Professor Francis Lough MA (Glasgow), PhD (Salford), PGCE (Cardiff)

Professor Francis Lough

Department of Modern Languages
Emeritus Professor

Contact details

Email
f.lough@bham.ac.uk

My main teaching and research interests are in 20th and 21th century Spanish literature and cinema, although I have also an interest in the works of Jose Saramago, Felisberto Hernandez and the Spanish philosopher María Zambrano. Currently I am working on the literature of the Spanish Civil War, including graphic novels. 

Qualifications

  • MA (Hons.) (Glasgow)
  • PhD (Salford)
  • PGCE (Cardiff

Biography

I studied for my undergraduate degree at the University of Glasgow before moving on to take my PhD at the University of Salford. I spent 9 years teaching Spanish in a tertiary college in Wales before taking up a post as Lecturer in Spanish at the University of Kent in 1990 where I was Head of Spanish until 2000. From 2000- 2004 I was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Kent. I moved to Birmingham in January 2005, where I have been Head of Department and Head of School. I have worked closely with Centro de Estudios Senderianos in Huesca and Grupo de Estudios del Exilio Literario in Barcelona.

In 2008, a group of colleagues from the Department of Hispanic Studies and I set up a Centre for the Study of Hispanic Exile. In the same year we ran a very successful international conference on Spanish Republican Exile Geographies. I also organised a colloquium and exhibition entitled ‘The United Kingdom in the Life and works of Camilo José Cela’ in association with the Fundación Cela. This was in recognition of the University of Birmingham being one of the first to offer Spain’s Nobel Prize winning novelist with an Honorary Doctorate in 1976.

Research

My main research interests are in 20th century Hispanic narrative, in particular the avant-garde novel of the 1920's, the social novel of the 1930's, and the literature of the Republican exiles. In these areas I have published work on Benjamín Jarnés, Ramón J. Sender, Manuel Andújar and, more recently, the philosopher María Zambrano. I have also published articles on the Uruguayan writer Felisberto Hernández and the Portuguese novelist José Saramago. and the film La lengua de las mariposas. My current interests centre around the literature of the Spanish Civil War, and I have recently become interested in graphic novels published on this conflict. I have delivered papers at conferences in the UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, USA, New Zealand and Mexico.

Other activities


Publications

Books

  • 1996. Politics and Philosophy in the Early Novels of Ramón J. Sender. The Impossible Revolution. Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston. (218 pp.). 
  • Spanish Translation: 2001. La revolución imposible. Política y filosofía en las primeras novelas de Ramón J. Sender (1930-1936), (translated by Gregoria E. Cabrejas Ovejero), Huesca, Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 2001, (337 pp.). 

Edited books

  • 2000. Hacia la novela nueva. Essays on the Spanish Avant-Garde Novel. Peter Lang, Bern, (220pp).

Conference proceedings

  • 2012. Buffery, Helena, Francis Lough, Elisenda Marcer and Antonio Sánchez (eds.). Spanish Republican Exile Geographies / Geografías del exilio republicano español, Birmingham, Centre for the Study of Hispanic Exile, University of Birmingham.

Scholarly editions

  • 2010. Ramón J. Sender, La esfera, Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza / Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses / Depto. de Educación Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de Aragón. Includes introduction ‘Poesía mística del exilio’, pp. xi-li, and an ‘Aparato crítico’ which lists variants in different editions (pp. 351-433) and Notes (pp. 435-441). 

Articles in peer reviewed journals

  • 1991. History and Fiction in Míster Witt en el Cantón. Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea, 16, 275-290.
  • 1996. La escritura como compromiso: En busca de la identidad en El caballo perdido. Fragmentos. Revista de Língua e Literatura Estrangeiras, 6, 69-80.
  • 1998. El profesor inútil and the Ethical Aesthetics of Benjamín Jarnés. Bulletin of Hispanic studies, LXXV, 469-489.
  • 1998. La función de la escritura en 'Las dos historias' de Felisberto Hernández. Río de la Plata, 19, 265-274.
  • 1998. A Lesson in Tolerance. Benjamín Jarnés's Su línea de fuego. Letras Peninsulares, 11, 309-324.
  • 2000. Arte y vida en la narrativa de Benjamín Jarnés. Insula, 646, 19-21.
  • 2002. National Identity and Historiography in José Saramago’s A Jangada de Pedra. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 8, 153-163.
  • 2007. El exilio filosófico en Diótima de Mantinea de María Zambrano’. Ojáncano (University of Georgia), 31, 83-95.
  • 2007. La lengua de las mariposas: Symbolic Structures in Social and Ideological Contexts’. The Journal of Symbolism. An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics, 7, 149-168.
  • 2012. Aesthetics and the ‘Other’ in Recent Novels of the Spanish Civil War. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 89, 233-252.
  • 2013. Memory and the Cycle of Violence in José Antonio Labordeta’s  En el remolino (2007). Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 90, 1121-1138.
  • 2016. Avant-Garde Aesthetics in Felisberto Hernández’s ‘Menos Julia’. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 1-10. DOI: 10.1080/14753820.2016.1248336. 

  • 2017. Ideology, Affect and the Body in Alberto Méndez’s Los girasoles ciegos. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 94 (8), pp. 847–861.

