Professor Richard Cleminson

Profile

I am Professor of Hispanic Studies and work at the intersection between Gender and Sexuality Studies and History with a particular interest in how science and culture interact in Iberia. I have published on scientific and sexological theories of sexuality, particularly with respect to the cultural and scientific construction of male homosexuality in Spain, hermaphroditism in Iberia and the reception of eugenics in Spain and Portugal. 

My most recent major project, funded by the AHRC, focused on the dialogue between anarchism and eugenics in five countries, including Argentina, England, France, Portugal and Spain. I am currently working on colonialism and anticolonialism in Portugal in the early twentieth century.

I supervise numerous PhDs and Masters by Research, including:

• the history of anarchism in Spain
• trans politics and identities in the UK and Germany
• the literary work of Jaime Gil de Biedma
• feminism, gender theory and the novel

Selected publications

Books

• Republicanos españoles prisioneros de guerra en Inglaterra. Las memorias de José Ferri (Alcoi: Ajuntament d’Alcoi, 2019) (with Àngel Beneito Lloris)
• Anarchism and eugenics: An unlikely convergence, 1890–1940 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019)
• Sexo, identidad y hermafroditas en el mundo ibérico, 1500–1800 (Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2018) (with F. Vázquez García)
• Catholicism, Race and Empire: Eugenics in Portugal, 1900–1950 (Budapest/New York: Central European University Press, 2014)
• Sex, Identity and Hermaphrodites in Iberia, 1500–1800 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013) (with F. Vázquez García)
• Los hermafroditas. Medicina e identidad sexual en España (1850–1960) (Granada: Editorial Comares, 2012) (with F. Vázquez García)
• Anarchism and Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships and Power (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2011) (edited with Jamie Heckert)
• 'Los Invisibles'. Una historia de la homosexualidad en España, 1850–1939 (Granada: Editorial Comares, 2011) (with F. Vázquez García)
• Hermaphroditism, Medical Science and Sexual Identity in Spain, 1850–1960 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009) (with F. Vázquez García)
• Anarquismo y sexualidad (España, 1900–1939) (Cadiz: University of Cadiz, 2008)
• 'Los Invisibles': A History of Male Homosexuality in Spain, 1850–1939 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007) (with F. Vázquez García)
• Techno-Sexual Landscapes: Changing Relations between Technology and Sexuality (London: Free Association Books, 2004) (with Angel Gordo López)
• La educación intercultural. Un reto en el presente de Europa/Intercultural Education: A Present-Day Challenge for Europe (Madrid: Comunidad de Madrid, 2002) (Ana Carmen del Canto, Angel Gordo López & Antonio Muñoz Sedano (eds.))
• Anarchism, Science and Sex: Eugenics in Eastern Spain, 1900–1937 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000)
• Anarquismo y homosexualidad (Madrid: Huerga y Fierro, 1995)

Edited journal monographs

• "Sujetos frágiles: the fragility of the liberal subject in the modern Hispanic world", Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 22(1), 2016 (edited with Gregorio Alonso)
• "Queer in Portugal: History, identity and future", International Journal of Iberian Studies, 29(2), 2016
• "Anarchism and Sexuality", International Journal of Iberian Studies, 24(3), 2012 (edited with Gwendolyn Windpassinger)
• "La Mala Vida", Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 10(4), 2009 (with Teresa Fuentes Peris) (contains article "Transnational Discourse on the 'Mala Vida': Male Homosexuality in Madrid, Buenos Aires and Barcelona in the Early Twentieth Century", pp. 461–483
• "Alternative Discourses in Early Twentieth-century Spain: Intellectuals, Dissent and Sub-cultures of Mind and Body", Bulletin of Spanish Studies, LXXXI(6), 2004 (with Alison Sinclair)
• "Anarchism and Sexuality", Anarchist Studies, 8, 2000.

