Collaborator in the Research Area, Education Area and Editing Area
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
He currently teaches History of Social and Political Movements at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), where he also coordinates the double international degree in Political Sciences from the UCM (Madrid, Spain) and Sciences Politiques Toulouse (Toulouse, France).
Previously, José Luis led a rather itinerant life. He worked as a researcher at Yale University (New Haven, 2007-2008) and, prior to that, at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid as part of the program ‘Juan de la Cierva’ (2014-2017). Between those years, he taught Contemporary History at the University of Zaragoza (Spain, 2008-2013). He was also a visiting scholar at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne (1999-2000) and at the London School of Economics (2000). He was awarded a research grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, as well as from the Government of Aragón (“Amarga Memoria” Program) (2007).
His main research focuses on the violence during Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the postwar years, although he has other research interests such as Spanish Anarchism, the 2nd Republic, Contemporary Spanish Anticlericalism, and Memory and Representation of Civil War. One of his current projects is the study, from a comparative perspective, of other acts of violence, civil war and revolution in Europe from 1914 to 1945.
José Luis has organized more than ten academic conferences and seminars and has published near a hundred articles and chapters in books. He also published Los días de llamas de la revolución: violencia y política en la retaguardia republicana de Zaragoza durante la guerra civil (2004), co-authored Violencia roja y azul. España 1936-1945 (2010) and Manuel Buenacasa: militancia, cultura y acción libertarias (2005). He has co-edited several books: the twelve-volume La Guerra Civil en Aragón (2006), Culturas y políticas de la violencia. España siglo XX (2005), Avenida de la República (2007), La II República en la encrucijada: el segundo bienio (2009) and La República del Frente Popular: reformas, conflictos y conspiraciones (2010).
He is currently finishing a book about violence on the Republic side and another about the Council of Aragón (1936-1937). He is also coordinating a book about militias and Spanish volunteers in 19th-and-20th-century wars.
He has collaborated in the daily newspaper Público (from Madrid) and he collaborates in the Heraldo de Aragón (from Zaragoza). He is a member of the editorial board in the journals Spagna Contemporánea (Turín), Rubrica Contemporanea (Barcelona) and XIX y Veinte. Revista de Historia y Pensamiento Contemporáneos (Zaragoza).