Sebastiaan Faber

  • Professor of Hispanic Studies

Education

  • Doctorandus, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1995
  • PhD, University California Davis, 1999

Biography

Sebastiaan Faber has taught at Oberlin since 1999. He is the author of Exile and Cultural Hegemony: Spanish Intellectuals in Mexico, 1939-1975 (Vanderbilt, 2002), Anglo-American Hispanists and the Spanish Civil War: Hispanophilia, Commitment, and Discipline (Palgrave, 2008), Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photography (Vanderbilt, 2018), Exhuming Franco: Spain’s Second Transition (Vanderbilt, 2021, 2nd ed. 2023), translated as Franco desenterrado. La segunda Transición española (Pasado & Presente, 2022), and Leyendas negras, marcas blancas. La malsana obsesión con la imagen de España en el mundo (Contexto, 2022). He is also co-editor of Contra el olvido. El exilio español en Estados Unidos (U de Alcalá, 2009) and Transatlantic Studies: Latin America, Iberia, and Africa (Liverpool, 2019). From 2010 until 2015 and since 2018, he has served as the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA), whose quarterly magazine, The Volunteer, he co-edits. Faber regularly contributes to Spanish and U.S. media, including CTXT: Contexto y AcciónLa MareaFronteraDThe NationForeign AffairsConversación sobre la HistoriaJacobin, and Public Books.

See list of publications with links to full text

Fall 2024

Advanced Grammar and Composition — HISP 304
Nationalism, Culture, and Politics Under and After Dictatorship: Spain and Yugoslavia in the 20th Ce — HISP 340
Spain and Yugoslavia in the 20th Century LxC — HISP 342
Capstone — HISP 501

Notes

Sebastiaan Faber Coauthors Analysis of Spain's Parliamentary Elections

August 16, 2023

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has coauthored an analysis of Spain's parliamentary elections, which took place on July 23, for the Nation magazine. He also appeared on CNBC International and was quoted in articles on the topic in Vox, the Miami Herald, Montréal's La Presse, and the Dutch venue Nu. The second, revised edition of Prof. Faber's book Exhuming Franco: Spain's Second Transition is due out with Vanderbilt University Press in November.

 

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes Book on Spain's Image; Contributes to Article

December 1, 2022

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has published a short book about Spain's international image, Leyendas negras, marcas blancas. La malsana obsesión con la imagen de España en el mundo, in a series edited by the magazine Contexto. He has also contributed an article to a thematic issue of the Journal of Academic Freedom, published by the AAUP, on recent political challenges to academic freedom in history teaching and research. In October, he interviewed Astra Taylor about student debt relief in the United States and spoke in a podcast with Jacobin's Eoghan Gilmartin about the Spanish novelist Javier Marías, who died in September.   

Sebastiaan Faber Gives Interviews on New Book

May 20, 2022

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has given half a dozen interviews in the Spanish media—including El País, La Vanguardia, Contexto, and national public radio—about his newly translated book, Franco desenterrado. La segunda Transición española, which came out in early February. In March, Faber published a piece in The Conversation on the international volunteers in the Ukraine war and Spanish Civil war, in both English and Spanish.

Renee Romano quoted in Spanish magazine article written by Sebastiaan Faber

September 24, 2021

Robert S. Danforth Professor of History Renee Romano is quoted at length in a long-form article on the return of "patriotic" history in the United States and Europe, published in the Spanish magazine CTXT. The article is authored by Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber.

Sebastiaan Faber coauthors piece for The Nation; is featured in new podcast series

July 14, 2021

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has coauthored a piece in The Nation magazine on the Spanish government's decision to pardon nine Catalan leaders who were sent to prison for their involvement in a referendum for independence. Faber, whose new book Exhuming Franco (Vanderbilt University Press) came out in April, is also featured in Noiser's new podcast series Real Dictators, narrated by Paul McGann.

Sebastiaan Faber provides analysis of Madrid election

May 3, 2021

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber and co-author Bécquer Seguín analyze Madrid’s May 4 regional election, which could shape the future of Spanish politics in an article for The Nation, “The Center Cannot Hold in Spain, but Can the Left Take Advantage?

Sebastiaan Faber publishes book that explores the legacy of dictator Francisco Franco

April 5, 2021

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has published a new book. Exhuming Franco: Spain's Second Transition (Vanderbilt University Press) explores what is left of Francisco Franco's legacy in Spain today. For some, the recent exhumation of the dictator's remains from the massive monument in which they'd been buried since his death in 1975 confirmed that Spain is a modern, consolidated democracy. Yet in reality the country is still deeply affected—and divided—by the dictatorial legacies of Francoism.

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber interviewed about Spain's newly proposed memory law.

