Spanish Unit

Xosé Manuel Baamonde Silva is an Associate Professor of Public Relations and, currently, the dean of the School of Social Sciences and Communication at the University of Vigo. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid (1993) and a PhD on Communication Sciences from the University of Santiago de Compostela (2007). He is author of the dissertation thesis Fairs as spaces for professional communication: the case of the Feira Internacional de Galicia - Fundación Semana Verde 1995-2004 (University of Santiago de Compostela, 2008). Among his books are A communication in trade fair sector. Strategies of organizers, exhibitors and professional visitorsor The management of a single event. Centennial Chronicle, as well as numerous articles in national and international journals. His current fields of research are focused on Public Relations, Solidarity Communication and event organization. In a profesional context, he has worked in various national and regional media and participated in international conferences of the communication sector. And he also was the Communication Director of the Feira Internacional de Galicia (1994-2004) and Chief of Cabinet of the City of Ribeira (2005-2007).

Associate Professor in the Department of Modern History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), as well as Director of the Centre for the Study of Dictatorships and Democracies (CEDID UAB) at the same university. He specializes in the Franco regime and the Spanish transition to democracy. His research has focused on repression and social control, institutional politics, social unrest, and political violence. He is the author of Morir matando. El franquismo ante la práctica armada, 1968-1977 (Catarata, 2014) and co-author of Gobernadores. Barcelona en la España franquista (1939-1977) (Comares, 2015). He has also edited several collective volumes and published numerous book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, including The Historical Journal, Contemporary European History, Ayer, Historia y Política, and Historia Social.

Xavier Domènech Sampere is a lecturer of Contemporary History in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at UAB. Initially my main line of research concentrated on the relationship between social movements and political change in Catalonia and Spain during the Franco dictatorship. This first line of research culminated in 2006 with the reading of my doctoral thesis “Pequeños grandes cambios. Movimiento obrero y cambio político en la década de los sesenta” [Great little changes: the labour movement and political change in the seventies]. I went on to further develop this thesis with the publication of several articles and reference books, as well as winning the special doctoral prize at the UAB and the City of Barcelona history award in 2006. Highlights among the publications resulting from my further development of this thesis include, among others, “Quan el carrer va deixar de ser seu” [When the street stopped being theirs] (Publicacions Abadia de Montserrat, 2002), “Clase obrera, antifranquismo y cambio político” [The working class, antifrancoism and political change] (La Catarata, 2008) and Movimiento y cambio politico (1939 – 1977)” [Labor movement and political change, 1939 - 1977] (Icaria, 2012), as well as different articles published in leading journals such as Història Social, Historia del Presente, Ayer, Spagna Contemporanea and Labor and Working-Class History.

Alongside this, I pursued new lines of research, focusing on the history and memory of the air raids during the Spanish Civil War and the development of memorial movements and policies, as well as in the field of exploring the formation of new identities among the working classes and militant cultures under Francoism. My lines of research have currently moved over to the comparative analysis of national dynamics in Spain. This research has already led to publications such as the book Un haz de naciones. El Estado y la plurinacionalidad en España [A Bundle of Nations: The State and Plurinationality in Spain] (1833 – 2017) (Península, 2020) and the creation of a research group.

I have also recently completed my previous line of research with the publication of Lucha de clases, franquismo y democracia (1939 - 1979) (Akal, 2022) [Class struggle, Francoism and democracy (1939 - 1979)”]. 

David Formoso-Vázquez is a journalist and associate professor at the University of Vigo. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid and a PhD on Social Sciences at the University of Vigo. His main line of research is on communication and press history. Among his last works are (with Alberto Pena) the articles “The representation in the Spanish press from the discourse of President Theodore Roosevelt in defense of the construction of the Panama Canal” (Historia y Comunicación Social, 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/HICS.55899) and “The Spanish laborers in the building of the Panama Canal: their image in the Spanish press (1906-1909)” (Historia Crítica, 2018,https://dx.doi.org/10.7440/histcrit67.2018.02. In addition to his teaching and research activities, he worked as a journalist for 26 years in the Radio and Spanish Television (RTVE), 17 of which in positions of responsability. He also worked in the newspapers El País, La Voz de Galicia and El Correo Gallego. He has been awarded with the prize Mestre Mateo 2010 as the scriptwriter and producer of the documentaries Man, home sen paz and A catástrofe do Prestige, dous anos despois. He is also currently working as a media and communication consultant.

