Centre for World Cinemas
Academic & Teaching staff
Dr Duncan Wheeler
Lecturer in Spanish
+44 (0)113 343 3514
BA (University of Oxford)
MA (University of Oxford)
M.St. (University of Oxford)
D.Phil. (University of Oxford)
Research Interests
Duncan read Spanish and Philosophy at the University of Oxford (2000-2004), where he subsequently completed his masters (2004-2005) and doctoral thesis (2005-2009). He has a variety of research interests but they tend to be united by a continual preoccupation with the interrelationship between cultural institutions, art, politics and memory in contemporary and Early-Modern Spain. He arrived in Leeds in 2009 and was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship in 2010. He has recently re-joined the faculty where, in addition to being Lecturer in Spanish, he is an Executive Committee member of the Centre for World Cinemas and one of the convenors of the European Popular Musics Cluster. Alongside Dr Stephanie Dennison, he co-ordinates the SPLAS Research Seminar ("Adaptation in a Transnational Context"). In May 2013, Duncan will become a visiting instructor for post-graduate students at the Center for 17th- and 18- Century Studies at UCLA in Los Angeles. At the University of Leeds, he welcomes proposals from post-graduate students in the following areas: Golden Age Drama and Prose Fiction; Hispanic and European cinema(s); Translation; Contemporary Spanish Culture and Politics; Twentieth-century Spanish Theatre; Gender and Sexuality.
Major Publications
Single-Authored Monographs
Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain: The Comedia on Page, Stage and Screen (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012).
Dual-Language Critical Editions
Alonso de Santos, José Luis. Bajarse al moro/Going Down to Morocco, trans. and intro. Duncan Wheeler (Oxford: Oxbow, 2013).
Various Authors, Spanish Songs of the Transition, trans. and intro. Duncan Wheeler (Oxford: Oxbow, 2013).
Edited Books
Canet, Fernando and Duncan Wheeler (eds.), New Trends in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (Bristol: Intellect, 2013).
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
'At the crossroads of tradition and modernity: Raphael and the politics of popular music in Spain', Journal of European Popular Culture, (2013), forthcoming.
'Raphael and Spanish popular song: a master entertainer and/or music for maids’, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, 16 (2012), forthcoming.
'Contextualising and contesting José Antonio Maravall's theories of baroque culture from the perspective of modern-day performance', Bulletin of the Comediantes, 64.1 (2012), in press.
'The representation of domestic violence in Spanish cinema', Modern Language Review, 107.2 (2012), 438-500.
'From the town with more theaters than taxis: Calderón, Lope and Tirso at the 2008 Almagro Festival (part two)', Comedia Performance, 9.1 (2012), 102-142.
'From the town with more theaters than taxis: Calderón, Lope and Tirso at the 2008 Almagro Festival (part one)', Comedia Performance, 8.1 (2011), 151-200.
'All about Almodóvar?: All About My Mother on the London stage', Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 87.7 (2010), 821-41.
'The representation of domestic violence in popular English-language cinema', New Cinemas (Journal of Contemporary Film), 7.2 (2009), 155-75.
'Godard's list: why Spielberg and Auschwitz are number one', Media History, 15.2 (2009), 185-203.
'Intimate partner abuse in Spain (1975-2006)', Cuestiones de género, 3 (2008), 173-204.
'The performance history of Golden-Age drama in Spain (1939-2006)', Bulletin of the Comediantes, 60.2 (2008), 119-155.
'We are living in a material world and I am a material girl: Diana, Countess of Belflor, materialised on the page, stage and screen', Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 84.3 (2007), 267-286.
Book Chapters
'Introduction', 'Transcending Spanish Auteurism: Penélope Cruz and Isabel Coixet tackle Philip Roth in Elegy (2008)' and 'Round table discussion: Fernando Canet, José Luis Guerín, Isaki Lacuesta and Luis Miñarro (with Fernando Canet)' in New Trends in Contemporary Spanish Cinema, eds. Fernando Canet and Duncan Wheeler (Bristol: Intellect, 2013), forthcoming.