Journal articles and book chapters (2004–present)

• “Uma acção de ‘socorro emocional’: homossexualidade e resistência em Lagos (1965)”, in A.F. Cascais (ed.), Dissidências e resistências homossexuais no século XX português (Lisbon: Letra Livre, 2024), pp. 187-232
• “Anarchist Anti-statism and the Colonial Question in Cuba, 1898-1902”, FORUM. Revista Departamento Ciencia Política, 26 (2024), pp. 81-103 (https://doi.org/10.15446/frdcp.n26.67354) (with Alex Doyle) 
• “Revuelta mariquita en San Pedro de Alcántara”, Ctxt: Contexto y Acción, 310, 2024 (https://ctxt.es/es/20240701/Politica/46914/Alvaro-Gonzalez-Montero-Richard-Cleminson-costa-del-sol-boda-gay-lgtb-orgullo-mariquitas-franquismo.htm?utm_campaign=twitter&s=08) (with Álvaro González Montero)
• “The Politics of Health in the Lusophone Libertarian Movement: Portugal and Mozambique, 1910-1935”, International Labor and Working-Class History. Published online 2024:1-20. doi:10.1017/S0147547923000297
• “‘In You We Recognize Our Dark Brothers’. Pan-Africanism in Portugal: The View from Both Sides of the Atlantic (1918-1933)”, Luso-Brazilian Review, 60(2), 2023, pp. 4-37
• “El arte de conocer: una apreciación de la obra de Francisco Vázquez García”, Dorsal. Revista de Estudios Foucaultianos, 15, 2023, pp. 125-141
• “Mazdaznan, Eugenics and the Future of the ‘White Race’”, Revista Brasileira de História, 43(94), 2023, pp. 101-122
• “Anarchism, colonialism and the question of ‘race’ in Portugal (c.1890–1930)”, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 29(1), 2023, pp. 115-135 published online (Open Access) (with Diogo Duarte)
• “Anticolonialism in Early Twentieth-Century Portugal: The Ambivalences of Race and Transnationalism in O Negro (1911)”, e-Journal of Portuguese History, 20(2), 2022, pp. 218-239” (available at https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:bjp7ythm/)
• “Félix Martí Ibáñez y la moralidad sexual anarquista”, Tierra y Libertad, 389, 2022, pp. 8–9
• “La homosexualidad masculina en el siglo XIX”, in Francisco Vázquez García (ed.), Historia de la homosexualidad masculina en Occidente (Madrid: La Catarata, 2022), pp. 167–214
• “Mário Domingues, o Pan-Africanismo e A Batalha”, in Ricardo António Alves and António Mota Redol (eds.), “Anarquismo, insubmissão, inconformismo”, Nova Síntese (Lisbon), 19, 2022, pp. 259–269 
• “An act of ‘emotional rescue’: Homosexuality and resistance in Lagos, Portugal (1965)”, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 35(2), 2022, pp. 155–173
• “Race in Iberia and Latin America”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(13), 2022, pp. 2486-2490
• “Félix Martí Ibáñez e a moral sexual anarquista”, A Batalha, XLVIII(295), 2022, p. 18
• “‘Um grito de alarme contra a degenerescência da espécie’: Homosexuality and Decadence in the Anarchosyndicalist A Batalha in the Early 1920s”, Portuguese Studies, 38(1), 2022, pp. 45-61 (with Diogo Duarte)
• “‘Consideraciones sobre la homosexualidad’: el Dr. Félix Martí Ibáñez y el proyecto cultural anarquista”, in Francisco Javier Muñoz Fernández and Fernando R. Bartolomé García (eds.), Cultura y arte queer (Alava: UPV, 2022), pp. 27–46
• “Introduction: new directions in Spanish anarchist studies”, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, DOI: 10.1080/14701847.2022.2052687 (with Nathaniel Andrews), 2022
• “‘Inseparables’: Tobacco Workers in Seville and Female Homoeroticism at the End of the Nineteenth Century”, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 31(1), 2022, pp. 28–58 (with F. Vázquez García)
• “Mário Domingues, A Batalha e o anticolonialismo em Portugal”, A Batalha, XLVIII(294), 2022, p. 17
• “La política de la salud en el movimiento libertario lusófono: Portugal y Mozambique, 1910–1935”, in Salvador Cayuela Sánchez and Paula Arantzazu Ruiz Rodríguez (eds.), La verdad muda del cuerpo. Michel Foucault y la medicina (Madrid: Morata, 2022), pp. 117-154
• “Race and Sexuality”, in Tanya Maria Golash-Boza (ed.), A Cultural History of Race in the Modern and Genomic Age. Volume 6 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), pp. 141–156
• “Imagining the ‘Biochemical Race’: Sero-Anthropology and Concepts of Racial Purity in Portugal (1900s–1950s)”, European History Quarterly, 51(3), 2021, pp. 355–385 (with Ricardo Roque)
• “El cambiante recorrido de los discursos sobre la raza y la salud en el primer franquismo (1936–1950)”, in Zira Box and César Rina (eds.), El franquismo en caleidoscopio. Perspectivas y estudios transdisciplinares sobre la dictadura (Granada: Comares, 2020), pp. 101–123 (with Ricardo Campos)
• “Dr Félix Martí Ibáñez’s ‘Considerations on Homosexuality’ and the Anarchist Cultural Project”, Anarchist Studies, 28(1), 2020, pp. 84–99
