What’s in a Name? Lorca, Cinema, and the Allure of Personality – Professor Federico Bonaddio

In this Valedictory Lecture, Federico Bonaddio will reflect on the question of (im)personality as it relates to the poetry of Federico García Lorca and to academic methodology. He will connect his work on Lorca to his research on Spanish cinema, showing how Lorca’s fundamental interest in human life resonates in his forthcoming book on films made during Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Across the lecture, he will consider tensions between human and aesthetic concerns in art; between popular and experimental forms; and between history and art. He will also explore the relevance of (auto)biography to our understanding of both the object of study and the motivations that lead us to study it in the first place.

Federico Bonaddio joined King’s College London in 1998. Prior to that, he held academic posts at the universities of Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Hull. At King’s, he was Chair of the School of Arts & Humanities Learning & Teaching Committee from 2008 to 2014, and Head of Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies from 2014 to 2020.

He is best known for his work on the poetry of Federico García Lorca. He has been a guest panellist on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time and Free Thinking. His publications include A Companion to Federico García Lorca (Tamesis, 2007), Federico García Lorca: The Poetics of Self-Consciousness (Tamesis, 2010), and Federico García Lorca: The Poetry in All Things (Tamesis, 2022). In his forthcoming book, Screening the Transition: Spanish Cinema and the Challenges of Democracy (Intellect, 2026), he turns his attention to film.