With a PhD in History from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the Università di Bologna (2011), Steven Forti is currently senior lecturer in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of UAB where is also coordinator of the BA in Contemporary History, Politics and Economics. Between 2014 and 2022 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC) of the NOVA University of Lisbon. 

His research focuses on political history and political cultures and ideas. He has mainly studied fascism, populism, nationalism and the extreme right in the 20th and 21st centuries, with a special focus on comparative and transnational history.

He is a member of the Centre for Studies on Dictatorships and Democracies (CEDID), the Research Group on Dictatorships and Democracies (GReDD-UAB), and the editorial board of the journals Ayer. Revista de Historia Contemporánea, where he also serves as deputy editor, and Spagna Contemporanea. Currently, he is local PI and WP leader of the research project Analysis of and Responses to Extremist Narratives (ARENAS, 2023-2027), funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe programme.

He is the author of monographs such as Democracias en extinción. El espectro de las autocracias electorales(2024) y Extrema derecha 2.0. Qué es y cómo combatirla (2021), which has been translated into Italian (2025) and Portuguese (2026), or El peso de la nación. Nicola Bombacci, Paul Marion y Óscar Pérez Solís en la Europa de entreguerras (2014). He is co-author of Patriotas indignados. Sobre la nueva ultraderecha en la Posguerra Fría. Neofascismo, posfascismo y nazbols (2019) and editor of Mitos y cuentos de la extrema derecha (2023). 

He collaborates regularly with public institutions, NGOs and civil society associations and writes regularly for media outlets in Spain, Italy and other countries.

Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Santiago de Compostela since 2003 and Coordinator of the Interuniversity Master's Degree in Contemporary History (2012-2018). He has a PhD in History in 1995 with the thesis ‘La CEDA in Galicia 1931-1936’. His priority lines of research cover political and social history from the Second Republic to the democratic transition, fascist and right-conservative movements.

He has directed and coordinated various national and international research projects, funded by the Ministry of the Presidency and MINECO. Also those funded by the Provincial Council of A Coruña on the repression of civil war in the province of A Coruña (2004-2006), political partner conflict in the Second Republic (2006-2008), and the latter on the institutional repression in the province of A Coruña (2016 -2017). Between 2006 and 2012, he was Coordinator of the interuniversity project (Universities of Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña and Vigo) "The victims, the names, the voices and the places", pioneer in the studies on the repression of the Civil War. He currently heads the USC HISPONA Research Group (Political History and Nationalism), a group that participates in various projects and organizes national and international seminars. He also coordinated EUCODE Groups, in charge of seven Spanish universities, to develop a European Project on 'The culture of fascism / anti-fascism in the construction of democratic transition processes' (2015-2017); and the RETTDES Network of Excellence (2015-2017).

Participant in different tables of Congresses and Seminars, and coordinator of numerous monographs and dossiers. His books include: History of A Coruña (19th and 20th centuries); The republicanism coruñes in the History (1997); Years of war. A Coruña, 1936-1939 (1999); Caciquism and elections in Galicia of the Second Republic (1999); The Brandariz Report (A Coruña, 1937) (2001); Casares Quiroga. Parliamentary Speeches (2006), Casares Quiroga. The Forge of a Leader (2011); Watched (2011), War Zone. World War II in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula (2012) ...

