Ana Abril is a PhD candidate in Comparative Gender Studies at Central European University. Her dissertation, "Eating Ontology: A Derridean Reading of Alimentary Tropes in Four Contemporary Ontological Turns Advancing Alterity and Ecological Thinking", explores the political and ethical stakes in feminist new materialisms, the ontological turn in anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Indigenous Studies. Framing the environmental crisis and relationality to otherness as central concerns, her research examines how these fields engage with questions of humanity, animality, and ecological interdependence through alimentary tropes and eating relations. Drawing on Derrida’s critique of the metaphysics of presence, the project interrogates the political implications of contemporary turns to ontology, offering a deconstructive analysis of their contributions and limitations in addressing ecological and ethical questions.
Broadly, her research interests include feminist theories of the body, queer theory, continental philosophy, critical pedagogy, and contemporary art practices.
- From November 2024 to February 2025, Ana did a research stay in the Department of Metaphysics and Current Strands of Philosophy, Ethics, and Political Philosophy at the Universidad de Sevilla, supported by the CEU Doctoral Research Support Grant program (DRSG).
- From January to June 2024, she visited the University of the Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) with a grant awarded by the Open Society University Network (OSUN).
- From October to December 2023, Ana was a visiting fellow at the Lehrstuhlinhaberin Westeuropäische Literaturen at Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) with a research fellowship from Viadrina International Program – for Graduates (VIP).
- From October 2022 to September 2023, she was a visitor at the Laboratory: Anthropology Of Environment | Human Relations at the Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin with funding provided by DAAD scholarship.