Sophie Turbutt

Profile

I am a third-year doctoral researcher in the School of History, working on interwar Spanish anarchism and gender. My project is funded by WRoCAH (Arts and Humanities Research Council).

I completed my BA in History at the University of York between 2016 and 2020, and was lucky enough to include within that an Erasmus year abroad at the Complutense University of Madrid. I subsequently completed an MPhil in Modern European History at the University of Cambridge from 2020 to 2021, graduating with a Distinction.

In June 2022 I was the co-organiser of the Anarchism in the Iberian Peninsula international symposium hosted at the University of Leeds, funded by WRoCAH and the Past and Present Society.

In July 2023 I became the co-founder of the Red Europea de Historia Contemporánea Española (REHCE) and was a co-organiser of its inaugural workshop in Edinburgh.

In 2022 I completed a 3-month Visiting Doctoral Researcher placement at the Complutense University of Madrid, and in 2023 I completed a 2.5 month placement at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

I am a seminar tutor for the first-year undergraduate module ‘The Making of the Twentieth Century’, and an Education Outreach Fellow.

I’ve undertaken a 6-week research placement at the Thackray Museum of Medicine (2023), and given a public lecture at Leeds Central Library (2024).

I am the Communications Officer for the Centre for the History of Ibero-America (CHIA) at Leeds and the PGR Representative for the School of History.

Conference/Seminar Papers

18/07/2023: ‘La moral sexual anarquista: Reivindicaciones a la autoridad y la regeneración social (1931-1939)’, New Directions in Modern Spanish History: A PGR/ECR Workshop, University of Edinburgh

18/05/2023: ‘Anarchist Social Life in Catalonia: intimacies, parenthoods/childhoods, friendships and workplaces’, Catalan Studies PGR/ECR Symposium, University of Sheffield

22/03/2023: ‘Women, Activism, and Relational Identity-Making in Spanish Anarchist Political Culture, 1923-1939’, Modern History Research Colloquium, University of Bern

27/01/2023: ‘Identity-making in the anarchist family: intimate relationships and parent-child relationships in the Spanish anarchist movement c.1923-1939’, Family and Marriage in Twentieth Century Spain Workshop, University of Leeds

10/09/2022: ‘Anarchist Womanhood: A Relational Approach to the Intersection Between Sexual/Gender Identity and Political Identity in 1920s-30s Spain’, Modern Spanish History Conference, University of Kent

15/10/2021: ‘Constructing Anarchist Womanhood: La Revista Blanca, 1923-1936’, Modern Spanish History Seminar, Universities of Edinburgh and Kent (Online)

07/07/2021: ‘Female Bodily Autonomy in the Spanish Anarchist Periodical, La Revista Blanca (1923-1936)’, New Voices and Global Perspectives on Nineteenth Century Periodicals Seminar, Manchester Metropolitan University (Online)

03/06/2021: ‘Female Bodily Autonomy in La Revista Blanca, 1931-1936’, International Seminar: New Perspectives on Mid-Twentieth Century Spain (1931-1959), Universities of Leeds and Granada (Online)

Research interests

• histories of gender and sexuality
• anarchism in Spain
• transnationalism
• histories of sex-reform/reproductive justice
• histories of protest, activism and social justice
• modern European history

Qualifications

• MPhil Modern European History
• BA History with a Year Abroad

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for the History of Ibero-America