Staff profile

Professor of Hispanic and Visual Culture Studies

PhD New York University (NYU)

Before I joined the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (MLAC) at Durham in 2011, I worked as Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University. I lecture on the literatures and visual cultures of the insular and post-colonial Atlantic, focusing on Caribbean and Latin American cinemas and visualities, Surrealism and the avant-garde, and Caribbean texts and diasporas. My research interests include visual, gender / queer and race theories of the Hispanic and Francophone Caribbean, with a specific focus on islands and archipelagos, post-creolizing processes, and Global South ecologies and environmental politics. I am particularly interested in discourses of Atlantic space, encompassing connections across the Global South that involve the Afro-Caribbean, the Americas and the Canary Islands.

I am currently completing a book manuscript on Surrealism and avant-garde movements in the Caribbean and the Canary Islands. My other ongoing projects include a critical examination of visual, territorial and economic constructions of insularity in the contemporary Atlantic; and a study of the visual representation of islands more broadly, with a particular emphasis on photography and film.

Research Projects

Since March 2019 I have been a CI for the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Living Deltas Hub, a five-year international research project that focuses on three river deltas: the Mekong (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam), Red River (Vietnam) and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (Bangladesh and India).

Since February 2021 I participate in the research activities and contribute to the research strategy of the Durham IHRR (Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience) as a memeber of the Hazards and Risk Media Committee and of the Institute's Managing Board.

In 2016-2020, I was a CI (Co-Investigator) for the AHRC Open World Research Initiative (OWRI), a four-year multi-institutional and interdisciplinary programme of research, Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community. The project's Transnational Strand, Rethinking Language Communities for an Open World: Between and Beyond Nations, Institutions and Networks, investigated political, social and cultural interactions across communities sharing a single language, but dispersed across multiple states and cultures. I developed an individual OWRI subproject: Atlantic Insularities: Languages of Exorbitance in Spanish-Speaking Island Cultures. More details can be found here.

Undergraduate and Postgraduate Teaching and Supervision

I convene two undergraduate final-year modules: Latin American Environmental Politics: Cinema and Visual Culture and Kino-Texts: Atlantic Avant-Gardes and Visual Cultures. I also co-convene a second-year module: Race and Gender in Latin American Cinema. In the new BA in Visual Arts and Film, I contribute to Introduction to Visual Culture Studies. In the MA in Visual Culture I convene Transnational Cinema and co-convene Visual Modernities.

I am happy to review and support applications from potential MA, PhD and Postdoctoral candidates, and available to supervise postgraduate work on Caribbean and Latin American literature, cinema and visual culture, and on other broad inter-disciplinary areas (please see my list of research interests below).

Curatorial Work

September 2021. Curator, Excess Island, solo photography exhibition by Benedetta Panisson at Office Project Room, Milan, in collaboration with PHROOM.

June-September 2019. Curated a series of screenings (June 27th and July 3rd, 11th, 17th and 25th) and related activities (July 25th and September 21st) for the film programme Gonzalo González: desplazamientos, aperturas, miradas desde el cine, at TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes contemporary arts centre, Canary Islands, in coordination with the exhibition Estar aquí es todo: Gonzalo González.

September-October 2017. Curated a series of screenings and conversations on Cuban cinema and politics in Caribbean and Global South context, as a part of the 'What's Left? A Century in Revolution' programme at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne.

March 2017. Curated ‘Cines del Caribe: visiones de la ruina, lo sumergido y lo emergente’, a Special Programme of contemporary Caribbean and island films for FICCI 57 (Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena de Indias). Served as a member of the Jury for the Official Short Film Competition at FICCI 57.

Editorial Work and Networks

Associate Editor of the journal Cultural Dynamics: Insurgent Scholarship on Culture, Politics and Power, where since December 2016 I edit a new section on 'Worlds Panoramic: Visualities from the Global South'. 

Consultant Editor, The Open Arts Journal, The Open University.

Advisory Board member, Karib: Nordic Journal for Caribbean Studies, Stockholm University Press.

Member of the Race, Space, Place international collective.

Co-convenor, MLAC-based Transnational Cinema research group.

