I have a BA in English Studies from the University of the Balearic Islands (2009) and a PhD in Hispanic Studies from Bangor University (2016). At Bangor I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant (2010-2015) and a Lecturer in Hispanic Studies (2015-2017). In 2016–2017 I was also a Visiting Lecturer in Catalan Studies at the University of Birmingham. From September 2017 to June 2019 I was a Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Exeter. I joined the University of Glasgow in July 2019.

I am a scholar who specialises on the interrelations between tourism, culture and local communities in Europe, contemporary Catalan literature and culture and the construction of identity in the Catalan-speaking lands within the wider Spanish context. Through a focus on the interactions between cultural production, grassroots movements and forms of political independence and community self-determination, my research seeks to locate the study of Catalan culture and mass tourism within global debates of our time: political authority and popular empowerment, cultural identity and the representation of the Other, linguistic and cultural sustainability, the interactions between mass tourism, climate emergency and community well-being.

I have published a number of outputs on Catalan Studies in English and Catalan, and I am the author of Quim Monzo and Contemporary Catalan Culture (1975-2018): Cultural Normalization, Postmodernism and National Politics (Legenda, 2021), which analyses the literary, cultural and artistic production of Catalan author Quim Monzó in relation to the key cultural and political paradigms in post-Francoist Catalonia. Quim Monzó is considered Catalonia’s most influential contemporary author, and my book is the first major study in English of the author’s oeuvre and trajectory.

‘Given the importance (cultural, social and political) that Monzó has in current Catalan culture, we must celebrate the publication of a study as fundamental as the one we are reviewing’ (International Journal of Iberian Studies)

‘Colom’s extraordinary book is already a landmark in studies of Monzó’s work’ (Els Marges)

‘As Guillem Colom brilliantly discusses in his study, contemporary Catalan literature, culture, and even politics cannot be understood without Monzó’ (Culture, Language and Representation)

‘The book is very thoroughly researched, both in terms of the broad span of Monzó’s work that it encompasses and the secondary materials that help elucidate its importance. In some senses it feels quite forensic […]. This attention to detail and nuance, combined with well-evidenced and clearly expressed arguments, means that Colom-Montero’s insightful book will be of interest to anyone working in contemporary Catalan cultural/literary studies’ (Journal of Catalan Studies)

My current project analyses literary, cultural and artistic representations of overtourism by resident communities, authors and artists in Spain, and I have recently extended my work to study cultural production and public discourses from overcrowded destinations in Europe, such as Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands and Western Islands, Cornwall, Lisbon and Venice. Through a focus on the cultural, discursive and symbolic aspects of leisure mobilities, I explore the impacts of mass tourism on housing, public services, right to the city and place, community identity, landscape (rural and urban) and the environment. I have published a number of outputs analysing the impacts of mass tourism on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, and I am currently working on a monograph about the cultural responses to overtourism on the island in the post-2010 period, tentatively entitled ‘Overtourism and Culture in Mallorca’. I am also working on a piece theorising the emergence of a ‘resident gaze’ in Europe associated to the turn to the resident at the core of the new historical moment of overtourism.

List by: Type | Date

• Overtourism in Majorca: Screening of 'Overbooking' and Q&A, £1000, The Dear Green Bothy, University of Glasgow, 2022.

• Tourism and Cultural Trauma in Contemporary Majorcan Culture, £480, Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland's 'Public Engagement Fund'. 2022. 

• Pedro Almodóvar Day, Chagford Film Festival, Devon, £450, Embassy of Spain, United Kingdom. 2018.

• Mobility Grant, Host Institution: University of Alacant, £833, Santander. 2013.

• Mobility Grant, Host Institution: University of the Balearic Islands, £715, Santander. 2012.

• Mobility Grant, Host Institution: University of the Balearic Islands, £1000, Santander. 2011.

I am delighted to hear from individuals wishing to pursue postgraduate study in the following areas:

• Catalan Studies

• Literary, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Tourism in Spain and Globally

• Contemporary Hispanic Literature and Cinema

• Comparative Literature

• Comics and Political Cartooning 

• National Identities in Spain

• Gender and Sexuality Studies

• Studies of Trauma in the Hispanic Context

• Environmental Humanities

• Li, Keni
  Senior Lecturer in Spanish (Hispanic Studies)

I teach on a number of courses in Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature as well as Spanish language:

· Tourism and Culture in Spain from the 1950s to the Present Day (Honours course)

. Text/Image Cultures: Theory and Practice (co-taught Honours course)

. Narrating the City: Representation of Urban Space in Literature and Film (co-taught Honours course)

· Hispanic Studies Dissertation

· Spanish Language 1 - Non Beginners (course convener)

· Spanish Culture 1

Contribution to the discipline and research collaborations.

