Nhora Lucía Serrano

Originally from Colombia, Dr. Nhora Lucía Serrano is a trained Early Modern Comparative Literature scholar whose areas of focus include: Technology Enhanced Learning & Educational Innovation, Digital Humanities, History of Book History/Print Culture, Visual Studies (Graphic Narratives and Editorial Cartoons & Comics), Latin America/Latinx, and Medieval And Renaissance Studies.

In 2018 Dr. Serrano was selected to be a  Mellon Press Diversity Fellow at the MIT Press/MIT. In 2017 she was selected as a 2018 Eisner Industry Awards judge. During the summer 2017, she was awarded a summer NEH Institute fellowship to participate in a 4-week seminar at the Newberry Library where she researched early 20th century Chicago Tribune cartoons. In 2014 she was awarded a Smithsonian National Postal Museum fellowship for her project on the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair postal cards and postage stamps and its relationship to editorial cartoons.

Dr. Serrano is a founding member and currently the Treasurer of the Comics Studies Society, and presently serves on the MLA Executive Forum on Book History, Print Cultures, Lexicography and is the Forum's elected Representative to the MLA Delegate Assembly. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Hamilton College, and a Visiting Scholar of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. From 2014-2018, she served on the MLA Executive Forum on Comics and Graphic Narratives. 

Recent Courses Taught

• Checkmate!: Play, Games & Cultural Exchanges in the Mediterranean Basin
• Dream a Little Dream: Virtual Reality and Literature
• Immigrants and Comics
• Lost Civilizations: Latin America & its Literary Imagination
• Readings in World Literature I
• Show and Tell: Comics and Graphic Narratives
• Visual Narratives: Images With(In) Books

Distinctions

International Judge (Invited)

• Member, EMIERT Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Awards Committee (ALA), 2021-23
• GNCRT Best Graphic Novels for Children Selection Committee (ALA), 2021-22
• Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, Comic-Con International San Diego, 2018

Fellowships and grants:

• Next Leaders Fellowship Fellow, 2022-23
• Leading Change Institute Fellow, Council on Library and Information Resources, 2020-21
• Mellon Press Diversity Fellow (Info. Science, Communication, Visual Culture, Design), 2018-19 
• NEH Summer Institute Scholar: "Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in 20th Century Chicago,” Newberry Library, Chicago, IL., summer 2017
• Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Washington 2006 World Philatelic Exhibition Scholarship for “Commemorating the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair: The Columbian Exposition and the First Souvenir Postal Cards,” spring 2014
• Visiting Scholar of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, 2014-15

Teaching awards and grants:

• Teaching recognition campus-wide: “Significant Impact Nomination” for Intellectual Development (Tufts Univ. first-year and sophomore survey), 2015
• Most Valuable Professor in the College of Liberal Arts Award (Cal. State Univ., Long Beach), 2011-12

Hamilton College

• Special Collections Grant (“Graphic Satire: Editorial Cartoons”), 2017-18
• Special Collections Grant (“New World Printing & The Columbian Exchange”), 2016-17

Professional Experience

Curatorial Experience

• Curator of “Gus Arriola: Modernism and the Latino Cartoonist.” Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, The Ohio State University. 2023-24
• Curator of “The Columbian Exchange.” Burke Library, Hamilton College. 2016-2017

Educational Background

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A., New York University
B.A., Amherst College