Rob Granger
Rob Granger is a History research student. Rob's PhD is 'Manufacturing Consent: Life Under the Later Franco Regime, c.1964 – 1975'.
Project description
My study will explore the strategies employed by the Franco regime from the mid-1960s to 1975, to achieve social and political consent, and its parallel promotion of a so-called ‘culture of evasion’, in order to assess how far these contributed to its stability and longevity. It will not be exclusively a 'top-down' study, however; it will synthesise political, social and cultural history by analysing the regime's rhetorical, legislative and propagandistic tools for generating consensus, how these were mediated by both official and unofficial organs of dissemination, and how ordinary people responded. Personal testimony drawn from between 30 and 40 respondents, will be complemented by a rich cross-section of primary sources, comprising newspapers, newsreels, television, and archival diplomatic material.
This study aims to affirm the recent historiographical trend towards asserting the significance of the late Franco period (c.1959 - 1975) as a subject in its own right, rather than simply as a prologue or epilogue to what came before or after it respectively; 'to probe the so-called 'grey zones' of (outward) political passivity and explore the complexities, and sometimes, apparent contradictions, that characterised the attitudes and opinions of many Spaniards; and crucially, in creating a new body of primary evidence which will hopefully bequeath a valuable legacy to the field, to yield an exciting and insightful contribution to the scholarship on modern Spanish history.
Other Roles
Chair of the Newcastle University Postgraduate Forum, 2020 – 2021.
Seminar Leader on undergraduate module HIS1101: Historical Sources and Methods.
Teaching
English as a foreign language teacher, Aptitude Training Academy, Madrid, 2017 – 2019.
Conference Papers
- 'Manufacturing Consent: Life Under the Later Franco Regime, c.1964 – 1975', Newcastle University Postgraduate Forum Seminar Series, January 2020.
- 'Nightmares and Miracles: Franco's Madrid, 1939 – 1975', Newcastle University Postgraduate Forum Seminar Series, February 2021.
- Upcoming: 'Franco, 1959 – 1975: the Fading Dictator?', Edinburgh-Oxford Modern Spanish History Doctoral Seminar Series, April 2021.