The Annual Pérez Galdós Lectures

In the thirty novels which form the core of his achievement, Galdós bears unique witness to the public and private life of Madrid in the years when it began to be a great modern city. Thrustful, yet accident-prone, shaped by powerful impersonal forces, yet full of intensely human passages of life, Galdós's Madrid is still our kind of city. As one of his finest critics wrote, "he makes us see more clearly when we look around us".

The Spanish Embassy and the University of Sheffield share the hope that the Pérez Galdós Lectures will make that experience available to a widening circle of readers.

The Lectures

The first Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (1997)
Pérez Galdós: The illusion of life itself by the Rt Hon Roy Hattersley MP

The second Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (1998)
Slice of life or autonomous creation? Galdós's novels within the realist tradition by Professor Geoffrey Ribbans (Brown University, USA)

The third Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (1999)
Sentimental genetics: The birth of the intimate human sphere in narrative (Miau) by Professor Germán Gullón (University of Amsterdam)

The fourth Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (2001)
Gifts in the work of Galdós by Professor Rodolfo Cardona (Boston University)

The fifth Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (2002)
Galdós: Our contemporary by Professor James Whiston (Trinity College, Dublin)

The sixth Perez Galdos Lecture (2003)
Galdosian odysseys by Professor Diane Urey (Illinois State University)

The seventh Pérez Galdós Lecture (2004)
'What is the stars?' Galdós and the measures of mankind by Emeritus Professor Nicholas G. Round

The eighth Pérez Galdós Lecture
Cervantes in Galdós by Professor Francisco Caudet (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

The ninth Pérez Galdós Lecture
Galdós and myth by Professor Eamonn Rodgers (University of Strathclyde)

The 10th Pérez Galdós Lecture
Galdós as traveller and travel writer by Professor Peter Bly (Queen's University, Canada)

The 11th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2011)
Galdós and Spanish cinema by Dr Sally Faulkner (University of Exeter)

The 12th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2012) (PDF, 196KB)
Galdós and 1812 by Dr Stephen Roberts (University of Nottingham)

The 13th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2013)
Death and the city in the work of Benito Pérez Galdós and Narcís Oller by Professor Elisa Martí-Lopez (Northwestern University, USA)

The 14th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2014)
'Percy' Galdós and his British readers, 1870-1920 by Dr Kirsty Hooper (University of Warwick)

The 15th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2015)
Galdós and medicine by Dr Michael Stannard (University of Exeter)