Member of CVAC and the Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art.

International Conferences, Symposia and Workshops Organized

Delta Futures: (In)Visibilities in Audiovisual Culture. Co-organized with Angelos Theocharis with the support of the UKRI GCRF Living Deltas Hub, the Durham IHRR, and MLAC, Durham University, 24-25 March 2022

Borders, Regimes, Disposability: A Symposium on Migration and State Violence. Co-organized with Claudia Milian (Duke University) and John Morán González (The University of Texas at Austin), Durham University Institute of Advanced Study, 10-12 July 2019

Latin American cinema and environmental politics: Colombia & Cuba. International workshop, Saint Chad’s College, Durham University, 15-17 November 2018

Más allá de la ruina, lo sumergido y lo emergente: visiones del espacio y sus fugas en el cine latinoamericano reciente. International workshop co-organized with Pedro Adrián Zuluaga, Cinemateca Distrital de Bogotá and Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, 17-20 September 2018

Decentred / Dissenting Connections: Envisioning Caribbean Film and Visual Cultures. International conference co-organized with Dunja Fehemovic (Newcastle University), Newcastle University and Tyneside Cinema, 29-30 May 2018

Borders, Regimes, Disposability: A Symposium on Migration and State Violence. Co-organized with Claudia Milian, St Chad’s College and Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 14-16 June 2017

Risking the Future: Vulnerability, Resistance, Hope international conference. Co-organized with Marc Botha (English Studies), St John’s College, Durham University, 12-13 July 2016

Islands, Images, Imaginaries international symposium. Co-organized with Michaeline A. Crichlow (African and African American Studies) and Sean Metzger (English), Duke University, 1-2 April 2011

Romancing the Humanities lecture series and ‘The Future of English’ conference. Co-organized with Roberto Dainotto, Esther Gabara, and Marc Schachter, Duke University Department of Romance Studies, September 2003-May 2004

• Avant-Garde, Surrealism, and Modernist Studies
• Caribbean, Atlantic, and Latin American Studies
• Cinema and Visual Culture Studies
• Gender and Queer Studies
• Global South Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and Postcolonial Studies
• Islands, Littoral Zones, and River Deltas

Chapter in book

• Hernández Adrián, F.-J., & Theocharis, A. (2025). Introduction. In F.-J. Hernández Adrián, & A. Theocharis (Eds.), River delta futures: Endangered communities in audiovisual media. Bloomsbury
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J., & Gómez, A. (2022). Introduction: Islands in Latin American cinema: Film(ing) archipelagos. In A. Eds. Gómez, & F.-J. Hernández Adrián (Eds.), The Film Archipelago: Islands in Latin American Cinema (1-27). Bloomsbury
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2020). Amphibious Visualities: Transnational Archipelagos of Recent Latin American Cinema. In C. Davies, & R. O’Bryen (Eds.), Transnational Hispanic Studies (243-260). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2019). Meteorografías, kinografías, aperturas: acuarelas de Gonzalo González. In Estar aquí es todo. Gonzalo González (201-215 [exhibition catalogue]). Santa Cruz de Tenerife: TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2017). La anarquía del interregno: espacio visual en la Carta de Jamaica de Simón Bolívar. In A. Cano Ginés, & C. Brito Díaz (Eds.), Oro y plomo en las Indias : los tornaviajes de la escritura virreinal (115-138). Iberoamericana / Verbuert
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2016). Pain: Isabel Coixet Films with John Berger: The Secret Life of Words. In Y. Gunaratnam, & A. Chandan (Eds.), A Jar of Wild Flowers: Essays in Celebration of John Berger (154-170). Zed Books
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2016). Preface. In E. S. P. Gabriel, & F. Rosa (Eds.), Cosmopolitan Asia: Littoral epistemologies of the Global South (xxii-xxiii). Routledge
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2015). Gonzalo González, Suites. In Suite: Gonzalo González (19-26 [exhibition catalogue]). Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Fundación CajaCanarias
• F.-J., H. A. (2012). Polaroids de Karina Beltrán: Al hilo de días nuevos. In Karina Beltrán: Escenarios, Constelaciones, Polaroids (39-41 [exhibition catalogue]). Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: CAAM / Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2012). Édouard Glissant: Un Nuevo Mundo de Regiones. In E. J. Ribalta (Ed.), Ideas recibidas: Un vocabulario para la cultura artística contemporánea (265-269 [contemporary art manual]). Barcelona: MACBA / Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2009). El Atlántico en los manifiestos vanguardistas: Puerto Rico y las Islas Canarias. In E. A. C. Peña, & C. R. Villegas (Eds.), Las vanguardias en Puerto Rico: contextos y pretextos de ruptura (239-266). Madrid: Ediciones de La Discreta
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2008). On Imperial Archives and the Insular Vanishing Point: The Canary Islands in Viera y Clavijo's Noticias. In B. Sampedro Vizcaya, & S. Doubleday (Eds.), Border Interrogations: Questioning Spanish Frontiers (165-187). New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2007). Spengler atlántico: Región y raza en Pedro García Cabrera y Luis Palés Matos. In E. B. C. Morales (Ed.), Actas del Congreso Internacional Pedro García Cabrera (443-461). Canary Islands: Universidad de La Laguna
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2006). Sarduy, la isla nómada (territorios queer / biopolítica / multitud). In E. X. M. B. Bran (Ed.), Lecciones de disidencia: Ensayos de crítica homosexual (179-198). Madrid: Editorial Egales
• Ferrer, A. (2001). Raza, región y género en la Cuba Rebelde: Quintín Bandera y la cuestión del liderazgo político. In F. Eds. Martínez Heredia, R. J. Scott, & O. F. García Martínez (Eds.), Espacios, silencios y los sentidos de la libertad: Cuba entre 1878 y 1912 (141-162). La Habana: Ediciones Unión

