Professor Mary Vincent
M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.) FRHistS
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Professor of Modern European History
Vice President for Education
Ex-officio Member of Senate 2019-
Member of the Research England Advisory Group 2023-
Chair of the Advisory Board, Institute of Historical Research (IHR) 2019-2023
Trustee, IHR Trust 2019-2023
+44 114 222 1003
Full contact details
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
VPE Office, The Rotunda
Firth Court
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
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My main research interests lie in the history of modern Spain, particularly in the period of the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship (1931-75), I have also published widely in the history of gender.
While my earlier work looked at fascism and political violence, my current focus is on religious violence and the 'culture wars' of twentieth-century Spain.
An article in church burning was published in September 2022, which looks at the emotional effect of iconoclasm, and I am currently completing a monograph on 'Franco's Cusade'. From 2016-18 I held a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship to work on this project.
- Research interests
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Modern Spain, political and religious violence, iconoclasm and violence against objects, the history of gender.
- Publications
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Books
- Promoting Gender Equality in UK History: A Second Report and Recommendation for Good Practice. London: Royal Historical Society.
- The War for Legitimacy in Politics and Culture, 1936-1949. Oxford and New York: Berg.
- Spain, 1833-2002:People and State. OUP Oxford.
Journal articles
- Church Burning: Desecrating and Recreating Sacred Space in Twentieth-Century Spain. Journal of Modern History, 94(3).
- View this article in WRRO The "martyrdom of things": Iconoclasm and its meanings in the Spanish Civil War. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 2020.
- Understanding Violence. Contemporary European History, 29(3), 285-288.
- La Semana Santa en el Nacional-Catolicismo: espacio urbano, arte e historia. El caso de Valladolid (1939-1949) [Holy Week and the Creation of National-Catholicism in Spain: Urban Space, Art and History in Valladolid, 1939-49]. Historia y Politica: ideas, procesos y movimientos sociales, 38, 91-127. View this article in WRRO
- Ungodly Citizens: Protestants in National-Catholic Spain, 1939-53. European History Quarterly, 45(1), 108-131. View this article in WRRO
- Spain and the shadow of the civil war. History Today, 63(4).
- Inbal Ofer . Señoritas in Blue: The Making of a Female Political Elite in Franco's Spain . (Sussex Studies in Spanish History.) Brighton, England: Sussex Academic Press. 2009. Pp. x, 160. $65.00.. The American Historical Review, 116(4), 1202-1203.
- Expiation as Performative Rhetoric in National-Catholicism: The Politics of Gesture in Post-Civil War Spain. PAST & PRESENT, 235-256.
Chapters
- “To Be Consumed in Suffering for His Love” *, Catholics and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Global World (pp. 56-74). Routledge
- Religion, The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Spanish Civil War (pp. 257-272).
- »Um seiner Liebe willen von Leiden verzehrt zu werden«: Gewalt, Religion und Gegenrevolution im Spanien der Restaurationszeit In Bouwers E (Ed.), Glaubenskämpfe: Katholiken und Gewalt im 19. Jahrhundert (pp. 289-312). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
- Religion: The idea of catholic Spain, Metaphors of Spain: Representations of Spanish National Identity in the Twentieth Century (pp. 122-141).
- Political Violence and Mass Society: A European Civil War? In Doumanis N (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945 Oxford University Press
- Made Flesh? Gender and Doctrine in Religious Violence in Twentieth-Century Spain In de Groot J & Morgan S (Ed.), Sex, Gender and the Sacred Reconfiguring Religion in Gender History (pp. 272-286). John Wiley & Sons
- Religión e identidad nacional In Moreno Luzón J & Núñez Seixas X (Ed.), Ser españoles: Imaginarios nacionalistas en el siglo XX (pp. 207-245). Barcelona: Rba Libros.
- Spain Oxford University Press
- Breaking the Silence? Memory and Oblivion since the Spanish Civil War In Ben-Ze'ev E, Ginio R & Winter J (Ed.), Shadows of War: A Social History of Silence in the Twentieth Century (pp. 47-67). New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Culture and Legitimacy In Conway M & Romijn P (Ed.), The War for Legitimacy in Politics and Culture, 1936-1949 (pp. 147-176). Oxford and New York: Berg.