Member of the Board of Staff of the Association of Historians of the Present, among his latest works, mention: (2015) the coordination of the Dossier Magazine History of the Present on the transition in Galicia with the article 'The machinery of the transition: the UCD in Galicia'; (2015) 'The light that marked the way: the reconstitution of the PSOE in Galicia', History of the Present 26; (2017) The Balancing Act: British Intellgence during the IIWW in Spain, Sussex Academic Press; (2017) 'Francoism and opposition in the 1950s: narratives of national reconciliation' in Morente / Gallego, The Last Survivor, Sussex Academic Press; (2017) Commitment to democracy. Life story of Salvador de Madariaga; and (2017) 'On the democratic transition and the 21st century: New ways, new formulas', Studia Histórica Contemporánea Contemporánea, 35.

Alfonso Iglesias Amorin (Santiago de Compostela, 1983), holds a PhD in History from the University of Santiago de Compostela (2014) with the thesis  La memoria de las guerras de Marruecos en España (1859-1936),  with which he obtained the Extraordinary PhD Award (2017). His main lines of research are military conflicts, with special attention to those derived from Spanish colonialism in Modern times; memory and nationalisms. He is the author of the books  Imagen y repercusiones de la Guerra de Cuba en Galicia (1895-1898), I Juana de Vega Prize for new researchers;  A Galicia da II República (Santiago, 2010); and co-author of Historia de Santiago de Compostela (Santiago, 2012) and Xeración Perdida Coruña 36 (A Coruña, 2018). He has also made articles for scientific journals such as Hispanic Research Journal or Pasado y Memoria, and multiple chapters in collective works. Between 2009 and 2013 he enjoyed a FPU scholarship by the Ministry of Education and Science, and between 2012 and 2013 he enjoyed a research stay at the Centre for War Studies of Trinity College Dublin. Since 2016 he is a postdoctoral researcher (I2C Plan of the Xunta de Galicia) at the University of Porto and University of Santiago de Compostela.

Professor of the Departament d’Història Moderna i Contemporànea since 1994, Senior lecturer since 2010, Secretary of the departament (2016-22) and then Director (2022-25). Even Director of the Centre d'Estudis sobre Dictadures i Democràcies (CEDID-UAB), 2017-22. His lines of research have focused on the institutional deployment of the system of government of the Franco regime, along with the analysis of its political personnel and policies towards migration, in the same period, as well as their complementary actions for control and identification of people.

Books: Els Ajuntaments Franquistes a Catalunya. Política i administració municipal, 1938-1979, Lleida, 2000; Catalanisme, clientelisme i franquisme. Josep Maria de Porcioles, Barcelona, 2005; Història del Franquisme a Catalunya, Vic-Lleida, 2006; Franquisme, suburbialització i dictadura a Catalunya. Sabadell, 1939-1962: una cas paradigmàtic, Sabadell, 2019 and  ¡Ha llegado España! La política del franquisme a Catalunya (1938-1977), Vic, 2019. [with Manel Risques] Montjuïc, memòries en conflicte: el castell, la muntanya i la ciutat, Barcelona, 2008; [with Javier Tébar, Manel Risques and Pau Casanellas] Gobernadores. Barcelona en la España Franquista (1939-1977), Granada, 2015.

Most recent book chapters: “Cambios y continuidades en el personal político del tardofranquismo a la democracia, 1969-1979. Del Ministerio de la Gobernación al Ministerio del Interior” in Transiciones. Estudios sobre Europa del Sur y América Latina (Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2019); “Fascismo y corporativismo. Un análisis del desarrollo de la dictadura franquista, 1936-1975” in Corporativismos Ibéricos e Latino-Americanos (EdiPUCRS, 2019) and “Mujeres y migraciones interiores en la posguerra: una historia en construcción” in Mujeres frente a la misèria (Marcial Pons, Madrid, 2025).

Most recent publications in academic journals: Historia y Política (Madrid, 2013); Franquisme & Transició (Barcelona, 2013); Les langues néo-latines (París, 2015); Spagna Contemporanea (Alessandria, 2015) i Estudos do Século XX (Coimbra, 2016), Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar (Barcelona, 2021).

María Victoria Martins Rodríguez studied Geography and History at the Universidad Complutense and MA at University of Vigo. She is currently writing her dissertation thesis on the image of Galician women in the NO-DO (the audiovisual propaganda apparatus of Francoism) at the Complutense University of Madrid. Currently working as a secondary school teacher, she has been editor, researcher and university professor in several periods. Her lines of research are centred on the history of women, with various publications on the Sección Femenina of Falange, the Franco's repression, education and the world of labour among other issues.

Among his main works are A Regresión Franquista. A muller durante o primeiro franquismo. Sección Femenina en Ponteareas (1936-1955) (University of Vigo, 2012);   “Sección Femenina: modelos de mujer bajo el franquismo” (in Osborne, Raquel: Mujeres bajo sospecha: Memoria y Sexualidad (1930-1980), Síntesis, 2012); “Las mujeres gallegas y las prisiones franquistas” (in Egido, Angeles: Cárceles de mujeres: la prisión femenina en la posguerra, Sanz and Torres, 2017); “The incorporation of women in the agricultural trade union struggle: The case of the Galician Peasants: Union Labrego Galego (SLG) Union”, in International Labor and Working-Class History (co-author) (pending publication). She is also co-director of the documentary Digna Rabia (2011), focused on the history of women during the dictatorship.

Carme Molinero is Professor Emerita of Contemporary History at the UAB. From 2002 to 2009, she was coordinator of the Research Group on the Franco Era (GREF) between 2002 and 2007 and between 2014 and 2017. She was Director of CEFID – now CEDID – from 2001 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2017. She is currently director of the Chair in Democratic Memory, established under an agreement between the Ministry of Territorial Administration and the UAB.

Her research has focused on the social and political history of the Franco era and the transition to democracy, with an eye to contemporary democracy within the context of 20th-century dictatorships and transitions. Her most recent line of research has focused on the democratic era that began in 1977.

The results of this research are reflected in just over 200 publications. Notable among these are La captación de las masas. Política social y propaganda en el régimen franquista, 2005. In collaboration with Pere Ysàs, notable works include Productores disciplinados y minorías subversivas. Clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista, 1998 y Anatomía del franquismo. De la supervivencia a la agonía, 2008. In recent years, the following have stood out, amongst others: De la hegemonía a la autodestrucción. El Partido Comunista de España (1956-1982), 2017; La Transición. Historia y relatos, 2018; Alianza Popular/Partido Popular. Del franquismo a la democracia, 2025.

Among the most recent works he has edited or edited that focus on international comparisons, the following stand out, Las izquierdas en los años setenta, 2016; Transiciones. Estudios sobre el sur de Europa y América Latina, 2019, De dictaduras a democracias. Portugal, España, Argentina, Chile, 2020 y Las derechas europeas en un mundo en transformación, 1970-2000, 2024.

Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart has carried out an intense teaching dedication at the Complutense University of Madrid, complemented by a varied research work, as well as one of dissemination of its results by centres and associations. She was director of the Chair of Historical Memory at the UCM between 2013 and 2016. In her research she has developed two lines, one of them around the history of Spanish journalism and, at the same time, the contemporary history of Spain, with special attention to the Second Republic, the Civil War and the dictatorship of General Franco. As a result, he has written, alone, more than 25 articles in scientific journals, collaborations in the press, more than twelve prologues or preliminary studies and six books, among which La gran represión stands out. Los años de plomo del franquismo, in which he worked as a coordinator and co-author with Francisco Espinosa, Manuel Álvaro and José María García Márquez (Barcelona, Flor del Viento, 2009). 

Other books of which she is the author alone are: Los años del terror.  La política de exterminio y represión del general Franco (Madrid, La Esfera de los Libros, 2004), Mujeres Caídas. Prostitutas legales y clandestinas en el franquismo(Madrid, Oberon, 2003) and La disciplina de la conciencia. Las Brigadas Internacionales y su artillería de papel(Barcelona, Flor del Viento, 2006). Among his most recent works is his participation in the book coordinated by Professor Julio Aróstegui, Franco, la represión como sistema (Barcelona, Flor del Viento, 2012). She is co-author, together with Antonio Rojas Friend, of a pioneering book on the subject of repression in Madrid, Consejo de guerra, Los fusilamientos en el Madrid de la posguerra, 1939-1945 (Madrid, Compañía Literaria, 1997).