• “Stonewall and its Legacy in Iberia”, History Workshop Journal, 89, 2020, pp. 214–219
• “Anarchism and anticolonialism in Portugal (1919-1926): Mário Domingues, A Batalha and black internationalism”, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 25(3), 2019, pp. 441–465
• “Dr. Félix Martí Ibáñez: Eugenik un Sexualmoral. Betrachtungen über die Homosexualität (1935)”, Ne znam. Zeitschrift für Anarchismusforschung, 8, 2019, pp. 139–161 
• “‘Per la conservació de la raça catalana’: The Catalan Eugenics Society (1935-1937)”, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 25(1), 2019, pp. 11–33
• “Education, Environment and Sexuality in the Anarchist Movement in Spain”, Recherches et Éducations, 21, 2018
• “Anarquismo, apoliticismo y la organización revolucionaria de las mujeres: España, 1936–1939”, FORUM. Revista del Departamento de Ciencia Política, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Sede Medellín), 13, 2018 (with Danny Evans)
• "Eugenics, Sex Reform, Religion and Anarchism in Portugal", Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture, 4(2), 2018, pp. 61–84
• "«Los/as nuestros/as»: feminidades y masculinidades contestatarias en Memoria de unos ojos pintados", in Henar Gallego Franco (ed.), Feminidades y masculinidades en la historiografía del género (Granada, 2018), pp. 25–43
• "Iberian eugenics? Cross-overs and contrasts between Spanish and Portuguese eugenics, 1930–1950", Dynamis, 37(1), 2017, pp. 89–110
• "Between Germanic and Latin eugenics: Portugal, 1930–1960", História, Ciência, Saúde - Manguinhos, 27, supplement, 2016, pp. 73–91
• "'A New World in Our Hearts' - Anarchism and the Spanish Civil War", in Lancashire Association of Trades Union Councils (ed.), North East Lancashire and the Spanish Civil War (Accrington: Lancashire Association of Trades Union Councils, 2016), pp. 35–63
• "La diferenciación de los sexos y la 'masculinidad crítica'", in Marie-Hélène Soubeyroux and Mónica Zapata (eds.), Miradas sobre una obra polifacética. Homenaje a Jean-Louis Guereña (Paris: Indigo, 2016), pp. 321–337
• "Sexo, identidad y hermafroditas en la España de la Ilustración", in Marie-Hélène Soubeyroux and Mónica Zapata (eds.), Miradas sobre una obra polifacética. Homenaje a Jean-Louis Guereña (Paris: Indigo, 2016), pp. 339–368 (with F. Vázquez García)
• "Liberal governmentality in Spain: bodies, minds, and the medical construction of the “outsider,” 1870–1910", Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 22(1), 2016, pp. 23–40
• "'Simulando assim a cópula normal' – sapphists, tribades, fricatrixes and lesbians: Between biomedical taxonomical categories and identity in Portugal (1895–1930)", International Journal of Iberian Studies, 29(2), 2016, pp. 113–133 (with Francisco Molina Artaloytia)
• "Consumerism, Gender Diversity and Moralization of Sexuality in the Iberian 1960s", in Kostis Kornetis, Eirini Kotsovili and Nikolaos Papadogiannis (eds.), Consumption and Gender in Southern Europe since the long 1960s (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), pp. 59–84 (with R.M. Medina-Doménech)
• "Die Konstruktion von Maskulinität in der spanischen Arbeiterbewegung: eine Studie zur Revista Blanca (1923-1936)", trans. Andreas Förster, in Philippe Kellermann (ed.), Anarchismus und Geschlechterverhältnisse, vol. I (Hessen: Edition AV, 2016), pp. 113–140
• "The purification of vice: early Francoism, moral crusade, and the barrios of Granada, 1936–1951)", Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 16(1), 2015, pp. 95–114 (with Claudio Hernández Burgos)
• “Retrieving the Past for a Usable Present: Anarchism, Psychoanalysis and Revolutionary Transformation in the Early 20th Century”, Psychotherapy and Politics International, 13(2), 2015, pp. 141–153 (with John Lees)
• "Portugal", entry in "Eugenics Archives", Center for Genetics and Society
• "La construction de la masculinité au sein du mouvement ouvrier espagnol: une étude de La Revista Blanca (1923–1936)", in Jean-Louis Guereña (ed.), Sexualités occidentales XVIIIe-XXIe siècles (Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2014), pp. 93–75
• "Female Masculinity on Stage: Young Man! and the Subversion of gender Roles", in Rafael M. Mérida-Jiménez (ed.), Hispanic (LGT) Masculinities in Transition (New York: Peter Lang, 2014), pp. 177–187 (with Carlos Pons)
• "The queer margins of Spanish cities, 1939–2010", in Matt Cook & Jennifer V. Evans (eds.), Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Europe since 1945 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 15–35 (with Rosa María Medina Doménech & Isabel Vélez)
