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Southern Miss Professor Receives Hispanex Program Grant

Fri, 10/16/2015 - 10:16am

Dr. Alejandro Gomez-del-Moral

The Hispanex Program has awarded a grant to Dr. Alejandro Gomez-del-Moral, an assistant professor of history at The University of Southern Mississippi. The program, administered by the Spanish Ministry of Culture, is used to promote Spanish research and culture in collaboration with foreign universities and scholars.

Gomez-del-Moral, who teaches history at the Southern Miss Gulf Park campus, explains that the Hispanex program grant, along with a grant he received from the College of Arts and Letters last year, will fund his research next summer. The grant will allow him to do the research necessary for three projects.

The first project is focused on Gomez-del-Moral's book manuscript, tentatively titled “Buying into Change: Mass Consumer Revolution and the Sociopolitical Transformation of Franco's Spain, 1939-1982.” He says the manuscript draws heavily from his doctoral research, which he is currently preparing for publication.

“This grant will additionally permit me to begin researching my second project, which examines the development of a mass merchandising sector within the world of global futbol/soccer,” Gomez-del-Moral said.

He has started researching the archives of the Futbol Club Barcelona, nicknamed “Barça.” Research from the club's archives will be necessary for the article he is writing, conditionally titled “Brand Barça.” Gomez-del-Moral said the article will focus on the emergence of the club as a brand with an extensive merchandising apparatus behind it and the ways this has become involved with the Catalan independence movement.

Most importantly, the grant will provide an opportunity to gather documents for an online exhibit of historical primary sources about 19th and 20th century Spain.

“Such a sourcebook is much needed as there exists only a single document reader for my own discipline that is published in English, and therefore, usable in an American classroom. It is my hope that once developed, such a sourcebook will benefit from the collaboration of other scholars of understudied regions and periods,” Gomez-del-Moral said.

For more information about Dr. Gomez-del-Moral, his research and the Department of History, visit http://www.usm.edu/history/faculty/alejandro-gomez-del-moral.