Rodrigo López Martínez wins award for most important study of 2022 at Bulletin of Spanish Studies

Rodrigo López Martínez has been awarded the James Whiston Memorial Prize for the most outstanding article of 2022 by the Bulletin of Spanish Studies.

The James Whiston Memorial Prize of £1,000 is awarded each year to the author of the article, on any subject within the field of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, which is judged by a panel of peer assessors to be the most original, accomplished and important study recently published or accepted for publication in the Bulletin of Spanish Studies or the Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies.

The Latin American Cultural Studies PhD student’s article ‘Essays in (Transatlantic) Transition: The Argentine Journal Sitio (1981–1987) and Alberto Cardín’s Como si nada (1981’, compares the Argentine journal Sitio (1981–1987) and Alberto Cardín’s book Como si nada (1981). He argues that both redefine the essay form in the face of the Argentine and Spanish democratic transitions. 

Professor Jo Evans, Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies, and chair of the judging panel, said: “Rodrigo’s meticulously researched and highly original article was described by our panel as “intellectually ambitious and persuasively argued with a refreshingly transnational comparative approach.”

“I am so glad that the Editors and reviewers of the Bulletin found value and originality in my work,” said López Martínez. “It has been intellectually motivating to review the transition through the challenging figure of Alberto Cardín and these usually overlooked transatlantic connections, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my outputs with the academic community. I hope I can continue researching these authors and periodicals during a future postdoctoral fellowship.”

López Martínez’ thesis examines fictional depictions of avant-garde groups of artists by authors such as Julio Cortázar, Roque Dalton and Roberto Bolaño. In parallel, he researches transatlantic links between literature and psychoanalysis within the Argentine and Spanish democratic transitions with a particular focus on the works of Alberto Cardín.

An annual prize of £1,000, donated from 2019 by Taylor & Francis Group, Publishers of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies and its sibling journal the Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies, has been established to honour the memory of James Whiston (1945–2017), Associate Professor, Fellow and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin and Member of the Royal Irish Academy. An internationally respected scholar of modern Spain, its history and culture, Professor Whiston was for many years (2002–2014) General Editor of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies.

The Bulletin of Spanish Studies was founded at Liverpool in 1923 by the influential British Hispanist E. Allison Peers, and is a learned review dedicated to research into the languages, literatures, histories, cultures and civilizations of Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Also known as the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (1949–2001), the Bulletin of Spanish Studies soon established a world-wide reputation, and is now recognised as one of the front-ranking journals in the field of Hispanic scholarship, publishing 10 issues per year. Sibling journal the Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies was established in 2017 and is published biannually.