Dr Peter Baker

Senior Lecturer

Spanish Stirling

Dr Peter Baker

Contact details

About me

I am a Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies in the Division of Literature and Languages. I joined the Division in 2018 after having taught in Newcastle and Durham Universities.

I teach on the undergraduate programme in Spanish and Latin American Studies, as well as giving occasional contributions to postgraduate teaching in the Faculty.

I am co-director of the Postcolonial Studies Research Group at Stirling, through which we hold a number of events each semester and promote the importance of postcolonial and decolonial theoretical approaches. I am also involved in a number of other initiatives across the university such as leading on the Inclusive Curriculum Short-Term Working Group from 2021-22, collaborations with other colleagues for Secondary School outreach and the promotion of Modern Languages, and am part of the Staff Netwerq and the LGBT+ student support contacts network.

Broadly speaking, my research interests focus on Iberian experiences of modernity and colonialism from the perspective of cultural studies and critical theory, especially where these questions intersect with notions of class, race and gender. For more detail, please see under the research tab.

I have research interests in critical race and Indigenous studies, critical and political theory (especially deconstruction, psychoanalysis and Marxism), the intellectual history of Spain and Latin America, and any study of cultural texts analysed from the perspective of those questions.

My individual research projects currently include finalising a monograph on the Bolivian Indigenous political movements of Indianism and Katarism, which is under contract with Tamesis in their Monografías series. Alongside this, I am in the initial stages of a new project studying the film production of Corporación Rupai and the Kichwa director Alberto Muenala in Ecuador, following from a project on Indigenous film funded by the British Academy.

I am also currently working on a number of collaborations. With other colleagues, we are in the initial stages of proposing a Digital Humanities project looking into the history of Indigenous film festivals in Latin America. With members of the same team, we are also working on the first extant translation of the classic third cinema text Teoría y práctica de un cine junto al pueblo by Jorge Sanjinés and the Grupo Ukamau, which will include a critical introduction. The rights to the translation are currently under discussion with the Fundación Ukamau, and we are planning a special issue with other scholars to commemorate the 45 years since its original publication.

Finally, I continue to be an active member in a wider research network focusing on fostering critical theory in Spanish, which meets regularly in a conference run by the Universidade de Vigo. With one of those members, we are currently writing an article on autographic writing practices, and seek to extend that collaboration with further research projects into the future.

Research programmes

Research themes