We are delighted to announce the publication of the network’s first Working Paper in Spanish (castellano) penned by our colleague José Manuel Menudo, Associate Professor in History at the Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville (Spain) available in open access (pdf) here: ‘El ilustrado Pellizer: ¿Un científico irracional, un lingüista célebre?’

Below is an abstract in English:

Originally from Jatiel, a village in the Spanish province of Teruel, José Manuel Pellicer García joined the Hispanic-Anglosphere through migration in the 1780s-1800s, a period of great of academic activity. A clergyman who stood out for his abilities to access political and academic power (ex. Benjamin Franklin, the Count of Aranda, Joseph Lalande, the Count of Mirabeau), he made use of practical knowledge to publish numerous scientific proposals —all of them rejected by academic institutions. In Paris and London, he was part of the circle of the Spanish embassy, giving him access to the first secretaries of state, from Floridablanca to Mariano Luis de Urquijo. This article reconstructs a part of his life, focusing on his scientific controversies and his contributions to the field of humanities. The biography reflects the great transformations that took place during those decades in Europe, as well as changes in the balance of power, particularly in relation to the Church that Pellizer defended at a time that it was losing part of its influence in the court, in science and in education.

The articles in the Working Paper Series on the Hispanic-Anglosphere constitute “work in progress”. They can be papers prepared for conferences, seminars or simply drafts for any other academic output. They are published to stimulate discussion and to contribute to the advancement of our knowledge of the Hispanic-Anglosphere. All texts are peer-reviewed as it is the norm for all the academic material in our website. The aim of the series is also to accelerate the public availability of the research undertaken by our international research network. An electronic version of the Working Paper Series is available at https://hispanic-anglosphere.com/open-investigations/working-papers/