In this conference, Professor Jo Labanyi She will offer an overview of the development of cultural studies throughout the decades of her academic career. Drawing on her experience, she will reflect on the evolution of the various critical approaches applied to the study of Spanish literature and film, paying particular attention to issues such as subjectivity, history, and the relationships between the two.

Among the topics she will address are the history of women, memory studies and the role of popular culture, as well as the need to review and question the preconceived ideas that have traditionally conditioned the interpretation of cultural history in Spain.

Jo Labanyi is Professor Emerita in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at New York University and a key figure in the international consolidation of Spanish cultural studies. She previously held the Chair of Spanish Literature and Culture at the Universities of London and Southampton (UK). She is the founder of the journal Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies and, since 2006, a member of the British Academy.

Her research interests encompass Spanish literature from the 19th to the 21st centuries, Spanish cinema—especially that of the early Franco regime—, popular culture, memory studies, and the history of emotions. Among her publications are Gender and Modernization in the Nineteenth-Century Spanish Novel (2000; Spanish translation in 2011), Spanish Literature: A Very Short Introduction (2010) Spanish Culture from Romanticism to the Present: Structures of Feeling (2019) and Modern Literatures in Spain (with Elena Delgado, 2022). She has also co-edited the volumes A Companion to Spanish Cinema (with Tatjana Pavlovic, 2013) and Engaging the Emotions in Spanish Culture and History (with Elena Delgado and Pura Fernández, 2016; Spanish translation in 2018). Her next book, 'What Have You Done for Victory?' A Cultural History of the Spanish Civil WarIt will be published in October 2026.