Maricas Queer Cultures and State Violence in Argentina and Spain, 1942–1982

This will be the UK book launch of Maricas Queer Cultures and State Violence in Argentina and Spain, 1942–1982 (University of Nebraska Press, 2024). In this book, I bring to the forefront the erotic and cultural creativity of subjects who carved out their own space in metropolitan and rural milieus in Argentina and Spain between the 1940s and the 1980s. This perspective shifts the focus of queer & trans Latin American history to non-elite actors––rural and low-income populations, recruits and prisoners, fans of flamenco music, and defendants’ mothers––and to spirituality, folk music, fashion and performance, and visual and material culture. The lexicon of queer stigma and self-affirmation in Spanish (puto, mariquita, marica, maricón) was disputed by historical actors in different positions of power––including self-identifying maricas, their relatives and neighbors, police officers, forensic doctors, judges, homophile intellectuals, and gay activists.Bio 

Javier Fernández-Galeano is a historian of twentieth-century Argentina and Spain. His research and teaching interests include gender and sexuality in Latin America and Iberia, queer history, state violence, and global activist politics. His first book, titled Maricas: Queer Cultures and State Violence in Argentina and Spain, 1942–1982 (University of Nebraska Press, 2024, https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496234971/), traces the erotic lives and legal battles of Argentine and Spanish gender-nonconforming people. His second book, titled Queer Obscenity: Erotic Archives in Dictatorial Spain (Stanford University Press, 2024, https://www-sup.stanford.edu/books/cite/?id=35683) adds a rich complexity to both the history and theory of pornography, demonstrating that surveillance depends entirely on documenting intimacy and preserving transgression. Javier has a PhD in History from Brown University, where he graduated as a Mellon/ACLS fellow; a MA in Historical Studies from the New School for Social Research, where he was a Fulbright scholar; and two BAs in history and anthropology (both cum laude) from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. He has published in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, the Latin American Research Review, and Radical History Review, among others.