October 4, 2020

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed by Jacobin Magazine about Spain's newly proposed memory law, a topic about which he published an op-ed last week in the Spanish magazine Contexto. This past month, the same magazine has run Q&As by Faber with journalist Tim Weiner (on Russian meddling in the 2016 elections), photography curator Cynthia Young (on Robert Capa), and author Benjamin Moser (on his Susan Sontag biography), all in Spanish.

 

Sebastiaan Faber Interviewed on Spain's Efforts to Alleviate Economic Blow of COVID-19

April 13, 2020

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed on the Real News Network about efforts in Spain to alleviate the economic blow of COVID-19 with a form of permanent income for the lowest-earning segments of society. 

Sebastiaan Faber Interviewed about Impact of COVID-19 on Spain

March 30, 2020

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, was interviewed in a segment on the Real News Network about the impact of COVID-19 on the Spanish public healthcare system.  

Sebastiaan Faber Co-Authors Analysis

January 8, 2020

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber co-authored a piece in the Nation analyzing the Spanish parliment's vote to install its first progressive coalition government in more than 80 years.

Sebastiaan Faber Co-Authors Piece

November 25, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber co-wrote a piece in the Nation covering the negotiations and prospects for a progressive government in Spain.

Sebastiaan Faber Co-Edits Book

November 19, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber co-edited a new book with Liverpool University Press. Transatlantic Studies: Latin America, Iberia, and Africa is a 480-page volume with essays by 35 leading scholars working in Iberian, Latin American, African, and Luso-Brazilian studies. The other editors are Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel, Pedro García-Caro, and Robert Patrick Newcomb.   

Sebastiaan Faber Interviewed on Here & Now

October 25, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed on WBUR's Here & Now about what the exhumation of fomer Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco's remains means for Spain and the politics of memory.

Sebastiaan Faber Appears on DW News

September 25, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed on DW News about the decision by Spain's Supreme Court to exhume dictator Francisco Franco's remains from a large mausoleum near Madrid.

Sebastiaan Faber Interviews Joshua Sperling

September 6, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber interviewed Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies and Creative Writing Joshua Sperling about his biography of John Berger. The conversation was published in the Brooklyn Rail.

Sebastiaan Faber Writes Article, Gives Interview

August 2, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber coauthored the article "Will Spain Follow Europe’s Right-Wing Populist Trend?" in the Nation and was interviewed on the Real News Network about Spain's political impasse.

Sebastiaan Faber Writes Analysis, is Interviewed

April 30, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber co-wrote an analysis "In a Polarized Spain, Voters Give the Socialists Another Chance" in the Nation and spoke with the Real News Network about Spain's center-left Socialist Party win.

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes in The Nation

April 27, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber published "Chronicling the Age of Hobsbawm: A Q&A With Historian Richard Evans" in the Nation

Sebastiaan Faber Interviewed on Podcast

February 28, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber participated in a segment on University of Pennsylvania's Knowledge@Wharton podcast.

Sebastiaan Faber Interviewed

February 27, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber was interviewed on the Real News Network about Spain's struggle for its identity as Catalan independence leaders face trial.

Sebastiaan Faber Writes About Spain’s Left-Wing Party

February 11, 2019

Professor and Chair of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber wrote about Spain’s left-wing party Podemos in the Nation.

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes

January 14, 2019

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber's piece about Spain's radical right was published in the Nation.

Sebastiaan Faber Writes Story on Francisco Franco

November 13, 2018

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber's piece about General Francisco Franco titled "Spain Digs Up Its Past" was published in Foreign Affairs.

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes, is Interviewed

October 10, 2018

Sebastiaan Faber, professor and chair of Hispanic Studies, published an article about Amsterdam's new city government in the Nation magazine on October 2. On October 3, together with Gijs Mulder, he published an interview with the Catalan president-in-exile, Carles Puigdemont, in the Spanish Revista Contexto. On September 29, Faber was interviewed on the KPFA evening news (Berkeley, CA) about the escalating situation in Catalonia. He was also interviewed for the October issue of the monthly magazine La Marea about an investigative piece that revealed irregularities in the Ph.D thesis by Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sánchez--a topic that dominated Spanish national news in September.

Sebastiaan Faber Co-authors

June 1, 2018

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, co-authored an article in the Nation about governmental developments in Spain. Read the article, “As Spain’s Government Is Voted Out, Catalonia Continues Its Roller-Coaster Ride.”

Sebastiaan Faber Writes Feature

April 16, 2018

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, wrote a feature piece in the Nation, “Is Dutch Bad Boy Thierry Baudet the New Face of the European Alt-Right?”

Sebastiaan Faber Writes Book on the Spanish Civil War

December 13, 2017

Professor and Chair of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber wrote Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photography, published by Vanderbilt University Press.

