Alfredo Martinez-Exposito

Alfredo Martínez-Expósito - University of Melbourne. Australia

Professor Alfredo Martínez-Expósito holds a Chair of Excellence within the UC3M Departament of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication from 1 October until 31 December 2019. Professor Martínez-Expósito joined the University of Queensland, Australia, in 1993 and the University of Melbourne in 2011 as Professor of Spanish. He has made extensive contributions to the teaching and research of Spanish culture in Australia: he was Head of School at both Queensland and Melbourne universities between 2006 and 2019; he was president of the Australian Association for Iberian and Latin American Studies; he was Honorary Consul of Spain; he has been Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities since 2009; he has been distinguished with the Spanish Cross of Civil Merit. Professor Martínez-Expósito makes regular contributions to the Australian Research Council and the New Zealand PBRF. He is an editorial member of numerous academic journals in the fields of Spanish Studies, Film Studies, Gender Studies and Cultural Studies. He has published 150 academic papers and book chapters as well as 7 books, including Live Flesh: the Male Body in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (IB Tauris, 2007, co-authored with Santiago Fouz-Hernández), Cuestión de imagen: cine y Marca España (Academia del Hispanismo, 2015) and Repensar los estudios ibéricos desde la periferia (Ca' Foscari, 2019, co-edited with José Colmeiro).

Research stay at UC3M: DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Project:

Professor Alfredo Martínez-Expósito’s UC3M Chair of Excellence Project seeks to explore the image of Spain in Catalan cinema (or, more precisely, films made in Catalonia) since 1979. For this Project, the cinema from Catalonia is reframed as an epiphenomenon of broader political and cultural discourses where the semiotic signifier /Spain/ is coded in diverse and even contradictory ways. Films by iconic film directors Ventura Pons, Bigas Luna and Isabel Coixet are exemplary of such variety. The Project seeks to trace both continuities and discontinuities in this kind of representations, using three historical events (1979 Catalan Statute, 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, and the 2008 Crisis) as pivotal moments. This project draws on previous concepts and findings, such as place-image and nation branding. In addition, the project’s methodological toolbox borrows from anthropology and sociology (otherness, authenticity, stereotypes, gaze theory), queer theory and affect theory.

Professor Martínez-Expósito can be contacted at Alfredo.m@unimelb.edu.au and Alfredo.martinez@uc3m.es