Chapters in books

  • 1994. Self-Study, Student Autonomy and IT. In: PARKER, G. & REUBEN, C. (eds.) Languages for the International Scientist. London: Association for French Language Studies and CILT, 143-159.
  • 1995. Spanish Listening Comprehension in PC Guide. In: STRANG, W., SIMPSON, V. B. & SLATER, D. (eds.) Hypermedia at Work: Practice and Theory in Higher Education. Canterbury: University of Kent, 207-213.
  • 1996. Visible and Invisible Worlds in the Novels of Benjamín Jarnés. In: HARRIS, D. (ed.) Changing Times in Hispanic Culture. Aberdeen: Centre for the Study of the Hispanic Avant-Garde, University of Aberdeen, 71-82.
  • 1997. Ramón J. Sender y la revolución española. In: ARA TORRALBA, J. C. & GIL ENCABO, F. (eds.) El lugar de Sender. Actas del I Congreso sobre Ramón J. Sender (Huesca, 3-7 de abril de 1995). Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses and Institución Fernando el Católico, 303-314.
  • 1998. Huida y regreso: paradigma narrativo de las primeras novelas de exilio de Ramón J. Sender. In: ARA TORRALBA, J. C. & GIL ENCABO, F. (eds.) El Exilio literario español.Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional, Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses / Institución Fernando el Católico, 151-160.
  • 2000. Discurso poético y testimonio histórico en St Cyprien, Plage... Campo de concentración de Manuel Andújar. In: AZNAR SOLER, M. (ed.) Sesenta años después. Las literaturas del exilio republicano de 1939. Actas del segundo congreso internacional. Barcelona: Associació d’Idees-GEXEL, 338-347.
  • 2000. Writing Out the Hero: Benjamín Jarnés's Locura y muerte de nadie. In: (ed.) Hacia la novela nueva. Essays on the Spanish Avant-Garde Novel. Bern: Peter Lang, 93-112.
  • 2001. Mímesis y experimentación en la novela de avanzada: el caso de Sender. In: ARA TORRALBA, J. C. (ed.) Sender y su tiempo. Crónica de un siglo. Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 111-129.
  • 2002. Sender, el novelista y las masas. In: TRIPPETT, A. (ed.) Sender 2001. Actas del congreso centenario celebrado en Sheffield. Bristol: HiPLAM, 1-23.
  • 2004. Política y estética en una novela de avanzada. Introduction to R.J. SENDER Siete domingos rojos. Zaragoza / Huesca: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza / Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses / Depto. de Educación Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de Aragón, xii-lvii.
  • 2005. Jarnés y el cine. In: ALBERT, M. (ed.) Vanguardia española e intermedialidad. Arte escénicas, cine y radio. Madrid / Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana, 407-422.
  • 2006. LOUGH, F. & HART, S. Ramón J. Sender. In: ALISENT, M. E. & MARTÍNEZ-CARAZO, C. (eds.) Dictionary of Literary Biography. New York: Thomson Gale, 315-327.
  • 2006. Sender, Zambrano y la filosofía mística del exilio. In: AZNAR SOLER, M. (ed.) Escritores, editoriales y revistas del exilio republicano de 1939. Sevilla, 789-797.
  • 2007. Exilio, mito e identidad nacional en María Zambrano. In: JATO BRIZUELA, M., ASCUNCE ARRIETA, J. A. & SAN MIGUEL CASILLAS, M. L. (eds.) España en la encrucijada de 1939. Exilios, cultura e identidades. Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 69-87.
  • 2007 LOUGH, F., SUD, M. A. & MINGOTE, P. El arte y la literatura al servicio de la humanidad. In: MONGOTE ADÁN, C. & REQUENA, M. (eds.) El malestar juvenil: Raíces, contextos y experiencias. Madrid: Editorial Díaz de Santos, 461-491.
  • 2008. La literatura del exilio y la cultura europea e internacional. In: ASCUNCE, J. A. (ed.) El exilio. Debate para la historia y la cultura. San Sebastián: Editorial Saturraran, 115-131.
  • 2009. El exilio de María Zambrano: un camino órfico hacia una vida nueva. In: JATO, M., KEEFE UGALDE, S. & PÉREZ, J. (eds.) Mujer, creación, exilio (España 1939-1975). Barcelona: Icaria, 201-220.
  • 2011. Violencia y responsabilidad en ¡Ay! de Raúl Guerra Garrido. In: ASCUNCE, J. A. & RODRÍGUEZ, A. (eds.) «Haz lo que tema». La novelística de Raúl Guerra Garrido. Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 35-50.
  • 2012. Eloísa y la filosofía exílica de María Zambrano. In: BUFFERY, H., LOUGH, F., MARCER, E. & SÁNCHEZ, A. (eds.) Spanish Republican Exile Geographies / Geografías del exilio republicano español. Birmingham: Centre for the Study of Hispanic Exile, University of Birmingham, 67-75.
  • 2014. Memory and History in Ana María Matute’s Los soldados lloran de noche. In: LEGGOTT, S. & WOODS, R. (eds.) Memory and Trauma in the Postwar Spanish Novel. Revisiting the Past. Maryland: Bucknell University Press, 55-68.
  • 2017. ‘María Zambrano: Philosophy, Literature and Democracy’ in Xon de Ros and Daniela Omlor (eds.) The Cultural Legacy of Maria Zambrano, Oxford: Legenda, 185-199.

Expertise

Modern Spanish Literature and Cinema; Spanish Civil War Literature;  Spanish Republican Exile; The Spanish Novel;  Spanish Avant-Garde Literature