Faculty Spotlight: Professor Robb Hernández on Latinx Art and Museum Studies

By Elizabeth Bolger

Robb Hernández, who joined Fordham University as an Associate Professor of English in 2020, discusses the Race, Empire and Coloniality area group, his graduate course “Exhibiting Latinidad”, and remedying the lack of investment in Latinx cultural production.

EB: Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with me, Professor Hernández. I recently spoke with James Kim about the formation of the Race, Empire and Coloniality area group at Fordham. I was wondering, when did you first study Race, Empire, and Coloniality in literature? What led you to work in this area of study?

RH: Life and politics. As someone who self identifies as an activist scholar, I didn’t choose this topic; this topic chose me. I elected to pick up that torch and continue to march with it. I was a double major in journalism and ethnic studies as an undergrad, and between those two fields, I had the opportunity to think about hegemony, power, and ways to subvert authority in the newsroom. It compelled me to tell stories that wouldn’t otherwise be told. This got me into Latinx visual culture studies and film studies.

EB: How do you see yourself figuring into this area at Fordham? What courses are you teaching that fall under this area of study? 

RH: This spring, I’ll be teaching a course “Exhibiting Latinidad” on Latinx art and museum studies. Latinx art history is rather nascent, despite the fact that Latinxs have been a part of this territory for centuries. The course is an attempt to interrogate the colonial power of the museum and the way that display politics and exhibition design creates social hierarchy and power. We’ll be looking at how Latinx artists and curators have found radical ways to interpret and represent their culture. Students will be encouraged to use online software to design their own exhibitions. I am excited to help students in that class find ways to develop a curatorial voice and move above and beyond the traditional measure of scholarship and to think of other forms of writing and scholarship. I am a curator and I did an exhibition with the Getty Foundation called, Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas, at University of California, Riverside ARTSblock in 2017. In 2019, it traveled to the Queens Museum and Leslie Lohman Museum of Lesbian and Gay Art. It looks at speculative aesthetics in the last three decades to think about how artists are reimagining citizenship and borders and reoccupying the toxic language of the alien to rewrite a future that otherwise feels quite bleak.

Another course I am proposing is Latinx speculation, introducing students to a variety of writers, visual artists, and filmmakers who are rewriting the future. I am currently collaborating with the Smithsonian National Museum of Air and Space on an oral history archive of Latinx artists and writers working at the intersection of science, technology, and speculation. This initiative will inform my course.

EB: I would love to hear more about the museum studies course and the curating assignment.

RH: I am excited about the curatorial aspect of Exhibiting Latinidad because it’s also an attempt to confront the fact that there are entire networks and creatives circles that are in dire need of documentation but continue to remain outside of scholarly discourse. I am excited that this course allows graduate students and undergrads to intervene.

There was a study done by the U.S. Latinx Art Forum that analyzed the number of art history dissertations between 2002-15. They noted that there was a 131 dissertations that focused on Latin American art, but only 17 in US Latino art in art history departments. At least, 34 dissertations were generated from other humanist fields including English. Nationally, there is a lack of investment in Latinx cultural production and so, requisite training is needed to expand this exciting area for this country’s largest ethnic minority population. I am excited for Fordham to be one of the few universities in the US where students can take Latinx art in undergraduate and doctoral level study.

EB: Absolutely. What can you tell me about the Race, Empire, and Coloniality area of study at Fordham?

RH: I am excited not only to develop new course offerings in the area, but also to really galvanize a community of scholarship and to help foster new interdisciplinary projects. I am also eager to support other faculty who are interested in this area develop new courses and connect new research initiatives in this area. We’ve been meeting monthly to workshop manuscripts or read new scholarship in the area. This will make for better advising and mentoring and improve the infrastructure not just in the University, but in the field as well.

EB: This all sounds very exciting! Is there anything else you’d like to share?

RH: We’re also trying to address this Covid-19 moment with the beginnings of an E-Ethnic Studies program or forum. So that’s something to look forward to in the near future.

EB: yes, absolutely! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.