Dr Jesús Sanjurjo-Ramos

Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow

History

Contact

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Personal statement

I am a Lecturer and Chancellor’s Fellow in Atlantic World History at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Since November 2024, I have served as a Member of Council and Trustee of the Royal Historical Society.

My work explores the relationship between slavery, colonial violence and systems of social control in the Hispanic World during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. My research traces how enslavement, human trafficking and carceral institutions shaped racial and class hierarchies across the Atlantic, and how these histories continue to inform debates on systemic racism today.

I am currently leading the project 'The Prison Blueprint: How Colonial Incarceration Forged Modern Racial Injustice' on criminal justice models across the Atlantic World. My broader interests lie in decolonial approaches to historical method: how subaltern histories have been recorded and erased, and how to recover them using traditional and new methods of historical enquiry.

My academic career began in Spain with a BA from the University of Oviedo, after which I moved to the UK for postgraduate studies. I completed my MA and PhD at the University of Leeds, under the supervision of Prof Manuel Barcia (University of Bath) and Dr Gregorio Alonso (University of Leeds), with my doctoral research generously funded by an AHRC-WRoCAH Scholarship. 

Following the completion of my doctorate, I taught at the universities of York, Cardiff, and Cambridge. In 2022, I was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, which I held at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of History and Corpus Christi College, under the mentorship of Prof Nicholas Guyatt.

My name can be tricky to pronounce, I know... How to Say My Name ↗

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Teaching

My teaching spans the Atlantic World from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century: the maritime empires of Spain, Portugal, and Britain; the slave trade and the societies it built; and the revolutionaries, rebels, and reformers who pushed against tyranny and oppression and dreamt of a fairer society. What draws these together is an interest in how power was exercised, resisted and recorded, and in reading the archive for the people it was never meant to serve.

I currently contribute to the following modules:

  • R4228/R4380: Counter-Currents in the Hispanic World (as module leader, with Dr Charles Pigott and Dr Rhiannon McGlade)
  • V1350/V1728: Imperial Seascapes: The Maritime Worlds of Atlantic Empires, c. 1500-1800 (led by Dr David Wilson)
  • V1729: BA Hons Dissertation (led by Dr Niall Whelehan)
  • R4498: BA Hons Dissertation (led by Dr Rhiannon McGlade)
  • V1806: Advanced Topics in Historical Studies (MSc) (led by Prof Jim Mills)
  • R4107: Spanish 1A, lectures on the history of Spain in the Americas (led by Victoria Reina-Gil)
  • R4108: Spanish 1B, lectures on the history of Spain in the Americas (led by Victoria Reina-Gil)
  • V1235: The British Empires: Conquest, Commerce, and Cooperation, 1556-2013 (led by Dr Catriona Ellis)

Doctoral and Postdoctoral Supervision

I welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants worldwide who are engaged in the following broad areas of research:

  • Crime and punishment, carceral systems, and state violence in the Atlantic World;
  • Slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and resistance;
  • The use of Artificial Intelligence, particularly frontier large language models (LLMs), in historical research, teaching practice, and its broader societal impact;
  • Human-centred AI and the ethical and responsible use of AI tools in democratic contexts;
  • Racism, white supremacism, and racial discrimination in the Spanish-speaking world;
  • Human trafficking, modern slavery, and organised crime in today's Atlantic World;
  • Political histories of Spain, the Spanish Empire, and Latin America, as well as transnational histories of the Atlantic World from around 1700 to 1900;
  • Political, cultural, and diplomatic relations between Spain, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Latin America in the early modern and modern periods.

Our research opportunities page allows you to search for projects and scholarships.

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Research Interests

My first monograph, In the Blood of Our Brothers. Abolitionism and the End of the Slave Trade in Spain’s Atlantic Empire, 1800–1870 (University of Alabama Press, 2021) was a finalist for the Paul E. Lovejoy Prize. In December 2023, Editorial Comares published its Spanish edition.

I am currently co-leading the flagship project 'The Prison Blueprint: How Colonial Incarceration Forged Modern Racial Injustice', together with Dr Lloyd Belton (University of Glasgow) and Dr Yashar Moshfeghi (University of Strathclyde). The project will allow us to better understand the historical origins of systemic racism and class discrimination in contemporary criminal justice systems. By understanding how these problems began, we hope to inform today's conversations about prison reform and help create a fairer future.

Our team of historians, AI scientists, criminologists, lawyers, philosophers, and archivists is using the most advanced Artificial Intelligence models to accelerate and augment our research, allowing us to do more, better, while reaching new audiences inside and beyond academia. The project is generously funded by the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Spanish Embassy in London, and Strathclyde’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Science.

Professional Activities

Using AI to Track Systemic Racism in Historical Carceral Systems
Organiser
18/6/2025
CONNECTS-UK 4th Open Forum: ‘Global Economics: History is Not the Past’
Invited speaker
5/6/2025
The Prison Blueprint: l'intelligence artificielle pour une nouvelle histoire des subalternes. Invited session at the EHESS seminar convened by Romy Sanchez and Thomas Mareite (Mondes Américains, EHESS/CNRS)
Speaker
8/12/2026
Imagining and Researching Communities
Organiser
18/11/2026
Spanish Political Cultures on the Move
Organiser
30/10/2026
AI and History Conference 2026
Participant
15/10/2026

