Manuel Cruz Rodríguez (born 1 January 1951) is a Spanish philosopher and politician who served as the 60th

President of the Senate President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies. The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for e ...

from May to December 2019. Prior to this, between 2016 and 2019, Cruz served as member of the

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Ma ...

in representation of

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. He is a member of the

Socialists' Party of Catalonia The Socialists' Party of Catalonia ( ca, Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, PSC–PSOE official acronym) is a social-democratic political party in Catalonia, Spain, resulting from the merger of three parties: the Socialist Party of Catalonia ...

Biography

Manuel Cruz was born in the

City of Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

in 1951. He graduated in Philosophy in 1974 at the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...

and received his PhD in 1979 from the same university. He is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Barcelona. From 1986 to 1993 he directed the Department of History of Philosophy, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Culture of the Faculty of Philosophy. He has taught at various European and American universities, as well as a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the

Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council ( es, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote res ...

. As a professor he taught the subjects "Contemporary Philosophy" and "Philosophy of History" and his interests are centered in the reflection on contemporary theories of subjectivity, reflections on the place of memory and forgetting in the current world and philosophies of the action of diverse contemporary philosophical traditions. He has been director of the collections "Contemporany Thought" and "Present Library" of the Paidós Editorial; and co-director of the collections "Filosofía, hoy" (Santillana Editorial) and "Biblioteca Iberoamericana de Ensayo" (Paidós México Editorial) and he currently manages the collection "Pensamiento Herder", in Herder Editorial. He is also editor of the series "Pensamiento 21" from the Los Libros de La Catarata Editorial. He was director of the Barcelona Metropolis magazine. He is a regular contributor to media such as

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

El Confidencial ''El Confidencial'' is a Spanish-language general-information digital newspaper located in Spain, specializing in economic, financial and political news. It was established as an online newspaper in 2001. Its target readership is professional ...

Catalunya Ràdio ''Catalunya Ràdio'' () is Catalonia's public radio network. With headquarters in Barcelona, it is part of the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA), owned by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Catalunya Ràdio broadcasts exclusively i ...

and

Cadena SER La Cadena SER (the SER Network) is Spain's premier radio network in terms of both seniority (it was created in 1924) and audience share (it had a regular listenership in 2018 of 4,139,000). The acronym SER stands for ''Sociedad Española de Radi ...

. In September 2012 he was one of the signatories of the manifest entitled "Call to the Federalist and Left-wing Catalonia" before the call for early regional election. This manifest was the origin of the Left-wing Federalists Association, an association created in 2013 to defend a

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

Spain and opposing the independence of Catalonia. Cruz chaired this association between 2013 and 2016.

Political career

Considered a person close to the PSC leader

Miquel Iceta Miquel Iceta Llorens (born 17 August 1960) is a Spanish politician and member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), currently serving as minister of Culture and Sport of the Spanish government since 2021 and as first secretary of the PSC ...

, in May 2016 it was announced that he would occupy the number two position on the

list of the Party of Socialists of Catalonia headed by

Meritxell Batet Meritxell Batet Lamaña (born 19 March 1973) is a Spanish jurist and politician member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia, currently serving as President of the Congress of Deputies. Prior to this, she served as Minister for Territorial Polic ...

for the 2016 general election to the

. He was elected MP and he was appointed Spokesman of the PSOE in the Committee for Science, Innovation and Universities and in the Committee for Education of the Congress. He also was one of the 15 PSOE-PSC deputies to vote against the investiture of Mariano Rajoy following the elections. Cruz was elected Senator to the 13th Cortes Generales in the 2019 general election. Miquel Iceta, the PSC leader, was proposed to chair the

Senate of Spain The Senate ( es, Senado) is the upper house of the Cortes Generales, which along with the Congress of Deputies – the lower chamber – comprises the Parliament of the Kingdom of Spain. The Senate meets in the Palace of the Senate in Madrid. Th ...

, however, the

Parliament of Catalonia The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...

rejected the appointment of Iceta as Senator and the Socialist Party nominated Cruz as candidate. Cruz was elected the 60th

for 140 votes in favour. The other candidate, Ruth Goñi of the Citizens party, retrieved 11 votes.

Awards

* 2005: Anagrama Award for ''Las malas pasadas del pasado''. * 2010: Espasa Essay Award for ''Amo, luego existo''. * 2012: Jovellanos International Essay Prize for ''Adiós, historia, adiós''. * 2016: Miguel de Unamuno Essay Prize for ''La flecha (sin blanco) de la historia''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz Rodríguez, Manuel 1951 births Living people Members of the 12th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Members of the 13th Senate of Spain Members of the 14th Senate of Spain Politicians from Barcelona Presidents of the Senate of Spain Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politicians University of Barcelona alumni