'Pepe Estruch and the performance of Golden Age drama: a case study of transatlantic relationships under Franco, and their influence on democratic theatrical cultures' in Remaking the Comedia: Spanish Classical Theater in Adaptation, eds. Susan Paun de García and Harley Erdman (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2013), forthcoming.
'Támbien la lluvia/Even the Rain (Iciar Bollaín, 2010): social realism, transnationalism and (neo-)colonialism’ in Spanish Cinema 1978-2000: Auteurism, Politics, Landscape and Memory, eds. Maria M. Delgado and Robin W. Fiddian (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), in press.
'Beyond the black legend of Calderón's wife murder-plays: amorous strife, violence and the comedia' in On Wolves and Sheep: Exploring the Expression of Political Thought in Golden Age Spain, ed. Aaron Kahn (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 113-146.
'¿La película duende?: María Teresa León, Rafael Alberti and alternative traditions of resurrecting Golden Age drama' in Stages of Exile, ed. Helena Buffery (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), 71-93.
'A modern-day Fénix?: Lope's cinematic revivals', in A Companion to Lope de Vega, eds. Alexander Samson and Jonathan Thacker, (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2008), 285-299.
Articles in Practitioners' Magazines/Journals
'Lo que entendemos por cine español’, Academia: revista de la Academia de Cine, April (2011), 21-23.
'La presencia del teatro español en la cartelera inglesa durante el siglo XXI', Contraviento, 8 (2009), 18-21.
Other
Contributor: The Literary Encyclopedia
Book Reviews: Bulletin of Spanish Studies; New Cinemas
Theatre Reviews: Comedia Performance
'Bruce Springsteen and Spain' in For You: Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Fans, ed. Lawrence Kirsch (Montreal: Lawrence Kirsch Communications, 2007), 184.
Keynote Addresses and Invited Lectures
'What the Iranian Shah, Hola magazine and heroin use have to tell us about La Movida and Spain's transition to democracy?', Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies Research Seminar, King’s College, University of London, 16 January 2013.
'Domestic violence in Early Modern Spain', Public Lecture, Instituto Cervantes, Sydney, 16 June 2012.
'What, if anything, do we know about the censorship of popular music under Franco', Censorship and Cultural Central Symposium, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 23 May 2012.
'Mirando hacia atrás para seguir adelante: la puesta en escena de la comedia en España desde 1939, y la creación de un Lope para el siglo XXI', Lope de Vega: Reescrituras desde el siglo XX, CCHS-CSIC, Madrid, 1-2 December 2011.
'Beyond the black legend of Calderón's wife murder-plays: amorous strife, violence and the comedia', Department of Spanish Research Seminar, University of Oxford, 25 January 2011.
'Golden Age drama in exile', Hispanic Studies Research Seminar, University of Cork, 17 December 2010.
'Ways of performing national classical drama in Spain', Out of The Wings Symposium, University of Oxford, 18-19 March 2010.
'¿Imágenes violentas?: la representación de la violencia de género en el cine inglés y estadounidense', Public Lecture, Universitat de Valencia, 15 December 2009.
'The ones that got away: Maria Teresa León, La dama duende and "anti-Spanish" cinematic adaptations of Golden Age drama', Study of Hispanic Exile Research Seminar, University of Birmingham, 23 October 2009.
Conference Papers
'Celebrity punk rockers? Alaska and Mario: A typically Spanish MTV reality show', Europop, Inaugural Conference of the European Popular Culture Association, College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London, 11-13 July 2012.
'Pepe Estruch and the performance of Golden Age drama: a case study of transatlantic relationships under Franco, and their influence on democratic theatrical cultures', AHGBI Conference, University of Stirling, 2-4 April 2012.
'A Catalan in New York: Elegy (Isabel Coixet, 2008) as a case study of Spanish auteur theory', Contemporary Spanish Cinema Conference, New York, 12-16 December 2011.
'At the crossroads of tradition and modernity: Raphael and the politics of mass culture in 1960s Spain', University of Leeds, PCRN First Symposium on European Popular Musics, 13 June 2011.
