Lázaro García Angulo (Spanish and Portuguese) is a 2024–2025 HRI Graduate Fellow. His project, “‘Yet Another Woman-Man’: Representations of Gender Nonconformity in Spain, 1880–1939,” seeks to analyze the multiple, and sometimes contradictory, narratives that developed in media around the subject of gender nonconformity, and their evolving relationship to questions of race, class, modernity, and national identity.
Learn more about HRI’s Campus Fellowship Program, which supports a cohort of faculty and graduate students through a year of dedicated research and writing in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment.
What is unique about your research on this topic?
My research is part of an ongoing effort in Spanish Peninsular Studies to remember—or, as this year’s HRI theme suggests, to think again—about Spain’s late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Francoist dictatorship, in part due to its longevity, succeeded in erasing from collective memory the fact that the decades preceding the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) were far more interesting, weirder, messier, and especially queerer than most of us tend to imagine. More specifically, my research focuses on representations of queerness, transness, and gender-nonconformity during that era, both in fiction and non-fiction. I examine a variety of cultural artifacts and archival records, and I analyze how these representations interact with other contemporary debates, such as the rise of feminism, discourses about race and Spanish national identity, and changes in the publishing and literary industries.
What drives your interest in this research?
Many different things, depending on the day! Right now, I am struck by the eerie parallels between some anti-LGBT discourses from over a century ago and those being raised today. However, what initially drove my interest in this research was a feeling of wonder, curiosity, and disbelief. Like many other scholars in the field, when I first encountered a novel by early twentieth-century writer Álvaro Retana, I could not believe my eyes. It was hard to reconcile my preconceived ideas of the Spanish past with the fact that openly queer novels—some of them very explicit!—had not only been conceived, written, and printed, but were bestsellers of the era.
Something that fascinates me is that we tend to imagine our queer and trans ancestors as “lacking” something: access to certain labels or terms, procedures, substances, or ways of understanding themselves. The more you learn about the past—any past—the more you realize that people have always found ways to understand themselves and to live exciting and fulfilling lives. The Spanish literary and cultural archive, like many others, shines with possibility, and shows that there are many ways of thinking about sexuality and gender—and some of those we have forgotten all about.
How has the fellowship seminar shaped the way you’re approaching your research?
The fellowship seminar has been consistently inspiring and eye-opening, and one of my favorite events of this academic year. I would say that it has not only reshaped the way I approach my research by making me aware of many dimensions I had not been paying enough attention to, but it has also transformed the way I write and read, as well as the way I offer and receive feedback. The interdisciplinary nature of the seminar ensures that multiple points of view and diverse areas of expertise are always represented in the room. This was incredibly beneficial when I presented my research. It turns out that, when writing a dissertation, one can get very caught up in the minutiae of their topic! The questions and feedback I received allowed me to take a step back and look at my work from a more holistic perspective, at every level of the text: from the content and the sources I was engaging with, to my argument, to the structure of the chapter itself. Every two weeks, I leave that room full of ideas and energy, and that enthusiasm is very much reflected in my research and writing.