Dr Maite Usoz de la Fuente

Born and raised in Spain I moved to the United Kingdom to undertake postgraduate study and have lived here for most of my adult life. My research expertise lies in the area of contemporary Spanish literature and culture and my research interests include the work of contemporary Spanish women writers (particularly Belén Gopegui and Marta Sanz) urban studies and spatial theory and literary and cultural representations of and responses to current phenomena such as the global financial crisis of 2008.

My PhD dissertation which was awarded the 2014 AHGBI publication prize focuses on the 1970s and 1980s Spanish urban youth movement known as la movida and more specifically on one of its most iconic cultural products the monthly arts magazine La Luna de Madrid. I am currently working on a second monograph focused on cultural representations of the global 2008 crisis and of its effects in Spain. I serve on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Iberian Studies as reviews editor. 

Homeloss: Narratives of Eviction in Contemporary Spain, Forum for Modern Language Studies Volume 57, Issue 3, July 2021, 291-312.

Belen Gopegui literature in crisis: anticipating the literatura de la crisis? in The Politics of (In)Visibility in Contemporary Spanish Literature, special issue of the International Journal of Iberian Studies, co-edited with Leticia Blanco and Carmina Gustrán, Volume 33, Number 1, 1 March 2020, pp. 9-25.

The Modern Spanish Canon: Visibility, Cultural Capital and the Academy, co-edited with Stuart Davis (Oxford: Legenda, 2018)

Gendered Genres: Autofictional versus Autobiographical Readings of Elvira Lindos Lo que me queda por vivir (2010), in Feminine Singular: Growing Up Through Life-Writing in the Luso-Hispanic World, ed. Maria Jose Blanco and Claire Williams (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2017), pp. 229-241.

¿De la movida no queda nada? El hispanismo ante (sub-)culturas efa­meras, in Los la­mites del hispanismo, ed. Santiago Parez-Isasi et al. (Oxford: Peter Lang: 2017), pp. 29-39.

Urban Space, Identity and Postmodernity in 1980s Spain: Rethinking the Movida (Oxford: Legenda, 2015)

Sex and the city: urban eroticism in Rodrigo Munoz Ballester Manuel series, Hispanic Research Journal, vol. 14 no. 5, October 2013, 394-408.

I welcome enquiries from prospective postgraduate students particularly in the following areas: - Cultural production in post-Franco Spain - Contemporary Spanish women writers - Critical re-writings of Spain’s transition to democracy - Literary and cultural responses to the 2008 global financial crisis and/or to the 15M or indignados movement - Contemporary Spanish visual culture particularly the work of ""Quinta Generación"" photographers

SP1022 Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Studies SP1041 Spanish Literature and Film SP2023 The Spanish Civil War SP2042 The Spanish Silver Age: A Revolution in Writing (1900-1950) SP3010 Final Year Spanish Language (Proficiency) SP3162 Contemporary Women’s Writing in Spain SP3165 Spain and its Others

- Cultural production on post-Franco Spain - Contemporary Spanish culture especially cultural responses to the 2008 crisis and its effects 

Member of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI) Member of Women in Spanish and Portuguese Studies (WISPS) Member of ALCES XXI Reviews editor for the International Journal of Iberian Studies 

IMLR Regional Conference Grant (2021) Awarded funding by the Institute for Modern Languages Research (IMLR) to organise a one-day international research event ‘Framing Crisis and Conflict in Contemporary Spain’ (to be held in April 2022) Invited lecture (in Spanish): ‘¿Qué hacemos con Leticia Valle? O de cómo leer Memorias de Leticia Valle en la era de #metoo’ Presented as a webinar at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Madrid (Spain) April 2019. Available at https://canal.uned.es/video/5caefbd4a3eeb050308b4567 Invited lecture: ‘Urban Youth Culture in 1980s Spain’ Presented as part of University of Central Lancashire’s World Wise Seminars May 2016 AHGBI Annual Publication Prize for a Doctoral Thesis (2014) Awarded the AHGBI’s doctoral thesis publication prize Thesis published by Legenda in 2015 Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Medal (awarded March 2013) Awarded medal and cash prize by ARTES for the essay ‘Sex and the city: urban eroticism in Rodrigo Muñoz Ballester’s Manuel series’ 

‘Girl Interrupted: Intertextuality in Marta Sanz’s Daniela Astor y la caja negra (2013)’ Women in Transition Conference King’s College London and University of Oxford September 2018. ‘Literatura de la crisis versus literatura en crisis: Some Reflections on Spain’s Shifting Literary Landscape’ Annual Conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI) University of Leeds April 2018. ‘Space and Subjectivity in Juan José Millás’ El Mundo (2007)’ Annual Conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI) Exeter University April 2015. ‘Mapping the Unmappable: Geography as Metaphor in Belén Gopegui’s Lo Real (1993)’ Travel and the Spatial Imagination in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures Confernce University College London June 2014. ‘Bullfighters Virgins and Transvestites: la movida’s Resignification of Spanish Popular Culture Imagery’ Annual Conference of Women in Spanish and Portuguese Studies (WISPS) Bangor University November 2012. ‘Recontextualising la movida: Avant-garde Influences in La Luna de Madrid’ Annual Graduate Conference of City University New York April 2011. 

Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice (GCAP) Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy