Dr Mercedes Peñalba-Sotorrío

My profile

Biography

Visiting and honorary positions

Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies, Madrid (2015)

Projects

Public Lecture, ‘BeyoThe Spanish Civil War’, Tameside remembers the Spanish Civil War, Local Studies and Archives Centre, 26th November 2019.

Public Lecture: ‘Beyond the war: Nazi propaganda campaigns on Spanish soil during World War II’, Dublin Festival of History, 29th September 2016.

Screening of The Basque Swastika at the Cervantes Institute Dublin, 15th June 2016.

Co-Organiser of Distinguished Lecture Series Lingering Pasts: European Approaches to Historical Trauma, UCD School of History and Centre for War Studies, February-April 2016

Organiser of ‘History, memory and the trauma of the Spanish Civil War’, co-hosted by the Cervantes Institute, Science Gallery Dublin, and Centre for War Studies, 27th January 2016

Teaching

Subject areas

Modern European History, Nazi Germany, Spanish Civil War, Franquismo, War propaganda, Neutrality studies

Research outputs

My current research, funded by the Irish Research Council, aims to enhance our understanding of the effects of Nazi propaganda on Spain’s foreign and domestic policy during World War II. I conducted most of the work related to this project at the Centre for War Studies (University College Dublin) where I spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow.

More broadly I am interested in the impact of war over neutral countries, the history of authoritarian and fascist regimes - in fact my PhD was an analysis of the early history of the Spanish fascist party and the Franco regime -, the analysis of their propaganda and its relation to policy-making and the spreading of violence.