The book traces the trajectories of iconic Spanish Civil War photographs by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and David Seymour; critically reads Spanish novels and essays; interrogates basic scholarly assumptions about history, memory, and literature; and interviews nine scholars, activists, and documentarians who have helped redefine Spain's relationship to its past.

Sebastiaan Faber Co-authors Article

December 5, 2017

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has co-authored an article in the Nation about political corruption in Spain. Read the article, "Spain's Conflict Over Catalonia is Covering Up Massive Political Corruption."

 

Sebastiaan Faber Interviewed Widely About Catalonia

October 6, 2017

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, was widely interviewed and quoted about the escalating situation in the Catalonian region of Spain. He co-authored an article in the Nation and was quoted in both the Washington Post and Bill Moyers' Daily Reads. Faber appeared on Democracy Now!, both in television and web features, Real News Network, Free Speech TV's Rising Up with Sonali , and on KPFT's Hi Monitor. He was also interviewed in Slate.

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes in the Nation

September 29, 2017

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, co-authored a piece about Catalonia's relationship with Spain for the Nation, "Have Spain and Catalonia Reached a Point of No Return?"

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes Article

February 24, 2017

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, has written an article "Why the Dutch Are Drawn to Right-Wing Populist Geert Wilders." The article was published in The Nation.

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastian Faber publishes articles

August 17, 2016

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has co-authored an article on Barcelona’s new city government for an ongoing series in The Nation called “Cities Rising.” He also has a review essay on Adam Hochschild’s new book in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Earlier this year, he co-authored several articles in The Nation on Spanish politics, while regularly publishing pieces in the Spanish magazines FronteraD, La Marea, and Contexto.

Sebastiaan Faber Co-Authors Two Articles

September 24, 2015

Two articles coauthored by Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies and chair of Latin American studies, and Bécquer Seguín were recently published in the Nation.

Read “The Spanish Media Are the Worst in Europe. These Upstarts Are Trying to Change That” and "Will Catalonia’s Regional Elections Lead to the Breakup of Spain?."

Sebastiaan Faber Coauthors Article

July 30, 2015

An article coauthored by Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies and chair of Latin American studies, and Bécquer Seguín was published in the Nation. Read the article, “Why the Spanish Government Opposes Debt Relief for Greece”.

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes

May 27, 2015

An article co-authored by Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies and chair of Latin American studies, and Bécquer Seguín was published in the Nation. The article, "In Spain’s Seismic Elections, ‘It’s the Victory of David Over Goliath’," discusses the shift in Spain's local and regional elections, which have changed the country's political landscape beyond recognition.

Sebastiaan Faber Publishes in The Nation

January 15, 2015

An article co-authored by Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies and chair of Latin American studies, and Bécquer Seguín was published in the Nation. The article, "Can Podemos Win in Spain," explores the ascension of Podemos, a political party in Spain founded just one year ago. The Nation subscribers can read the article here.

Sebastiaan Faber Gives Talks and Presents Human Rights Award

May 7, 2014

This past April 27, in New York City, Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber presented the fourth Annual ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, a $100,000 prize, to Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative. Earlier in April, Prof. Faber delivered keynote addresses at CUNY’s Annual Graduate Conference for Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures & Languages, and at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference in Lexington.

Sebastiaan Faber Presents and Publishes

February 12, 2014

Since the beginning of the fall semester, Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has published an essay about the crisis of the humanities in the Spanish magazine FronteraD; an interview with National Security Archive analyst Kate Doyle and two columns in the Spanish cooperative newspaper La Marea; an essay about Catalan exiles in Mexico in the journal Fractal; a review essay in the journal ALCESXXI; and two peer-reviewed articles: one on the legacy of Spanish Civil War exile in Mexico in Historia del Presente and another on postmemory in Pasavento. He also gave a keynote address in November at a conference in Madrid about fiction, justice, and historical memory. Earlier in 2013, he published an interview with LSE historian Paul Preston. The new edition of Guillermo del Toro’s 2001 gothic masterpiece The Devil’s Backbone that came out with the Criterion Collection this past July includes an interview with Faber in a 15-minute featurette about the film’s historical background; he was also interviewed in a documentary about war photographer Robert Capa, El món en què volíem viure (The World in Which We Want to Live), which was broadcast on Catalan television on January 14.

News

Henry O’Connor ’24 Awarded Critical Language Scholarship

April 7, 2021

“In learning a language, you open your eyes and mind to a whole new world of opportunities and people,” says Henry O’Connor ’24. As a Critical Language Scholarship recipient, he will spend the summer immersed in Mandarin.

Teaching in the New Normal: Professor Sebastiaan Faber

April 22, 2020

These days, the classroom has taken on new meaning for both faculty and students at Oberlin. In this edition of Teaching in the New Normal, Faber explains how a chance film assignment became a fitting discussion piece.