Lina Martinez Hernandez
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Hall 110
lmartinezh [at] haverford.edu
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Education 

B.A., Universidad de los Andes

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania 

Teaching and Pedagogy 

Teaching is one of the things I enjoy most of being part of academia. In my 10 years of university level teaching, I have seen great achievements as well as challenges. Today, I consider one of the biggest challenges not the transmision of knowledge, but the construction of learning spaces that are both compassionate and rigorous. As a professor, I strive to communicate the joy of learning, as opposed to simply the obligation of "producing". Teaching the humanities gives us materials and approaches with which to claim back the "humanitarian" aspect of university education. This task is one that both myself and the students that come through my classroom must face each session, each semester, year after year. I seek to help students achieve their potential as active and critical learners, as people who can learn about different topics, and as individuals and their place in the world: ever-changing subjects in ever-changing locations. 

Book Project: Educar haciendo: Queer and Feminist Pedagogies from Latin America and the Caribbean 

Focused on the first two decades of the 21st century, my book project explores contemporary collectives that are in struggle with the current conditions of neoliberal policies, market-driven uses of identity politics, ecological crisis, and gender and sexuality based violence and discrimination in the Hispanic Caribbean and Latin America.

Educar haciendo takes as point of departure an understanding of counter-hegemonic modes of cultural productions, popular pedagogies, and activism. By this, I mean projects that are responding to, but also thinking outside of, ways of being in the world imposed from above, whether through state-centered policies, market-driven demands, and/or social expectations that discipline the body and classify populations in rigid categories. It looks into them as alternative sites of encounter and education for and from communities that have been histprically marginalized. It asks the question: how are local collectives and communities creating knowledge and relationships as they navigate an era of "hopeful pessimism", following Yarimar Bonilla.

"Hopeful pessimism" denotes the shared affect that rises when all promises of progress, prosperity, and democratic inclusion have been lost, and the opportunity to create from a space of collapse is the only hope left. Queer, non-white, and feminist collectives have been organizing to respond to the acuteness of economic and political crisis in the region. They stand at the forefront of practices and reflections envisioning alternative solutions for the future, based on their first-hand understanding of state abandonmnet and their experience in creating informal economies and networks of support and survival. 

Research Interests 

  • Queer Studies in the Caribbean and Latin America 
  • Gender and Feminist Studies in the Caribbean and Latin America 
  • Contemporary Latin American Literature
  • Community-based literary, artistic , and activist projects  
  • Community Engaged Language Learning 
  • Race and Sexuality Studies 

Selected Publications 

  • “Ecologías Queer en La mucama de Ominculé de Rita Indiana” with Sebastián Figueroa. Teko Porá 3 (2021): 391-408.

  • “The Queer Hispanic Caribbean: Contemporary Revisions of its Genealogies”. New Perspectives on Hispanic Caribbean Studies. Palgrave, 2021.

  • Co-editor with Giselle Román Medina. Poéticas, archivos y apuestas: estudios del Caribe. Valparaíso: Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso (Forthcoming, Spring 2018).

  • “No luches por mí, lucha conmigo”. Debate Feminista. 52 (2017). Debates en paralelo. Electronic version.

  • “Sana que sana, ciudadanía dominicana. El proyecto multi-media de Rita Indiana”. Arte y Políticas de Identidad 13(2015): 76-96.

  • “Nombres y animals de Rita Indiana Hernández: del salvaje en reverso a la solidaridad”. Rita Indiana. Archivos. Ed. Fernanda Bustamante E. Santo Domingo; Berlín, Ediciones Cielo Naranja, 2017

  • “Desafío a la conciliación: antagonismo y negatividad en imaginarios históricos del Caribe”. Perífrasis. 5.9 (2014): 48-64.     

  • “Desafío a Pepe Grillo. Juan hace publica la intimidad”. Juan Mejía: Monografías de Artistas Colombianos. Ed. Julián Serna. Bogotá, Ministerio de Cultura, 2013.