Profile

Dr Deborah Madden is a literary scholar and cultural historian of modern Spain, specialising in Iberian feminisms, women’s writing and histories, memory and gender politics, and health humanities. Central to her academic work are the intersections of sex, culture and political history, with a particular focus on gender and memory politics, ideologically-motivated resistance and oppression, sexual(ised) violence, and the politics of prostitution, pregnancy and abortion.

Recent and ongoing research projects include: sexual violence narratives and rape culture in Spain, which included a fellowship at the Complutense University of Madrid funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2020-2022); and collaboration on the transnational Heritages of Hunger project (Radboud University, Netherlands; 2020-2025), focalising the imbrication of gender, the politicisation of food, and discourses on hunger in (post-)Civil War and (post-)Francoist Spain.

Current research interests and works in progress centre on: hunger and the 'hunger years' in contemporary Spanish fiction; sexed manifestations of shame in (post-)Francoist Spain; and legal and feminist discourses on rape, from the Transition to the present day.

Deborah's work dialogues with the School of Global Affairs' research themes of Global Health & Disability, World Literatures & the Arts, Global Languages & Social Justice and Environmental & Social Change, and contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals by promoting (3) good health and wellbeing, (5) gender equality, (10) reduced inequalities, and (16) peace, justice and strong institutions.