Dr Caragh Wells BA Hons (London) MA (Exeter) PhD (Exeter)
Contact Details
Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies
Following my undergraduate degree, I lived and worked in Spain and Catalonia for a number of years. I returned to undertake a Masters degree in Contemporary European Literature, Culture and Society at the University of Exeter, where I remained to carry out doctoral research into literary representations of Barcelona in contemporary Spanish and Catalan fiction. Prior to taking up my current post in the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol, I taught at the University of Exeter.
Research interests: The post-war Spanish novel; Contemporary Urban fiction in post-war Spain and Catalonia; Women’s writing; Narrative theory; The European Novel; Short Fiction. Special interest in the following writers: Eduardo Mendoza, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Quim Monzó, Montserrat Roig and Carmen Laforet.
Post-graduate inquiries on any of these areas or writers would be welcome.
Current research: Co-editing a volume of essays on digressive fiction in the European novel from Cervantes to Sebald. Writing a monograph on the novels and short stories of Carmen Laforet. Ongoing research into the ‘gran novel.la sobre Barcelona’ debate and the relationship between aesthetics and contemporary Catalan literary criticism.
I am coordinator of the MA in European Literatures. Please contact me if you have any academic inquiries regarding this taught MA programame
Publications:
- Wells, C. (2001) ‘The City of Words - Eduardo Mendoza’s La ciudad de los prodigios’, The Modern Language Review July, 96, pp. 715-722.
- Wells, C. (2002) Entries on Bernardo Atxaga, Ray Loriga, Eduardo Mendoza and Quim Monzó in Barry Jordan, An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture (London: Arnold)
- Wells, C. (2004) ‘Urban Dialectics in the Detective Fiction of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’, Forum for Modern Language Studies January, XL, pp. 83-95.
- Wells, C. (2004) ‘Re-presenting the City in Quim Monzó’s L’illa de Maians’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies January, 81, pp. 81-94.
- Wells, C. (2005) ‘Los articuentos de Juan José Millás: la crítica democrática’, Insula703-704, pp. 35-37.
- Wells, C. (2005) ‘El uso y significando de la ropa incongruente en las ‘Novelas de Detectives’ de Eduardo Mendoza’, in José V. Saval (ed.), La verdad sobre el caso Mendoza, (Madrid: Fundamentos), pp. 103-116.
- Wells, C. (2007) ‘The City's Renovating Virtue: Urban Epiphanies in the Novels of Carmen Laforet, Carmen Martín Gaite, Montserrat Roig and Rosa Montero’ Journal of Romance Studies 7, 1, Spring 2007, pp. 7-19.
- Wells, C. (2007) 'The Case of Barcelona in Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's Detective Fiction' Romance Studies Vol. 25 (4), November 2007, pp.277-286.
- Wells, C. (2008) 'The Poetics of the 'Gest Inútil' in Quim Monzó's Benzina' Bulletin of Spanish Studies 85.3, pp. 307-324.
- Wells, C. (2008) 'The Case for Nostalgia and Sentimentality in the Detective Fiction of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán' Hispanic Review (Summer), pp. 281-297.
- Wells. C. (2008) 'The Freedom of the Aesthetic: Montserrat Roig's Use of the City in Ramona, adéu' Catalan Review Vol. 21, pp. 87-99.
- Alexis Grohmann and Caragh Wells (eds) (2011) Digressions in European Literature: From Cervantes to Sebald (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
- Wells, C (2011) 'A Close Reading of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán's Use of Digression in Selected Novels from the 'Serie Carvalho,' Bulletin of Spanish Studies (forthcoming)
Teaching:
My teaching at both under-graduate and post-graduate level is closely linked to my research interests.
Units taught at undergraduate level have included:
Writing, Society and Politics in Franco’s Spain; The Poetics of the Spanish Short Story; Searching for an Identity: Post-war Writing by Women; Spain in Transition: Literature, Culture and Society.
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