Gregorio Alonso

Profile

I received my PhD on Religion and Politics in Modern Spain from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2008. I completed my doctoral training at the London School of Economics, Università Roma III, and L'École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. I worked as Lecturer in European Studies at King´s College London from 2005 to 2009, and was appointed by the University of Leeds in September 2009.

Research interests

My research ranges from the study of political and religious conflicts in Modern Europe and Latin America to the making of the liberal and the Catholic traditions during the Nineteenth Century. I am interested in the political, cultural and religious aspects of Modernity in comparative perspective. 

My publications include the monograph La nacin en capilla. Ciudadanía Católica y cuestión religiosa en España (Comares: 2014) and the co-edited volumes: The Soul of the Nation. Catholicism and nationalization in Modern Spain (Berghahn: 2024) The Politics and Memory of Democratic Transition. The Spanish Model (Routledge: 2011) and Londres y el Liberalismo Hispánico (Iberoamericana/Vervuert: 2011). 

I am currently working on a monograph on the European experience and legacy of the Latin American Libertadores before, during, and after the independence process.

Books

Sole authored:

• La nación en capilla. Ciudadanía católica y cuestión religiosa en España, 1793-1874. (Comares, 2014)

Edited Volumes:

• (with Diego Muro) Politics and the Memory of Democratic Transition: The Spanish Model. (Routledge, 2011)
• (with Daniel Muñoz-Sempere) Londres y el Liberalismo Hispanico.  (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2011)
• (with Claudio Hernández Burgos) The Soul of the Nation. Catholicism and nationalization in Modern Spain (Berghahn, 2024)

Edited Monographic Journals:

• Benditas Banderas: “Nacionalismo y catolicismo en la modernidad hispanoamericana”, Rubrica Contemporanea. 17 (9), 2020.
• (with Richard Cleminson) "Sujetos frágiles: the fragility of the liberal subject in the modern Hispanic world", Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 22(1), 2016.

Articles in peer-reviewed journals:

• ‘Capital Wisdom. Nicola Miller on Trading and Learning in Sourthern America’, Global Intellectual History, 7: 6, 2022.
• "'Afectos caprichosos': Tradicionalismo y germanofilia en España durante la Gran Guerra", Hispania Nova. Revista de Historia contemporánea, 15, 2017, 394–415.
• (with Richard Cleminson) ‘Sujetos frágiles”: the fragility of the liberal subject in the modern Hispanic world’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 22 (1), 2016, 1–6.
• ‘Corporations, subjects and citizens. The peculiar modernity of Hispanic early Liberalism’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 22 (1), 2016, 7–22.
• '"En el ADN de la democracia". Secularización, iglesia y conflicto en la España del siglo XXI' Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea. N. 26/2, 2016.
• ‘Imaginando a Fernando VII, rey católico y felón' in Pasado y Memoria. Revista de Historia Contemporánea, 14, 2015, 57–77.
• “‘A Great People Struggling for Their Liberties’: Spain and the Mediterranean in the Eyes of the Benthamites”, History of European Ideas, 2014, 1–11.
• '"Aggressive secularism' reassessed: Spanish State-Catholic Church Relations (2004-2012) in perspective', Kirchliche Zeitgesichte/Contemporary Church History, 25. Jahrgang 25/Vol.25, Heft 2/Issue 2, 2012, 320–335.

