I am in the second year of my PhD research, which is funded by the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership. Before beginning this project, my MRes dissertation examined the representation of Madrid in the artículos de costumbres of Romantic journalist Mariano José de Larra (1809-37) through different public spaces of sociability, using Mikhail Bakhtin's 'Chronotope' concept as a methodological approach. My PhD research develops on this investigation by examining the development of costumbrismo as a literary genre at the end of the Spanish Enlightenment, decades before its perceived period of fruition in the 1830s with writers such as Larra and Mesonero Romanos. My project is set within the period of the reign of Carlos IV (1788-1808), and addresses costumbrista-style articles published in instalments of the daily Madrid periodical, Diario de Madrid, prior to examining 10 longer and more detailed costumbrista works. The research questions which this investigation addresses include:

- How are the different spaces and urban transformations of late eighteenth-century Madrid represented in early costumbrista literature?

- How are the different social types of the second half of eighteenth-century Madrid characterised in costumbrista articles and works? 

- To what extent did the daily Madrid periodical Diario de Madrid contribute to the development of the genre of costumbrismo? Did this newspaper play a role in the marketing of early costumbrista works?

- In what ways do the authors of these early costumbrista works manifest a desire to control public behaviour and instil order in Spanish society?

I am addressing these research questions using a range of methodological approaches, including works on nationalism, gender studies, crime and punishment, as well as consulting digitised instalments of the Diario de Madrid from 1788-1808.

I am currently teaching Spanish grammar on the Level 2 module SPA2101, and from Semester 2 I will also be contributing to the Level 1 module SPA1101.