Last publications in magazines and books: "Las otras 'rosas'. El asesinato grupal de mujeres en la represión franquista", Foro por la Memoria (Boletín del Foro por la Memoria de Córdoba), vol. 3, 2015, pp. 44-61 and "La obrera consciente. Clase y género en los relatos femeninos en el entorno de la Segunda República", in Aniquilación de la República y castigo a la lealtad, Glicerio Sánchez Recio y Roque Moreno Fonseret (eds.), Alicante, Universitat d'Alacant, 2015, pp. 315 - 328, and "Universidad contra la dictadura. Dictadura contra la universidad. De la rebelión al abrazo", in La cultura y la memoria histórica entre 1960 y 1978, Granada, Delegación de Cultura y Memoria Histórica, 2016, pp. 111 - 114.

The research most closely linked to the study of the Civil War through its press and propaganda is addressed in his doctoral thesis, published in six volumes by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and, subsequently, by a private publishing house in three volumes, under the title La prensa de guerra en la zona republicana durante la Guerra Civil Española, 1936-1939 (Madrid, Editorial de la Torre, 1997).

Academic Degrees

1984-1989: Study of History, Universities of Santiago de Compostela and Dijon (France).

December 1992: Ph. D. in History at the Department of History and Civilization of the European University Institute, Florence.

Academic positions

Full Professor (catedrático) of Modern History, Department of Late Modern and America’s History, University of Santiago de Compostela.

October 2012-September 2017: Full Professor of European Modern History, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich. 

Guest professorsips at the Guest researcher at the Universities of Rennes II, Paris VII, Paris X-Nanterre, City University of New York, Stanford University, University of Verona and National University of Mar del Plata (Argentina).

Member of the Editorial board of the journals Historia Social and Passato e Presente. Member of the Advisory Board of European History Quarterly (London) since 2004, Spagna Contemporanea, Ayer, Estudos Iberoamericanos and Historia del Presente, among others. 

Vicepresident of the Council of Galician Culture since July 2018.

Spanish National Prize for Essays 2019 for his book Suspiros de España.

Research fields

European nationalist movements in comparative perspective; Galician, Basque and Catalan nationalisms; Nationality question in interwar Europe; Spanish nationalism in the 20th century and beyond; local, regional and territorial identities in Spain during the 19^th and 20^th centuries; cultural history of war and violence, with particular reference to the Spanish Civil War and the Russian front during the Second World War; Spanish migration to Latin America, 19th and 20th centuries, with particular reference to Galician migration to Argentina, return migration before 1936 and political mobilisation among migrant communities.

Alberto Pena Rodríguez is Professor of History of Communication and Propaganda at the University of Vigo, where he has served as dean, vice dean, and academic secretary of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication. He holds a European Doctorate in Information Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Doctorate in History (with special honors) from the UNED. He has been president of the Association of Communication Historians and director of the History Section of the Spanish Association for Communication Research. He has also been a visiting professor or researcher at various universities in the United States, France, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, including Harvard University, the University of California Berkeley, Brown University, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. With more than 150 publications and several works translated into English and Portuguese, he is the author of monographs such as Salazar y Franco. La alianza del fascismo ibérico contra la España republicana: diplomacia, prensa y propaganda (2017) and News on the American dream. A history of the Portuguese press in the United States (2020). He has also published articles in numerous international scientific journals, including Media History, Radio Journal, Journal of Iberian & Latin American Research, and Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. As a journalist, he worked as a correspondent for Televisión Española (TVE), El Correo Gallego, and Diario 16 de Galicia, as well as a weekly news analyst for Galicia's public radio station, the Radio Galega.

