Sergio Martínez Rey
Sergio Martínez Rey is a PhD candidate and Gerald J. Lieberman Fellow in the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University.
His dissertation, Spectacular Intimacies: Commodified Bodies, Pornographic Sensibility and the Cultural Market in Nineteenth-Century Spain, examines the intersections of sexuality, commerce, and cultural production in modern Iberia. His project intervenes in the fields of porn studies, nineteenth-century Spanish studies, and cultural history by introducing "pornographic sensibility" as a new analytical category to approach cultural production at the time, locating the 'pornification' of Spanish culture in the late nineteenth century, rather than treating it as an exclusively contemporary phenomenon. Through an analysis of overlooked cultural objects across genres without an easy fit in present scholarly conversations, Spectacular Intimacies examines how the commodification of culture reshapes the representation of the body in late nineteenth-century Spain through means that cannot be divorced from the rise of pornography.
His interdisciplinary research spans gender and sexuality studies, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hispanic Transatlantic literature and culture, modern Iberia, the history of the body, transatlantic studies, and popular culture. He holds an MPhil with Distinction in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures from the University of Cambridge; an MA in Spanish Language Pedagogy from the University of Utah; and a BA in Spanish Language and Literatures from the University of Oviedo.
At Stanford, Sergio has taught courses ranging from Modern Iberian Literatures and Magical Realism to Food Studies. He is the founder and coordinator of Trash! The Global Pop Culture Reading Group and has previously coordinated the Race and Gender in the Global Hispanophone Research Group. He has presented at numerous international conferences and has organized and directed multiple academic events, such as the August 2022 international Aleph conference “Ways to Think the Body” in Cambridge, or the 2024 CLAS Tinker Foundation Conference “Ifigenia, 100 años después,” at Stanford University.
His work has been published in high impact journals such as Sexuality and Culture and Hispanic Review, among others.
Recent Publications:
- “The Sportsman's Shadows. Degeneracy, Productivity and Physical Education in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain.” Siglo Diecinueve, 2026. (in Spanish, agreed for a Special Issue, Jan-Feb 2027)
- “A Celtic Indiana. Hispanism, Cuban Nostalgia and Transatlantic Asturianness in the Prose of Eva Canel.” Hispanic Review, Winter 2027. (In Spanish)
- “Measuring Up. Machismo, the Enlightenment and the Representation of Phallic Size in Modern Spain.” Sexuality and Culture, Springer Nature, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-025-10463-9
Edited Monograph:
- Carlos I. Crespo, and Sergio Martínez Rey (eds.), Horizontes de la historia del cuerpo en las literaturas y culturas iberoamericanas: nuevas perspectivas desde la Edad Media al presente, Sílex, 2025, Madrid.https://www.silexediciones.com/producto/horizontes-de-la-historia-del-c…
Honors and Awards:
- Gerald J. Lieberman Fellowship 2025-2026
- Centennial Teaching Assistant Award 2025
- Ric Weiland Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities and Sciences 2024-2026.