Book Chapters

• 'The Brains, the Guts, and the Numbers: Political and Ideological Conflicts in Spain (1845–1898)’, Andrew Dowling, The Routledge Handbook of Spanish History (Routledge, New York, 2024), 241-251.
• ““El hábito no hace al monje’. El humor anticlerical y la violencia política (1750-1840), Antonio Calvo Maturana (ed.) El humor y su sentido. (España, siglos XVIII-XXI), (Cátedra. Madrid. 2022) 159-172.
• ‘Monacatus non est pietas: Anticlerical humour and political violence (c. 1750-1840)’, Antonio Calvo Maturana (ed.) Spanish Laughter. Humour and its sense in Modern Spain (Berghahn, New York-Oxford, 2022), 185-205.
• ‘Freethinkers, Atheists, and Anticlericals: Spanish American Struggles for Independence’, Stephen Bullivant and Michael Ruse (eds.) The Cambridge History of Atheism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2021), vol. 1, 445-464.
•  ‘The crisis of the Old Regime: 1808-1833’, Adrian Shubert and José Álvarez Junco(eds.), The History of Modern Spain. Chronologies, Themes, Individuals. (Bloomsbury, London, 2018), 15–31.
• “El fin del Antiguo Régimen: 1808-1833” in Adrian Shubert and José Álvarez Junco (eds.) Nueva historia de la España contemporánea (1808-2018) (Galaxia Gutenberg, Madrid, 2018), 49–73.
• ‘How to be religious under Liberalism’ in Andrew Ginger and Geraldine Lawless (eds.) Spain in the Nineteenth Century. New Essays on Experiences of Culture and Society. (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2018), 89–109.
• “La Iglesia y la Primera República” en Ana Martínez Rus y Raquel Sánchez (eds.) Las dos repúblicas en España. (Fundación Pablo Iglesias, Madrid, 2018), 281–303.
• “Romerías a la ‘Corte de los Milagros’. Estudios recientes sobre la Iglesia y el catolicismo durante el reinado de Isabel II” en Feliciano Montero, Julio de la Cueva and Joseba Louzao (eds.) La historia religiosa contemporánea: balances y perspectivas. (Alcalá de Henares, UAH, 2018), 33–47.
• “¿Dar la vida por la contrarrevolución? Voluntarios españoles en defensa del poder temporal de Pío IX en 1850”, Pedro Rújula and Javier Ramón Solans (eds.) El desafio de la revolución. Reaccionarios, antiliberales y contrarrevolucionarios (siglos XVIII-XIX). (Comares, Granada, 2017), 125–141.
•  'A Transatlantic Loyalty in the Age of Independence: Catholicism and Nation Building in Spain and Latin America' in Paul Garner and Angel Smith Nationalism and Transnationalism in Spain and Latin America, 1808-1923.  (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), 45–68.
• 'Cadiz Reprised: The Liberal Triennium in Spain and Spanish America', Scott Eastman and Natalia Sobrevilla (eds.)The Rise of Constitutional Government in the Iberian Atlantic World: The Impact of the Cadiz Constitution of 1812. (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2015), 245–264.
• "Vicente Rocafuerte y las independencias atlánticas. Un recorrido constitutional de Cádiz 1812 a Cúcuta 1821", Roberto Breña (ed.) Cadiz a debate: actualidad, contexto y legado. (Mexico DF: Colegio de México, 2014), 377–397.
• "Vicente Rocafuerte (1783-1847). Independencia, República, Tolerancia" in Manuel Pérez Ledesma (dir.), Trayectorias Transatlánticas (siglo XIX). Personajes y redes entre España y América. (Madrid: Polifemo, 2013), 45–70.

Qualifications

• PhD in Modern History (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
• European MA in History of Law (UAM, Messina, Milan and Cordoba)
• MA in Modern History (UAM)
• MA in Education (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
• BA in Geography and History (UAM)

Professional memberships

• Royal Historical Society
• Asociación de Historia Contemporánea (Spain)
• Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland
• Nineteenth-Century Hispanists International Network

Student education

In 2024-25 academic year I convene

SPPO1045 The Historical Development of Spain and Hispanic America

SPPO2510 and SPPO2511 Latin America since Independence

SPPO2660 and SPPO2681 Modern Spain

FOAH3150 Religion and Violence

I teach in

SPPO2680 and SPPO2681 Modern Spain

SPPO3715 Nationalism and Internationalism in the Spanish-Speaking World

MODL1070 World Histories

MODL1100 Pollitics, Culture and Society

MODL3630 and MODL5090M Social Movements across Cultures

Supervised postgraduate students

• Nicholas Hutcheon (PhD). Completed June 2015
• Jesús Sanjurjo Ramos (PhD) Completed July 2018
• Alex Doyle (MAR) Completed in January 2023
• Rayed Althubiti (PhD) Started in September 2020
• Agustín Hernández Díaz (PhD) Started in September 2020
• Emilee Dale (PhD) Started in October 2022
• Lulwah Alhesyan (PhD) Started in January 2023

Postgraduate research supervision

• Nineteenth and early Twentieth century Europe and Latin America
• Cultural and religious Modern European history
• Latin American independence
• Nationalism and modernization
• Secularization and democratization

Research groups and institutes

• History
• Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American
• Conflict
• Network for Hispanic and Lusophone Cultural Studies

Current postgraduate researchers

• Emilee Dale