Dr. Pablo Sapag is an Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism & Global Communication at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He researches and teaches war and political propaganda and also war journalism. He has published several articles and books, among others, Siria en perspectiva (Ediciones Complutense, 2017, 2019) and Chile, frente de combate de la Guerra civil Española (UNED, 2003). He mainly focuses on Syria and Chile, their politics and the propaganda strategies of those actors involved in those two countries. He has been a visitor professor at the Universidad de Chile, Universidad Católica de Chile and under the Erasmus scheme, at Sussex University and Aristotelio University of Thessalonica. He has directed several PhD. thesis and has been involved in different competitive and international research projects. Previously he worked as a war correspondent and international news journalist for Telemadrid. He is a regular analyst and commentator about his matters of study in Spanish, Latin American and European media. He is also member of the scientific networks War and the Media and Asociación de Historiadores de la Comunicación Social.

Dr Serapiglia is currently a Ramón y Cajal researcher in História Contemporânea at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Dr Serapiglia is himself a good example of a 'European researcher' and a representative of the 'Erasmus generation'. His Erasmus exchange in Coimbra during the academic year 2000-2001 was the starting point of his international academic career. After graduating in Humanities and specializing in Modern History in 2004, Dr Serapiglia earned a PhD in European History at the University of Bologna and at University of Coimbra in 2009. His doctorate focused on corporatism in the New Portuguese State. From 2012 to 2013, he received a grant from the Gulbenkian Fundation of Lisbon to work on the project “Italian fascism in Portugal. The regime of Mussolini seen through Portuguese newspapers and magazines between 1922 and 1945” (11.000,00 €). Dr Serapiglia has published in 5 different languages (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English). He is the author of several essays on the Portuguese Estado Novo; in 2011 he published a monograph entitled La via portoghese al corporativismo [The Portuguese Way to Corporatism]. In 2014 he edited and wrote the introduction to the Italian edition of Antonio Ferro's Interviews with Salazar. Since 2011, he has focused on the social history of sport, publishing articles, book chapters, and editing the book “Tempo libero, sport e fascismo” [Free Time, Sport and Fascism], published in 2016. Additionally, Dr Serapiglia worked at the University of Bologna until May 2016 on the post-doctoral project “Social History of Italian Volleyball” (58.101,00 €). In 2018, he published the monograph “Uno sport per tutti. Soria sociale della pallavolo italiana (1918-1990)” [A Sport for Everyone. Social History of Italian Volleyball (1918-1990)]. This book has been adopted by the University of Bologna for its courses on sports education. This book was also of interest for important Italian newspapers and magazines such as Wired, Vanity Fair, and La Gazzetta dello Sport. The article "Il Barca̧ 'meś que un club': le radici del catalanismo blaugrana nel contesto della sportivizzazione spagnola", was published in the leading Italian peer-reviewed journal Spagna contemporanea; while the article "Fé e Futebol. Muscular Catholicism between Italy and Portugal in the European Identity (1922-1958)" was published in the impactful journal Lusotopie. The article “In Memory of the 1934 World Cup" has recently been accepted for publication in the prominent journal Soccer&Society. In 2022, Dr Serapiglia and Dr Juan Antonio Simón will publish the book Football and Fascism in the Iberian Peninsula, 1926-1975 as part of the Peter Lang Sport, History and Culture series. From 2013 to 2016 Dr Serapiglia led undergraduate seminars on the history of sport at the University of Bologna. From 2019 to 2021 Dr Serapiglia has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa working on the project entitled “A social revolution. Football and fascism in southern Europe from 1922 to 1975” (79.149,00 €). He has also given papers at international conferences on the history of sport and the history of fascism in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Belgium, England and France. Dr Serapiglia is editor-in-chief of the Italian journal Storia dello Sport. Rivista di studi contemporanea and a member of the Scientific Committee of European Studies in Sport History. He was a visiting scholar in the Departamento de Motricidad, Rendimiento Humano y Gestión del Deporte at Universidad Europea de Madrid, the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, Leicester and the Remarque Institute of New York University.

Luis Velasco Martínez is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the Faculty of International Relations, University of Vigo, Spain. His research focuses on contemporary political history, nationalism, nation-building processes, and the role of state and para-state agencies in the construction of national identities. His work is grounded in historiography while engaging with political science, military history, and the history of violence.

He holds an International PhD in Contemporary History from the University of Santiago de Compostela. His doctoral dissertation, entitled «The Martial Nation: Compulsory Military Service and Patriotic Education in Spain, 1898–1982», was supervised by Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas and Ramón López Facal. He has also made significant contributions to history education, pedagogical innovation, and public engagement with historical knowledge. More broadly, his research interests include the history of nationalism in the contemporary period, political cultures, compulsory military service, and the relationship between violence, state formation, and national identity.

Before joining the University of Vigo, he was a researcher in the Department of Contemporary and American History at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He later held teaching posts at several universities, including Pablo de Olavide University in Seville and the University of Málaga. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Vigo and Visiting Lecturer at King’s College London. Luis Velasco is a member of the Contemporary History Research Group (HC1) at the University of Vigo and of the REFAT network. He currently coordinates the collection «Studies of the Past» published by the Barcelona-based publisher Atelier.

He has previously been a visiting researcher at the École des Hautes Études Hispaniques et Ibériques, the Center for Latin American Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York, Barnard College, the Center for War Studies at University College Dublin, and the Faculty of History and International Relations of the University of Porto, among other institutions.

Selected recent publications include:

Velasco, L., and Prada, J., eds. Un espacio en transición. El Noroeste ibérico: élites, tecnocracia y poder en Galicia y el norte de Portugal (1960–1982). Granada: Comares, 2026.

Velasco, L., and Madeira, B., eds. Elites sociais portuguesas perante as transições no noroeste ibérico: uma leitura transnacional da história ibérica contemporânea. New York: Peter Lang, 2025.

Velasco, L. Fascistas de ultramar. El falangismo en el Río de la Plata, 1936–1943. Buenos Aires: Biblós, 2022.

Velasco, L. “Falangistas y franquistas en América (1936–1975): un estado de la cuestión.” Historia 396, vol. 9, no. 2, 2019, pp. 1–18.

Velasco, L. “¿Uniformizando la Nación? El servicio militar obligatorio durante el franquismo.” Historia y Política: Ideas, procesos y movimientos sociales, no. 38, 2017, pp. 57–89.

Pere Ysàs is a Professor of Contemporary History in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at the UAB and a researcher at the CEDID (Center for the Study of Dictatorships and Democracies). 

He specializes in the political and social history of the francoist period, the transition to democracy, and contemporary Spain. He is the author of Disidencia y subversión. La lucha del régimen franquista por su supervivencia 1960-1975(2004) and, in collaboration with Carme Molinero, of L'oposició antifeixista a Catalunya 1939-1950 (1981); "Patria, Justicia y Pan". Nivell de vida i condicions de treball a Catalunya, 1939-1951 (1985); Els industrials catalans durant el franquisme (1991); El règim franquista. Feixisme, modernització i consens (1992, 2003); Productores disciplinados i minorías subversivas. Clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista (1998); Catalunya durant el franquisme (1999); La anatomía del franquismo. De la supervivencia a la agonía, 1945-1977 (2008); Els anys del PSUC. El partit de l'antifranquisme (1956-1981) (2010); La cuestión catalana. Cataluña en la transición española (2014); De la hegemonía a la autodestrucción. El Partido Comunista de España (1956-1982) (2017); La transición. Historia y relatos(2018, 2024); and Alianza Popular/Partido Popular. Del Franquismo a la democracia (1976-1996) (2025). 

He is also a co-author of Historia Política de España, 1939-2000 (2001). He has directed or edited several works, such as: La transició a Catalunya i Espanya (1997); De la dictadura a la democràcia, 1960-1980 (Volume 11 of Història. Política, Societat i Cultura dels Països Catalans) (1998); Construint la ciutat democràtica. El moviment veïnal durant el tardofranquisme i la transició (2010); Las izquierdas en tiempos de transición (2016); Transiciones. Estudios sobre Europa del Sur y América Latina (2019); De dictaduras a democracias. Portugal, España, Argentina, Chile (2020); and Las derechas europeas en un mundo en transformación (1970-2000) (2024).