I am the co-director of the 'Discourses of Sustainability Arts Theme' and the co-convenor of the Research Cluster 'Language and Society'. I am also a member of the 'Visual Culture' Research Cluster and of the 'Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Text/Image Cultures'.

I have delivered invited talks and lectures at the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia, Birmingham, Barcelona, Queen Mary London, Strathclyde, Open University of Catalonia, Alacant, Balearic Islands as well as the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Institut Ramon Llull and Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics. 

I am a member of the Committee of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) and I was in the Committee of the Anglo-Catalan Society (ACS) between 2017 and 2022. I am currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Catalan Studies (JOCS) and from 2016 until 2021 I was its Reviews Editor. I am also a member of the research group LiCETC – Contemporary Literature: Theoretical and Comparative Studies, based at the University of the Balearic Islands and led by Dr Margalida Pons (http://licetc.uib.cat/). 

I have co-organised the following conferences and symposiums:  

· Conference 'Communicating Sustainability', University of Glasgow, Goucher College and Universidade Federal de Sergipe, 6-7 September 2022.

· Symposium ‘La literatura catalana i el Premi Nobel’, Queen Mary University of London & University of Glasgow, 14 September 2021.

· ‘Linguacultural Spaces: Inclusion, Extension and Identification in Discourse and Society’, University of Glasgow, University of Bologna and University of Tilburg, 6-7 May 2021.

· ‘Cultural Responses to Overtourism in Europe’, with Prof Ulrike Zitzlsperger, University of Westminster, 18 June 2019. 

. ‘Cultura, conflicte i nous subjectes socials en la Mallorca contemporània’, with Dr Mercè Picornell, Universitat de les Illes Balears, 22 December 2017.

· 'Comics & Nation’, with Dr Dr Armelle Blin-Rolland and Dr David Miranda-Barreiro, Bangor University, 13-14 July 2017.

Public and media engagement 

Central to my approach is disseminating regularly my research to communities beyond academia through public engagement and media impact in English, Catalan and Spanish. I am also an active user of Twitter at @guillemcm.

Here is a summary of my public & media activities for my project on ‘Tourism & Culture’:

- On 23 December 2023, I reviewed the novel El holandes by Elisa Ferrer (Tusquets, 2023) in Babelia El Pais, print & online. 

- On 19 July 2023, I published the article '"Mallorca se hunde": turismo y trauma en la cultura mallorquina actual' in the Spanish online newspaper elDiario.es, online. This piece was an adapted translation into Spanish of the text I published in Catalan in the magazine Nosaltres in May 2023, online.

- In August 2023, Biblioteca de Cort, Palma de Mallorca’s oldest municipal library, organised a book exhibition based on my article on tourism, literature and identity on the island, published in Catalan in Nosaltres and in Spanish in elDiario.es, pics.  

- In 2023, I organised four screenings of the Mallorca documentary film "Overbooking" (Àlex Dioscòrides, 2019): a) Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, April, followed by a Q&A discussion with Dioscòrides; b) Castlebay Community School and Barra Learning Centre, May; c) Edinburgh Cine & Video Society, November, followed by a discussion with Eilidh Keay from Living Rent Edinburgh. 

- In the summer of 2022 I was awarded a Public Engagement Fund by the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland to organise three Reading Clubs with Majorcan community activists discussing the representation of tourism in Majorcan comics. You can see information and pictures here: Reading Club 1 info & pics; Reading Club 2 info & pics; Reading Club 3 pics.

On 24 September 2022 I participated in the Festival Literanit in Majorca discusssing comics on the island with Dr Francisca Lladó (Universitat de les Illes Balears): info & pics.

In December 2020, I published in the online Brave New Europe the article 'COVID Summer of 2020: from Overtourism to No-Tourism in Southern Europe', where I analysed how local communities in Southern European overtouristified destinations have experienced the summer of the pandemic.

My project on tourism has also received media attention in the Balearic Islands:

• On 28 August 2022, Jordi Amat discussed my work on tourism in Majorca on his Sunday column on the opinion pages of El País: printed & online. 

• On 22 January 2022, journalist Cristina Ros mentioned my research on tourism and trauma in Majorca in her weely article in Ara Balears: https://www.arabalears.cat/opinio/substitucio-cultural_129_4241046.html 
• On 15 January 2021, the newspaper Ara Balears picked up my research on how the unbalanced power dynamics between the North and South of Europe marginalise the Catalan language in the Majorcan real state sector: https://www.arabalears.cat/societat/anuncis-immobiliaris-Palma-exclouen-Catalanoparlants_0_2601339915.html 

• On November 1 2020, I was interviewed about my research on cultural responses to overtourism in Majorca in the 2010s by the newspaper Ara Balears, which dedicated its front cover and two pages to the topic. Here is my tweet of the printed version and here is a link to the online article: https://www.arabalears.cat/cultura/moviment-cultural-reacciona-contra-turisme-masses_0_2555144553.html  

• On 15 September 2019, my research was picked up by the Majorcan author Pere Antoni Pons in his weekly column in Ultima Hora. You can read the piece here: https://twitter.com/PonsPereAntoni/status/1173180111903952897

• On 2 August 2019, the newspaper Ara Balears published a two-page piece on my article on comics, tourism and cultural trauma in Majorca. Link to the online version: https://www.arabalears.cat/cultura/massificacio-turistica-Mallorca-trauma-cultural_0_2282171875.html

• On 31 October 2018, I featured in the TV programme ZoomIB3, broadcast by the Balearic Islands public TV channel IB3, where I talked about British tourism imaginaries of Mallorca and commented on recent problems of overtourism in the Spanish Mediterranean. You can watch the programme here: https://ib3.org/carta?id=7e9dd7ab-ddb0-44ac-adbf-7616e59abda7 (my participation is from 15:10–18:45).

• On 22 December 2017, I featured in a two-page interview on my project on tourism in Ara Balears. Link to the onlive version: https://www.arabalears.cat/premium/societat/Guillem-Colom-Montero-transformacions-Mallorca_0_1929407192.html. 

Here are some examples of the media impact of my book Quim Monzo and Contemporary Catalan Culture (1975-2918)

- On 22 November 2022 I featured in Podcast Interview with New Books Network & PleIbéricos, online

- On 7 October 2022 I published the entry on ‘Quim Monzó’ in the Breu Enciclopedia de la Cultura Catalana (1982-2022) published by El Pais - Quadern, print & online

- On 5 January 2022 I was interviewed in the Ara the Breu Enciclopedia de la Cultura Catalan published by Quandern El Pais newspaper – the piece appeared in the paper and online versions and it was published both Catalan and in Spanish.

- On 19 December 2021, the author and literary critic Pere Antoni Pons reviewed my book in the newspaper Ultima Hora: https://twitter.com/PonsPereAntoni/status/1472841165519171585

- On 16 September 2021 my book was launched via the online platform PleIbéricos, curated by Prof Santiago Fouz (Durham University) and Dr Esther Gimeno Ugalde (University of Vienna): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaQmfEPPrOQ. 

- On 31 August 2021 the publication of my book featured in a full-page article in Ultima Hora, the most widely-read newspaper in the Balearics: online and paper versions.

- On 20 August 2021, Dr Barbara Burns (University of Glasgow & Modern Humanities Research Association) interviewed me on my new book: http://www.mhra.org.uk/news/2021/08/20/monzonia.html 

My articles on contemporary Catalan culture in Núvol, the most widely read online cultural magazine in Catalonia, triggered debates about the shifting narratives of cultural normalization and Quim Monzó’s national role as a literary author and public intellectual:

• ‘Què en fem, de la cultura de la normalització?’ (23 September 2018) https://www.nuvol.com/critica/que-en-fem-de-la-cultura-de-la-normalitzacio/

• ‘La dreta, l’independentisme i els intel·lectuals.’ (15 March 2017) http://www.nuvol.com/opinio/la-dreta-lindependentisme-i-els-intellectuals/

I have also commented on Spanish and Catalan politics through a variety of British media channels: in the period after the Catalan Referendum on 1 October 2017, I was interviewed on several BBC television and radio outlets. Here is a sample: live interview on BBC World Service's programme BBC Newshour on Wednesday 4 October, 2pm: listen to my appearance here or listen to the full programme here.

I have also co-organized and participated in film events dedicated to Catalan and Spanish cinema. On 2 October 2022 I wa invited by the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festiva to introduce the film La voluntaria and led a Q&A after the screening with Savan Qadir (Project Manager - Refugees for Justice); the event took place at the Glasgow Film Theatre. On 13 February 2020 I introduced the Majorcan documentary 'Overbooking' at a public screening in Glasgow (at the McCance Building Strathclyde) which took place after a debate on tourism in Spain with students from the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde. On 14 May 2019, I participated in a Q&A after the screening of Petra, by Jaime Rosales, at the ¡Viva! Spanish & Latin American Film Festival 2019, held at Exeter Phoenix Cinema. On 25 September 2018, I co-organized with Professor Sally Faulkner (University of Exeter) the ‘Pedro Almodóvar Day’ at the Chagford Film Festival (Devon). Three films by Almodóvar were screened: All About my Mother, Julieta and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I introduced Julieta and participated in a Q&A after each of the films. https://chagfordfilmfestival.com/events/pedro-almodovar-day/