Edited book

• Hernández Adrián, F.-J., & Theocharis, A. (Eds.). River Delta Futures: Endangered Communities in Audiovisual Media. Bloomsbury
• Gómez, A., & Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (Eds.). (2022). The Film Archipelago: Islands in Latin American Cinema. Bloomsbury

Journal Article

• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2016). Introduction: Worlds Panoramic. Cultural Dynamics, 28(3), 307-308. https://doi.org/10.1177/0921374016681870
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2016). Excess spaces: Movement and ethnoscapes in Brian De Palma’s Scarface and Edward James Olmos’ American Me. Cultural Dynamics, 28(1), 85-102. https://doi.org/10.1177/0921374015623384
• Metzger, S., Hernández Adrián, F.-J., & Crichlow, M. (2014). Introduction: Islands, Images, Imaginaries. Third Text, 28(4-5), 333-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.940131
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2014). Wolfgang Tillmans' Still Islands: Photographic Aesthetics off the Margin. Third Text, 28 (4-5), 377-392. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.939505
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2014). Liquid visuality: Douglas Sirk's La Habanera and insular Atlantic studies. Journal of Romance Studies, 14(2), 62-77. https://doi.org/10.3828/jrs.14.2.62
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2012). Tomás Sánchez on Exorbitance: Still Lifes of the Tropical Landfill. The global South, 6(1), 15-37. https://doi.org/10.2979/globalsouth.6.1.15
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2012). Preface to the Special Issue (On Lived Cosmopolitanisms). Cultural Dynamics, 24(2-3), 105-106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0921374013482348
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2009). Paris, Cuba, New York: Wifredo Lam and the Lost Origins of The Jungle. Cultural Dynamics, 21(3), 339-360. https://doi.org/10.1177/0921374008350292
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2007). Géneros y vanguardias insulares: Canarias y Cuba en el límite de dos repúblicas. Hispanic Research Journal, 8(2), 141-154. https://doi.org/10.1179/174582007x172060
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2007). Un espace liquide: Imaginarios de la primera modernidad en Canarias y el Caribe. Cuadernos del CEMYR, 15, 41-73
• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (2006). Atlantic Nessologies: Image, Territory, Value. Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature, 30(1), 20-43. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1613

Monograph

• Hernández Adrián, F.-J. (in press). On Tropical Grounds: Avant-Garde and Surrealism in the Insular Atlantic. Polity