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 1st Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (1997)
'Pérez Galdós: The illusion of life itself' by the Rt Hon Roy Hattersley MP

The 2nd 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 3rd 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 4th Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (2001)
'Gifts in the work of Galdós' by Professor Rodolfo Cardona (Boston University)

The 5th Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture (2002)
'Galdós: Our contemporary' by Professor James Whiston (Trinity College, Dublin)

The 6th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2003)
'Galdosian odysseys' by Professor Diane Urey (Illinois State University)

The 7th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2004)
'"What is the stars?" Galdós and the measures of mankind' by Emeritus Professor Nicholas G. Round

The 8th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2005)
'Cervantes in Galdós' by Professor Francisco Caudet (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

The 9th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2006)
'Galdós and myth' by Professor Eamonn Rodgers (University of Strathclyde)

The 10th Pérez Galdós Lecture (2007)
'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)