• "The Social Significance of Homosexual Scandals in Spain in the Late Nineteenth Century", Journal of the History of Sexuality, 23(3), 2014, pp. 358–382 (with Pura Fernández and Francisco Vázquez García)
• "La prensa alternativa durante la Transición y la recepción de la cuestión 'homosexual': un estudio de El Viejo Topo y Ajoblanco", in Rafael M. Mérida (ed.), Minorías sexuales en España (1970–1975) (Barcelona: Icaria, 2013), pp. 67–87
• "The History and Future of Psychotherapy and Alternative Health-Related Practices: Lessons from the Past and from the Present", Psychotherapy and Politics International, 11(3), 2013, pp. 195–209 (with John Lees)
• "Medical understandings of the body: 1750 to the present", in S. Toulalan and K. Fisher (eds.), The Routledge History of Sex and the Body 1500 to the Present (London/New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 75–88
• "Entre los 'vicios genésicos' y la normalización de la homosexualidad: A Vida Sexual de Egas Moniz", Ayer. Revista de Historia Contemporánea, 87(3), 2012, pp. 67–88 (with Francisco Molina Artaloytia)
• "The Construction of Masculinity in the Spanish Labour Movement: A Study of the Revista Blanca (1923-36)", International Journal of Iberian Studies,24(3), 2012, pp. 210–217
• "Felipe Alaiz, Iberian Federalism and the Making of the Anarchist Intellectual", Historia Social y de la Educación, 1(2), 2012, pp. 153–171
• "Traces of Eugenic Thought in the Work of Egas Moniz", Portuguese Studies, 28(1), 2012, pp. 63–76 (with Luís Souto)
• "The Hermaphrodite, Fecundity and Military Efficiency: Dangerous Subjects in the Emerging Liberal Order of Nineteenth-Century Spain", in K. Fisher and S. Toulalan (eds.), Bodies, Sex and Desire from the Renaissance to the Present (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 70–86 (with Francisco Vázquez Garca)
• "La obra sexológica del Dr. Martín de Lucenay: entre el conocimiento científico y la recepción popular de la ciencia sexológica en España a principios del siglo XX", in Jean-Louis Guereña (ed.), La sexualidad en la España contemporánea (1800-1950) (Cadiz: Universidad de Cádiz, 2011), pp. 163–188
• "Ethics, relationships and power: an introduction", in Jamie Heckert & Richard Cleminson (eds.) Anarchism and Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships and Power (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 1–22 (with Jamie Heckert)
• "Eugenics in Portugal, 1900-1950: Setting a Research Agenda", East Central Europe, 38(1), 2011, pp. 133–154
• "L'Histoire de la Sexualité en Espagne (1870–1939): état présent et recherches futures", Lectures du genre, 7, 2011 (ISSN 1958-5136)
• "Subjectivities in Transition: Gender and sexual identities in cases of 'sex change' and 'hermaphroditism' in Spain, c. 1500–1800", History of Science, xlviii, 2010, pp. 1–38 (with F. Vázquez García)
• "Spanish anti-fascist 'prisoners of war' in Lancashire, 1944-46", International Journal of Iberian Studies, 22(3), 2009, pp. 163–183.
• "Breasts, Hormones and Hair: The Anatomy of Gender Difference in Spain, 1880–1940", Bulletin of Spanish Studies, LXXXVI(5), 2009, 627–652 (with F. Vázquez García)
• "Eugenics without the state: anarchism in Catalonia, 1900–1937", Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 39, 2008, pp. 232–239
• "'La antorcha extinguida', la Bohemia y la disidencia sexual en España, principios del siglo XX", in "Espais de Bohèmia. Actrius, Cupletistes i ballarines", Dossiers Feministes (Castellón), 10, 2008, pp. 51–60
• "El nacimiento del invertido criminal en la España contemporánea (1850–1931)", in L. R. Ruiz & M. J. Ruiz (eds.), Arte y crimen. Amores, pasiones, creación y destrucción (Cadiz: Diputación de Cádiz, 2007), pp. 37–45 (with F. Vázquez García)
• "'A century of civilization under the influence of eugenics': Dr. Enrique Diego Madrazo, socialism and scientific progress'", Dynamis, 26, 2006, pp. 221–251.
• "'Quien con niños se junta’: la infancia y la iniciación homosexualista (España 1850–1936)”, in R. Vélez (ed.), Géneros extremos/extremos genéricos (Cadiz: Universidad de Cádiz, 2006), pp. 11–39 (with F. Vázquez García)
• "'Instancias de biopolítica en España, siglos XX y XXI'", in J. Ugarte (ed), La administración de la vida: Estudios biopolíticos, (Rubí: Anthropos), 2005, pp. 127–152
• "Making Sense of the Body: Anarchism, Nudism and Subjective Experience", Bulletin of Spanish Studies, LXXXI (6), 2004, pp. 697–716
• "The Significance of the 'Fairy' for the Cultural Archaeology of Same-Sex Male Desire in Spain, 1850–1930", Sexualities, 7(4), 2004, pp. 412–429
• "El libro Homosexualidad del Dr. Martín de Lucenay: entre el conocimiento científico y la recepción pública de la ciencia sexológica en España a principios del siglo XX", Hispania. Revista Española de Historia , 218, 2004, pp. 961–986.