- View this article in WRRO La paz de Franco: el concepto de jerarquía en la España de la posguerra, Religión y política en la España contemporánea (pp. 83-105). Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales.
Book reviews
- Kent Eaton, Protestant Missionaries in Spain, 1869–1936: ‘Shall the Papists Prevail?’. European History Quarterly, 46(2), 348-349. View this article in WRRO
- When the Sun Danced: Myth, Miracles, and Modernity in Early Twentieth-Century Portugal. By Jeffrey S. Bennett. Studies in Religion and Culture. Edited by John D. Barbour and Gary L. Ebersole.Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012. Pp. xiv+238. $55.00 (cloth); $24.50 (paper).. The Journal of Modern History, 87(1), 214-215.
- The Making of a Female Political Elite in Franco's Spain. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, 116(4), 1202-1203.
- The collapse of the Spanish Republic, 1933-1936: Origins of the Civil War. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, 112(5), 1616-1617.
- Franco's Justice: Repression in Madrid after the Spanish Civil War - By Julius Ruiz. History, 92(306), 275-275.
Conference proceedings papers
- View this article in WRRO La masculinidad en la construcción del nacionalcatolicismo después de la Guerra Civil. Feminidades y Masculinidades en la Historiografía de Género (pp 127-160). Granada, 24 September 2015 - 25 September 2015.
- View this article in WRRO Reparation : the aftermath of iconoclasm in Franco's Spain. Imágenes, devociones y prácticas religiosas: La Europa del Sur (1800-1960) (pp 279-298). Valladolid, 13 September 2017 - 15 September 2017.
- Research group
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Research supervision
I welcome applications from postgraduate students with an interest in the history of Spain as well as those working on civil wars, political violence, modern Catholicism, and the history of gender.
- Current Students
- Completed Students
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- Carla Gutierrez Ramos - Organised Labour and Nationalism in the Long 1970s: Class, Democracy and the Sub-state Nations of Scotland and Galicia
- Joel Baker - 'Anti-politics', infrastructure policy and civil society mobilisations in Spain under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923-1930)
- Imen Neffati - The Politics of Offence in Hara Kiri and Charlie Hebdo 1960-2015
- Sabine Hanke (second supervisor) - National identity and cultural difference in the British and German circus, 1920-1945
- Vicki Pugh - Problem bodies and sideshow space: A study of twentieth century sideshow in Blackpool 1930-1940.
- Stephanie Wright - Franco's 'Mutilated Gentleman': Masculinity and War Disability in Modern Spain, 1936-1976.
- James Yeoman - Print Culture and the Formation of the Anarchist Movement in Spain: 1890-1915.
- Matthew Kerry - Radical Politics in the Spanish Second Republic: Asturias, 1931-1936.
- Ruth Fisher (Hispanic Studies) - Resistance and Survival: Deconstructing the Narratives of Women Political Prisoners after the Spanish Civil War.
- David Lyon (MPhil) - The penitentiary of El Puerto de Santa María and a Basque Dimension.
- Rebecca Mytton (second supervisor) - Revolutionary Masculinities in the IRA, 1916-1923.
- Hannah Parker (second supervisor) - Voices of the New Soviet Woman: Gender, Emancipation and Agency in Letters to the Soviet State, 1924-1941.
- Ryosuke Yokoe (second supervisor) - Medical understandings of alcohol and the liver in twentieth-century Britain.
- David Page (MPhil, second supervisor) - Pioneers of European Federalism: the New Europe Group and New Britain Movement (1931–1935).
- Grants
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Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship 2016-18
- Teaching interests
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Undergraduate
- HST112 Paths from Antiquity to Modernity
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Royal Historical Society - Fellow
- Contemporary European History - Member of the editorial board
- Gender and History - Member of the editorial collective
- Historia Contemporánea - Member of the advisory board
Previous administrative roles
- Head of Department (2012-15).
- Vice-President, Royal Historical Society (2013-17)
- Council Member, University of Sheffield (2014-17)
- Chair, Senate Academic Assurance Committee (2018-19)
- Elected Member of Senate (2015-19)
- Public engagement
In the media
- Spain 40 Years On: The Historical Legacy of Franco's Dictatorship (podcast)
- 'The Spanish Civil War', BBC Radio 4's In Our Time hosted by Melvyn Bragg
- Picasso's Guernica BBC Radio 4's In Our Time hosted by Melvyn Bragg