Dr Peter Haysom-Rodríguez

Profile

I am a Lecturer in Modern Languages, specialising in the literatures and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world, Queer Studies, and the Global Medical Humanities. I completed a B.A. in Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Cambridge (2014), an M.A. in Literary, Cultural and Inter-art Studies at the University of Porto (2016), and a Ph.D. programme in Portuguese & Lusophone Studies at the University of Nottingham (2022). Outside of academia, I worked for three years as an International Business Consultant, at the Portuguese company Market Access: Experts in International Business.

My teaching at Leeds has been multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary, encompassing Portuguese language teaching, Portuguese Cultural Studies, Black Europe, Gender and Global Challenges, and Queer Films on Global Screens amongst other topics. I have adopted a teaching-led research approach, alongside a teaching-led research ethos. I teach at all levels, from first-year undergraduate to postgraduate taught programmes.

I have published articles in several international outlets: in the Portugal-based Cadernos de literatura comparada, in the UK-based Portuguese Studies, and in the USA-based Journal of Lusophone Studies and Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies. My first monograph, Regionalisms and Resistance in the Twentieth-Century Portuguese Novel: Spatialized Ideologies was published by Legenda/MHRA in 2024.

I am a member of the Leeds Centre for Global Queer Cultures and Politics, and the Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa’s Intersexualities Research Group. I am the founder and coordinator of the LCS Global Medical Humanities Research Network in Leeds.

Responsibilities

• LCS Academic Lead for Employability

Research interests

My Ph.D. research (published in my 2024 monograph Regionalisms and Resistance in the Twentieth-Century Portuguese Novel) examined the ideological uses of regional space and regional dynamics in selected novels by Aquilino Ribeiro, Agustina Bessa-Luís, Lídia Jorge and José Saramago. For further details, you can read my recent interview with MHRA about the project here.

My current research focus is the Global Medical Humanities. Specifically, my project “Aesthetics of Malignancy: Cultures of Cancer in Portugal and Brazil” analyses representations of cancer in contemporary Brazilian cinema and contemporary Portuguese literature. It encompasses feminist and Queer depictions of cancer, as well as those of patients/former patients and medical practitioners. The project has already led to several journal articles on Brazilian cinema, and a forthcoming monograph on Portuguese literature, with Liverpool University Press (2028).

My other research interests include eco-criticism, Queer dynamics within Ana Luísa Amaral’s poetry, anti-racist discourse in contemporary Portuguese RAP music, Brazilian rap music from 1985–present, and Brazilian cinema from the 1950s onwards.

Qualifications

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2023)
• PhD in Portuguese & Lusophone Studies (2022)
• MA in Literary, Cultural and Inter-Artistic Studies (2016)
• BA in Modern & Medieval Languages (2014)

Professional memberships

• Association of British & Irish Lusitanists
• American Portuguese Studies Association
• International Lusitanists Association
• Intersexualidades/Intersexualities international research network
• European Popular Musics Group
• LCS Queer Area Studies Network
• University of Leeds Global Medical Humanities Research Group

Student education

At Leeds, I have taught on the following topics:

• Portuguese language (at all levels)
• Spanish-English specialised translation
• Portuguese-English specialised translation
• Portuguese and Brazilian literature
• Portuguese, Brazilian and Angolan cinema
• The history of Portugal, Brazil and Lusophone Africa
• Queer resistance in Bolsonaro’s Brazil
• Afro-Iberia since the 700s
• Black Portugal, from 1400-present
• Hidden presences in Black Britain
• Anticolonial/postcolonial/decolonial literatures
• Decolonial approaches to tourism
• Queerness and illness in contemporary cinema
• Ecofeminism and Queer ecologies

Research groups and institutes

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

Current postgraduate researchers

• Samuel Rísquez
• Andrés Becerra Opazo
• Maram Alasmari