Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Staff Profile

Dr Dunja Fehimovic

Senior Lecturer

Background

I joined Newcastle University's School of Modern Languages in September 2016, after completing an AHRC-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge on national identity in contemporary Cuban film. I have a background in English literature and Spanish (language and literature), and have dabbled in documentary filmmaking.


I teach mainly on the literatures, films, and cultures of Latin America, and my research on film has addressed questions of national and regional (Caribbean) identities; neoliberalism and cultural branding; ethics, hospitality, and otherness; genre; place and space; the representation of children on screen; archives, databases, and canons; temporality and ecology.


I am the co-founder (with Professor Emerita Mary Leonard) of Caribbean Film Forum, a platform that aims to strengthen networks of filmmakers, curators, and scholars and raise the visibility of Caribbean cinema via online and in-person screenings, conversations, and debates, and of the Caribbean Film Educators’ Network, which aims to support and strengthen pedagogical collaborations and student opportunity in the region.


My current research project examines 21st-century insular Hispanic Caribbean film in order to develop an understanding of the relationship between coloniality and ecology, asking to what extent, and in what ways, film can build decolonial ecologies. For more information, please see the 'Research' tab.


Areas of expertise

  • Cuba
  • Caribbean
  • Film
  • Latin American Studies
  • Cultural Studies
  • Environmental Humanities


Google scholar: Click here.

SCOPUS: Click here.

ORCID: Click here.

Research

Since my initial research on 21st-century Cuban cinema, I have been working towards a comparative approach informed by concepts such as Relation (Glissant) to argue for the productivity and importance of making connections between the cinemas of the Caribbean, particularly of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and their diasporas. This comparative spirit is behind international conferences such as 'Decentred / Dissenting Connections: Envisioning Caribbean Film and Visual Cultures’ (2018, co-convened with Dr Francisco-J. Hernández Adrián, Durham University) and Mapping New Caribbean Cinema (co-convened with Professor Emerita Mary Leonard); the Caribbean Film Forum (co-founded in 2021 with Professor Leonard), an online platform that aims to build up the network of filmmakers, curators, scholars, and lovers of Caribbean film through a series of in-person and virtual conversations; and the Caribbean Film Educators' Network (co-founded in 2022 with Professor Leonard), which aims to facilitate collaboration and connection between film educators and students across the region.


My current research examines 21st-century films and film practices of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico as a way to better understand the intersections of ecology - the sum of relationships among humans and between human and non-human nature - and coloniality - the unequal, extractive, and destructive structures and practices that ensue from colonialism and continue to shape social institutions, relations, and knowledge production in the present. The project is funded by an AHRC Research, Development, and Engagement Fellowship commencing in September 2025.


The project's main research questions are:

  1. What aesthetic and narrative choices and creative techniques do Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican filmmakers use to expose and critique the imbrication of colonial legacies with contemporary ecologies?
  2. How does comparative film analysis enable us to understand the ways in which contemporary experiences of ecological degradation and crisis are shaped by differing (post)colonial, political, socio-economic, and cultural contexts?
  3. How can film production and exhibition be used to offer joint responses to both ecological challenges and (post)colonial inequalities and injustices?
  4. In what ways, and to what extents, can film reconfigure our relationships to the human and non-human world, and so work towards a decolonial ecology: one that addresses environmental degradation and disaster while building equality and emancipation?

Teaching

Modules that I have led and taught on include:


SML1021: Introduction to International Film

LAS2033: Envisioning Identities in Latin American Film

LAS4032: Caribbean Imaginaries: Image, Text, Music

SPA4081: Level D (HE Further Advanced) Spanish: Advanced Writing Skills


PhD Supervision

I am particularly interested in reviewing and supervising MLitt and PhD work on

  • Caribbean and Latin American cinema and visual cultures
  • Representations of and responses to ecological change and crisis in film and visual cultures
  • National, regional, and diasporic identities in cinema
  • Community film practices


Publications