'The comedia and the culture of the baroque', Modern Language Association Convention, Los Angeles, 6-9 January 2011.
'Think locally, sell globally: tracing the intertextual references in Todo sobre mi madre in the Spanish context', AHGBI Conference, King's College, London, 12-14 April 2010.
Public Engagement
'Spanish Book Launch and Presentation of Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain: The Comedia on Page Stage and Screen', Ocho y Medio Bookshop, Madrid, 7 November 2012.
'UK Book Launch and Presentation of Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain: The Comedia on Page Stage and Screen', Instituto Cervantes, Manchester, 27 September 2012.
'Spanish legislation and approaches to domestic violence as a social disease: an example to follow or an error to avoid?', Wakefield District NHS Primary Care Trust, Ongoing Professional Training for Public Health Practitioners, 30 March 2011.
'Introductory talk to screening of Hable con ella', Opera North, Leeds, 14 January 2011.
'Too much too soon or too little too late: placing new Spanish legislation on gender based violence in context', Public Lecture, University of Oxford Women's Campaign, 9 June 2008.
External Positions
Subject Editor (Peninsular Spain): The Literary Encyclopedia
Reviews Editor: New Cinemas (Journal of Contemporary Film)
Visiting Post-Graduate Instructor: Center for 17th- and 18-Century Studies, UCLA
Peer Reviewer: Arbor; Bulletin of Hispanic Studies; Bulletin of Spanish Studies; Hispanic Research Journal; Journal of European Popular Culture; Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies; Letras Peninsulares; New Cinemas.
Translator: Royal Shakespeare Company
Reader: Cambridge University Press; Manchester University Press; MHRA Texts and Dissertations Series
External Referee, European Doctorate: Universities of Complutense, Madrid; Valencia; and Polytechnic University of Valencia
Membership Secretary: Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland
Member: AHRC Research Careers and Training Advisory Group Network
Founding Member: Últimas Tendencias Escénicas de los clásicos españoles (UTECE) International Research Group
Major Research Projects, Prizes and Grants
Special Award for Publication of Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain, The Anglo-Spanish Society and Spanish Embassy in London (£500), 2012
Leverhulme Research Fellowship (£58,000), 2010-2012
Sir George Labouchere Fund for Spanish Studies (£5,000), 2008-2009
De Osma Studentship, Vice-Chancellor, Oxford University and Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid (£3,250), 2008
Abbey-Santander Academic Travel Grant (£500), 2008
Scatcherd European Scholarship (£3,250), 2008
AHRC Doctoral Award (Full - Fees plus maintenance grant), 2006-2008
AHRC Travel Award (£1,500), 2006
Hargreaves-Mawdsley Research Scholarship, Wolfson College (£5,000), 2005-2006
Fieldler Travel Grant, University of Oxford (£300), 2005
AHRB, Research Preparation Masters Award (Full - Fees plus maintenance grant), 2004-2005
Kolkhorst Exhibition, University of Oxford, 2004.
Teaching
SPPO 3550: Sex, Art, Commerce and Censorship: Cinematic and Theatrical Adaptations in Modern-Day Spain (Co-ordinator).
SPPO 2670/71: Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Cinema (Co-ordinator).
SPPO 1160: Introduction to the Cultural Production of Spain and Spanish-America.
SPPO 1180: Skills and issues in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.
Postgraduate Research Supervision
Golden Age Drama and Prose Fiction
Hispanic and European cinema(s)
Translation
Contemporary Spanish Culture and Politics
Twentieth-century Spanish Theatre
Gender and Sexuality
School Responsibilities / Affiliations
Executive Committee Member, Centre for World Cinemas
Joint Co-ordinator, European Popular Musics Cluster
Co-ordinator, Arts Post-Doctoral Programme
Residence Abroad Co-ordinator, SPLAS
Co-organiser, SPLAS Research Seminar ("Adaptation in a Transnational Context")
Member: LHRI Cultural Exchange Research Cluster
Member, SMLC Cultural Studies Research Group
Member, SMLC Literary Studies Research Group