Our research

We have a lively research culture based on a series of centres and networks. The Network for Hispanic and Lusophone Cultural Studies (HLAS) is based in SPLAS and draws in staff from across the University. The Centre for the History of Ibero-America (CHIA) comprises colleagues from SPLAS and the School of History.

Several members of the academic unit play and important role in the work of the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures. We also host a good number of PhD students and postdoctoral students, many of whom have external funding. These include two highly competitive Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral researchers, commencing in 2018 and 2019. We also regularly receive visiting scholars from Brazil via an exchange agreement with UNICAMP. Research is further facilitated by the fact that we are the only centre for Hispanic studies in the UK that has the cultural arms of the Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish governments (the Ramon Llull, Camões and Cervantes) on campus. These institutions hold events and provide some funding to support our work.

Impact and engagement

In the development of our research we regularly collaborate with external partners such as the British Library in London, the United Nations, the European Parliament, the British Council, the Brazilian Embassy in London, the Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds International Festival, international NGOs such as Plan International, Thydêwá (Brazil) and Armando Armero (Colombia), and many more institutions and individual artists.

Staff regularly contribute to online and print news outlets such as The Guardian, The Huffingdon Post, The Converstation and the IPI Global Observatory. Examples of recent news contributions can be found in our staff pages. To give some examples of impact and engagement. Stuart Green first interviewed Spanish rapper El Chojin about his work in 2010. Since then, El Chojín has visited the University of Leeds on a number of occasions to speak to students and members of the general public.

Rebecca Jarman is working with a charity in Colombia on an AHC grant. Jeremy Munday has undertaken a continued collaboration with the British Library and holders of other archives to develop training materials for literary translators based on draft translations in their collections. And Angel Smith and Duncan Wheeler were asked contribute to radio and television programmes during the Catalan crisis in late 2017. This included appearances on BBC Breakfast and the BBC news channel.

Research projects

Gregorio Alonso: The Hispanic Anglosphere. Transglobal networks and communities (late 18th to early 20th centuries), funded by the AHRC and the National Trust. Primary Investigator Graciela Iglesias-Rogers (University of Winchester and University of Oxford). 2017-.

Tradition and Constitution: Constituent Issues in Modern Spain, funded by the MINECO (Spanish Ministry of Economy), Primary Investigator Professor Marta Lorente Sariñena (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). 2015-.
Humour and its senses: discourses and images of the laughable in Modern Spain, funded by the MINECO (Spanish Ministry of Economy) and led by Dr Antonio Calvo Maturana (Universidad de Málaga) 2017-.
Richard Cleminson, Anarchism and Eugenics: A Seeming Paradox, 1890-1940, AHRC Research Fellowship, December 2015-May 2017.

Anarchists for Health: Sexuality and the Portuguese Speaking World, 1840-2019, Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant, 2018-19.

Stephanie Dennison, AHRC Global Challenges Major Grant: Voicing Hidden Histories: Historical Drama as a tool for International Development and Community Empowerment. 2016-2017 (Co-Investigator)

AHRC Research Networks Grant: “Soft Power, Cinema and the BRICS”. 2015-2017. (Primary Investigator)

Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship: “Brazilian Film Culture in the Context of World Cinema”. 2015. (Primary Investigator)

Rebecca Jarman, Viscous Cities: Landslides and Urbanization in Contemporary Andean Cultures, British Council/Newton Trust 2018-19

'Armando Armero: Safeguarding Collective Memory and Reconnecting Diasporic Communities', AHRC Language Acts, 2018-19

Thea Pitman: Sumak Kawsay and the Sustainable Development Agenda: Critical Debates and Creative Responses from a Latin American Indigenous Perspective, AHRC/GCRF (2017-2019).

The Aesthetics and Politics of Indigenous Digital Art, British Council/Leverhulme, 2018-2019.

Angel Smith, The Right and the Spanish Nation: Cultures and Identities in Conflict, Primary Investigator Professor Ismael Saz, University of Valencia, Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competition, 2018-

Duncan Wheeler, European Commission, Horizon 2020, 'Spanish Theatre in the United Kingdom (1982-2019)', Principal Investigator (CI, María Bastianes), 2019-2021

Economic and Social Research Council, 'Sustaining and Enhancing Research and PGT collaboration in a post-Brexit landscape', Principal Investigator, 2017

Jeremy Munday, Investigating translation in the archive of Carlos Fuentes, Friends of Princeton University Library Fellowship, 2011-.

Impact and engagement

Research projects

Academic team