External positions  

MRes or PhD External Examinerships: University of Cadiz (2005, 2007), University of Glamorgan (2005), University of Oviedo (2007), University of Glamorgan (2008), La Laguna University, Gran Canaria (2009), University of Granada (2013), Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona (2013).

External Examiner for Catalan, Queen Mary, University of London (2010–2014).

Associate Editor, Anarchist Studies.

Editorial Board Member, Dynamis. Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam, Ex quo: Revista da Associação Portuguesa de Estudos sobre as Mulheres, International Journal of Iberian Studies, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, Teknokultura, among others. 

Honorary positions held

Was Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of the History of Medicine and Pathological Anatomy at the University of Granada, 2003–04.

Major research projects and grants

• Wellcome Trust Award in the History of Medicine, 2002–03
• Male, Female or In-Between? The Science of Hermaphroditism in Spain, 1850–1960, AHRC Research Leave, September-December 2007.
• Eugenics in Portugal, 1900–1960, AHRC Research Fellowship, October 2011–July 2012
• Anarchism and Eugenics: A Seeming Paradox, 1890–1940, AHRC Research Fellowship, December 2015–May 2017

Postgraduate Research supervision

• History of sexuality in Iberia and Latin America
• Spanish cultural studies
• Anarchism, theory and practice

Research interests

I work at the intersection between Gender and Sexuality Studies and History with a particular interest in how science and culture interact in Iberia. I have published on scientific and sexological theories of sexuality, particularly with respect to the cultural and scientific construction of male homosexuality in Spain, hermaphroditism in Iberia and the reception of eugenics in Spain and Portugal.

My book on the history of eugenics in Portugal, deriving from an AHRC Research Fellowship in 2012, was published in 2014. My most recent book, published in May 2019 and also the result of an AHRC Research Fellowship, focused on the intersection of anarchism and eugenics in Argentina, France, Portugal and Spain and is published by Manchester University Press.

I am currently an External Advisor for the Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares de Género (Indisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies), Portugal and a Consultant for the Portuguese FCT-funded Photo Impulse project on colonial photography and imagery.

I form part of a research team led by Dr. Inmaculada Blasco Herranz (University of La Laguna) on "Ciudadanía social, estado del bienestar y género en España. Nuevas aproximaciones desde la historia (1880–1936)", a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science.

I am part of the Queer Area Studies Network.

Qualifications

• BA (Hons)
• PhD

Professional memberships

• AHGBI
• ACIS
• ABIL

Student education

I presently teach on a variety modules with cultural and historical elements at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Research groups and institutes

• Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American
• Gender
• History
• Queer Area Studies Network

Current postgraduate researchers

• Felipe Martínez Fernández
• Alvaro Gonzalez Montero
• Joshua Newmark
• Corey Hartley
• Sophie Turbutt