Lina Martinez Hernandez
Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish
Hall 004
lmartinezh [at] haverford.edu

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: La negativa al nombre 

My current book project takes the form of a series of literary essays around the refusal of belonging in the Hispanic Caribbean. I have always preferred to read those authors and artists that believe in the persistence of symbolic and literary tantrums against the obligation of belonging. Whether resisting the nation, normative sexualities, racial expectations, or literary agendas, refusing to belong becomes a mode of survival and, also, a wager in favor of creating and living through distinct paradigms. In my book, I speak of the difficulties of being queer and non-White in the Caribbean, but also of the joys of existing beyond comprehension. As I read and speak with contemporary authors from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Colombia, it becomes inevitable to undertake a questioning and updating of discourses around racial mixture, heteronormavity, and national borders. I do seek, however, to find innovative languages and unusual approaches to the ever exhausting question of identity and its demands. Some of the authors included in this volume are Ena Lucía Portela, Rita Indiana Hernández, Manuel Zapata Olivella, among others. 

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 and artistic projects  
  • Race and Sexuality Studies 

Selected Publications 

  • 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.