Dr Maria-José Blanco

Maria-José Blanco was awarded her PhD by the University College London in 2010 where she also studied her BA and MA. Her PhD thesis focused on the work of Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000). She has been a member of the Spanish Department and the Spanish, Portuguese and LatinAmerican Department at King's College London since 2008. She has worked as a lecturer in other universities: University College London; Royal Holloway University of London; IGRS, School of Advanced Study and Queen Mary University of London. From 2009 to 2011 Maria-José was a Lecturer in Hispanic Culture at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies where she organised a number of Conferences and Study days. She has also collaborates with the Spanish Embassy, Instituto Cervantes, Institut Ramon Llull and Instituto Camoes organising seminar series, conferences and talks.

She is a member of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing’s steering committee and convenes the Spanish Seminars and Reading Group (first at the IGRS and then at King’s). Maria-José is also member of the Motherhood in Post-1968 European Literature Network. She has been Managing Editor of the Journal of Romance Studies.

Research Interests

• Contemporary Spanish writers
• Women writers
• Representation of the Spanish Civil War in literature and film
• Autobiography and Life-writing
• Writing as therapy
• Motherhood Travel Writing

Maria-José Blanco’s current project focuses on representation of Motherhood in Spanish literature from 1990 to 2010.

Teaching

At King’s College London Maria-José Blanco teaches ‘Journey through Spain: Travel writing in Modern Spain’, Spanish Language and Translation and has taught ‘Introduction to Modern Spanish Culture I and II’.

Selected Publications

• Maria-José Blanco and Claire Williams, Feminine Plural: Women in Transition in the Luso-Hispanic World (Peter Lang: 2023)
• Maria-José Blanco and Claire Williams, Women in Transition: Crossing Boundaries, Crossing Borders (Routledge, 2021)
• Maria-José Blanco and Claire Williams, Feminine Singular: Women Growing Up Through Life-Writing in the Luso-Hispanic World (Peter Lang 2017)
• Maria-José Blanco & Ricarda Vidal (eds) The Power of Death: Reflections on Death in Western Society (Berghahn: 2014) 
• Maria-José Blanco López de Lerma, Life Writing in Carmen Martin Gaite's Cuadernos de todo and her novels of the 1990s (Tamesis: 2013) 

Articles and Book Chapter

• ‘Understanding Death/Writing Bereavement: The writer’s experience’ in The power of Death: Perceptions of death in the Western world (Berghahn Books), in press, due 2013.
• ‘Notebooks and collages: Carmen Martín Gaite’s Vision of New York’ in Feminine Singular: Women Growing Up through Life-Writing in the Luso-Hispanic World (Peter Lang), in press, due 2013.
• La Reina de las Nieves en los Cuadernos de todo’ in ‘Carmen Martín Gaite 10 Years on: revisiting her textual and visual legacy’, co-edited Maria-José Balnco, Jessamy Harvey (Birkbeck) and Mercedes Carbayo Abengózar (Nottingham), special issue of Espéculo, forthcoming.
• ‘Spanish women, memoirs and testimonies of the war: legacies for the future’, in Sparkes, A. (Ed), Auto/Biography Yearbook 2010 (Russell Press: Nottingham, 2011).
• ‘Carmen Martín Gaite’s Cuadernos de todo: A Writer’s Diary/A Writer’s Workshop’, in Marian Womack and Jennifer Wood (eds.), Beyond the Back Room: New Perspectives on Carmen Martín Gaite (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009).
• ‘The Feminism of an Antifeminist in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Cuadernos de todo’, Journal of Romance Studies, Volume 9, N.1, Spring 2009, pp 47-57.

Expertise and public engagement

Dr Blanco is a member of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing’s steering committee and convenes the Spanish Seminars and Women Writers in Spanish Reading Group at King’s College London. Maria-José is also member of the Motherhood in Post-1968 European Literature Network. She has been Managing Editor of the Journal of Romance Studies.