He holds a PhD in Hispanic Literature from Cornell University, an MA in Spanish (Language, Literature, and Culture) from UNC Charlotte, as well as a BA in Modern Languages from Winthrop University. His teaching and research interests include: twentieth-century Spanish literature, photography, film, monuments, material culture, in addition to photography theory and visual studies. Curran’s Andiron lecture is derived from the first chapter of his dissertation, Mourning the Image: The Afterlife of Bodies in Contemporary Spain, which examines categories of human remains germane to the Peninsula’s mass grave exhumation phenomenon and their representation in photography, monuments, and the plastic arts.