More professional activities

Projects

The Prison Blueprint: How Colonial Incarceration Forged Modern Racial Injustice
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Principal Investigator) Belton, Lloyd (CoPI) Moshfeghi, Yashar (Co-investigator) Izaguirre, Yaimara (Co-investigator) Thompson-Brown, Beverley (Co-investigator) Barcia, Manuel (Researcher) Bardes, John (Researcher) Basques, Messias (Researcher) GONZALEZ ARANA, Roberto (Researcher) Guyatt, Nicholas (Researcher) Gyollai, Daniel (Researcher) Jardine, Cara (Researcher) Mantilla Morales, Valeria Sofia (Researcher) Moss, Kellie (Researcher) Naranjo, Consuelo (Researcher) Piacentini, Laura (Researcher) Sabala, Vanesa (Researcher) Sarmiento Ramirez, Ismael (Researcher) Bhopal, Aneel Singh (Fellow) Surwillo, Lisa (Researcher) Weaver, Beth (Researcher) Díaz, Yolanda (Researcher)
This flagship project encompasses various initiatives to examine the historical origins of systemic racism and class discrimination in contemporary criminal justice systems by bringing together historians, computer scientists specialising in AI, criminologists, philosophers, and justice policy experts. Led by Dr Jesús Sanjurjo (University of Strathclyde) and Dr Lloyd Belton (University of Glasgow), our research is centred around the recent unearthing of a unique historical collection: Havana's Royal Prison Logbooks.

Spanning a century (1837-1937), these extraordinary manuscripts from one of the Atlantic's largest colonial prisons contain detailed records of thousands of men, women, and children, both free and enslaved. By connecting this rich historical data with contemporary policy, we aim to directly inform current debates on prison reform and the enduring legacies of racial injustice. The initiative is generously funded by the University of Strathclyde, the University of Glasgow, the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, the UKRI-ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.

The project comprises the following research initiatives:

1. 'Using AI for Tracking Systemic Racism in Historical Carceral Systems', co-led by Dr Sanjurjo, Dr Moshfeghi, and Dr Belton, 1/02/25 → 31/07/25, funded by a University of Strathclyde's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, £2,000.00.

2. 'Havana’s Royal Prison Logbooks (1836-1898): Digitisation, Preservation and Dissemination', co-led by Dr Sanjurjo, Dr Moshfeghi, Dr Belton, and MSc. Izaguirre, 1/10/25 → Ongoing, funded by the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme (pilot), £15,000.00, https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP1676

3. 'To contain the diffusion of pernicious ideas. The systematic imprisonment of Black sailors in Cuba and the United States, 1830-1850' ['Para contener la difusión de ideas perniciosas: Encarcelamiento sistemático de marineros negros en Cuba y Estados Unidos, 1830-1850'], co-led by Dr Belton, Dr Sanjurjo, MSc. Izaguirre, in partnership with Dr John Bardes, 1/05/25 → Ongoing, internally funded.

4. 'Using AI to Track Systemic Racism in Historical Carceral Systems', ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), co-led by Dr Sanjurjo, Dr Moshfeghi, and Dr Belton in partnership with Beverley Thompson-Brown OBE, 01/11/25 → Ongoing, funded by an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) Award, £14,769.96.

5. 'Historical Prison Systems in The Atlantic World and Their Impact on the Construction of Contemporary Penitentiary Models', I-LINK Programme of the CSIC and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Scheme, led by Prof Consuelo Naranjo, co-led by Prof Consuelo Naranjo (CSIC-Madrid) and Dr Sanjurjo, 1/01/2026 → Ongoing, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities' I-LINK Scheme, €30,000.00
01-Jan-2025
Havana’s Royal Prison Logbooks (1836-1898): Digitisation, Preservation and Dissemination.
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2026
Fostering Inclusive Research Cultures: Royal Historical Society Council Visit & Professor Meleisa Ono-George Public Lecture
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2026
AI Fluency for educators
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Academic)
This AI fluency course empowers academic faculty, instructional designers, and apply AI Fluency into their own teaching practices. Designed and led by Prof. Joseph Feller (University College Cork, ROI) and Prof. Rick Dakan (Ringling College, USA) and hosted by Anthropic.
12-Jan-2026 - 12-Jan-2026
From Archive to Audience: A Graphic History as a Knowledge Exchange Catalyst
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Principal Investigator) Izaguirre, Yaimara (Co-investigator) Zapico, Alfonso (Co-investigator)
This knowledge exchange project translates original archival research on nineteenth-century Cuba, state violence and racial hierarchy into a public-facing graphic history. It is based on the forthcoming article, ‘Anatomy of a Failed Revolution: Manuel Lorenzo’s Uprising and the Extraordinary Case of the Pardo Candelario Villafaña in Santiago de Cuba (1835–1837)’, co-authored by Dr Jesús Sanjurjo and Yaimara Izaguirre.

The project examines the case of Candelario Villafaña, a free pardo man sentenced to 200 lashes and ten years of exile after the failed multiracial uprising led by Manuel Lorenzo in Santiago de Cuba. The research argues that this punishment fused the legal regimes of slavery and political dissidence, revealing how colonial authorities used racialised terror to defend the slave system and suppress radical political challenges.

Through collaboration between historians and the award-winning graphic artist Alfonso Zapico, the project will produce a short bilingual graphic history designed for public, educational and museum audiences. The comic will function as a knowledge exchange catalyst, enabling wider audiences to engage with the histories of slavery, colonialism, state violence and racial hierarchies beyond the conventional academic article. The project will also generate public engagement activities, feedback materials and a methodological ‘lessons learned’ toolkit for researchers interested in translating archival research into graphic narrative.
05-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2026
£14,769.96 - ESRC-IAA Using AI to Track Systemic Racism in Historical Carceral Systems
Sanjurjo-Ramos, Jesus (Principal Investigator) Moshfeghi, Yashar (Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2025 - 28-Jan-2027

More projects

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Contact

Dr Jesús Sanjurjo-Ramos
Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow
History

Email: jesus.sanjurjo-ramos@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted