I am passionate about intervening in these rapidly changing times, not only in academia but also in society in general."
Always involved in a thousand different messes, the parishioner advocates for intellectual exchange with people with different approaches and sensibilities: "One of my latest projects is a debate between students from the Paris Seminary, who will be Catholic priests and religious in a few years, and doctoral students from the Laboratory of Gender and Sexuality Studies of the CNRS, which will involve about a hundred people."
In terms of research and its dissemination, she coordinates an online editorial project: the Dictionary of Gender in Translation, "an open work that includes articles on concepts and terms related to gender and gender studies, in French, English, and Spanish."
Neither big enough, nor small enough
Marta Segarra does not like Barcelona, where she was born and lived the first thirty years of her life. "I understand the reasons why many people do like it. I haven't lived in Barcelona for twenty years now, because I find it too small a city to be truly interesting, and too big to live well in it." Hence, it is a city with which she maintains a love-hate relationship, aggravated "by cruise tourism and adolescent groups that don't even let you pass through certain streets of the Gothic Quarter, although this was more before the pandemic."
But not everything is bad, and the parishioner has words for the aspects she likes to rediscover when she passes through the city: "I love looking at the buildings of the Eixample because I always discover wonderful architectural details that I had never noticed or had forgotten. And, on an intellectual and cultural level, I would highlight the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), a unique institution in the world, cutting-edge in many aspects."
--- What is cutting-edge here is our pastry. Would you like to eat something with your green tea?
The researcher smiles, ignoring the sweets: "I prefer savory ---she replies---, even with tea." And she laughs.