Julian Casanova

Julián Casanova is a Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Zaragoza and a Visiting Professor at the Central European University of Vienna. Casanova is one of Spain’s foremost historians of the 20th century and one of the world’s greatest historians of the Spanish Civil War. His many books have been published in Spanish and English and some translated into other languages. In April 2021 the Government of Aragon (Spain) awarded him the “Premio de las Letras Aragonesas” 2020 for "his long career, the scientific quality of his texts, the vigour and agility of his essay style, his ability and willingness to communicate, and the social commitment of his work".

Casanova has been a visiting professor at several prestigious European and American universities: Queen Mary College, London, Harvard University, University of Notre Dame, the New School for Social Research, and FLACSO (Quito, Ecuador). In 2018-19, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In 2022-2023, he was a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia at the University of Michigan

He also serves on the editorial boards of journals in Spain and elsewhere. Casanova is also a public intellectual, contributing to regularly to Spanish media on issues relating to history and historical memory. In 2006, TVE (Spanish public television) commissioned him to select and present eight programmes of documentaries made during the Spanish Civil War and he served as historical advisor for Alejandro Amenábar's prize-winning 2019 film While at War.

He has supervised 36 PhD theses.