Javier Pérez-Osorio
Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow
- University of Edinburgh
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
Address
- Street
-
Room 3.08
50 George Square
Edinburgh - City
- Post code
- EH8 9LH
Background
Javier graduated with First Class Honours in Philosophy, Theology, and Education from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia) in 2011, receiving an award for his dissertation. After several years working as a teacher, in education management, and in social programmes, he obtained an MA in Film and Film Cultures with Distinction from the University of Leicester in 2018. His MA dissertation examined the representation of class, gender, and armed conflict in Sergio Cabrera's films from the 1990s. In 2024, Javier obtained his PhD in Film and Screen Studies at the University of Cambridge, funded by the Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust in partnership with MINCIENCIAS (Colombia). After finishing his PhD, he joined the University of Stirling as a Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies, teaching courses on Latin American cinema and Spanish across all four years of the undergraduate degree and collaborating in the interdisciplinary Master's on Genders and Sexualities. At Stirling, Javier also obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP) to achieve recognition as a Fellow in Higher Education.
Beyond his institutional roles, Javier served on the board of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Queer and Trans Caucus from 2023 to 2026, holding positions sequentially as secretary, junior co-chair, and senior co-chair. Alongside his colleague Karol Valderrama-Burgos, he co-coordinates Red Cu, an independent research-led network focused on queer studies applied to the visual cultures of Colombia and Latin America.
Javier is a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS), and the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS).
Qualifications
2024 - PhD in Film and Screen Studies - University of Cambridge
2018 - MA in Film and Film Cultures - University of Leicester
2011 - Philosophy, Theology, and Education (Bachelor’s Degree) - Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Research summary
Javier’s (he/him) research interests dwell in the intersection between film studies, queer cinema, and decolonial thinking in Latin America. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, The Edinburgh Companion to Queer Reading, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, the Bulletin of Latin American Studies, Screening Postmillennial Queer Film, among others.
Project activity
As part of a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, Javier's project examines the place of queerness in twenty-first-century Latin American documentary films: how do non-fiction films represent non-normative sexuality and gender, and how do non-normative sexuality and gender modify the continent’s non-fiction moving image? Combining archival research, interviews, and filmic analysis, Javier explores the queer inflexions of the subjective, political, and cross-genre characteristics of the region’s documentary film, re-centring the contribution of Latin American epistemological frameworks in the global projection of queerness. In doing so, the project addresses crucial issues, including identity politics, participation in nation-state projects, and the preservation of LGBTQ+ historical memory.
Past project grants
2023 BAFTSS Event Grant Scheme and SLAS Seminar Grant to organise the Queer Tropical Frames series, UK
2023 Research Fellowship, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia (March-April 2023), Colombia
Invited speaker
May 2025 Keynote Speaker, ‘Queer Tropical Frames’, Film Studies PhD Conference, University of St Andrews
Organiser
Jul 2023 Queer Hispanisms Now, University of Cambridge (co-organiser).
Oct 2022 I Simposio Red Cu, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia.
Jul 2022 PILAS Conference, ‘Repair, Resistance, and Resilience in Latin America’, University of Cambridge (co-organiser).
Jun 2022 Queer Cultures Graduate Symposium, University of Cambridge
Papers delivered
Panels
Apr 2026 SLAS Conference 2026, University of Leeds – ‘From Thailand to Colombia: Soundscapes of a Violent Past in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021)’ at the panel Coming to Latin America: Moving Image Encounters, Non-Latin American Practitioners (co-convened with Lawrence Alexander)
Jul 2024 SLAS Conference 2024, University of Amsterdam – CEDLA. ‘Cada vez que muero (2023): Travesti Resistance in Colombia’ at the panel Transformation, Translocation, and Transition: Latin American Queer Resistance.
Sep 2022 6th International Society for Intermedial Studies Conference, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. ‘From Thailand to Colombia: Medial and Geopolitical Crossings in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021)’ at the panel Coming to Latin America: Crossings and Connections Between Media Practitioners and Moving Image Excavations (co-convened with Lawrence Alexander).
Papers (selected)
May 2026 LASA Conference, Paris. ‘Disruptive Frames: Travesti Aesthetics and the Politics of Joy in the Red Comunitaria Trans Films’
May 2025 Sexual Ecologies: Space, Nature, and Queer Cinema, University of Cambridge. ‘Military Occupation, Ecological Devastation, Queer Utopia’
Apr 2025 SLAS Conference, University of Bristol. ‘Utopian Longings and Everyday Life Queer Latin American Artistic Practices in the UK’
Mar 2024 SCMS Conference, Boston, US. ‘Locuras from the South: La loca as an Ever-changing Model of Latin American Sexual and Gender Dissidence’
Sep 2023 ASAP: The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present 14: Arts of Fugitivity. ‘Screening the Ineffable: (Re)Making Soundscapes of Violence in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021).
Jul 2023 Queer Hispanisms Now, University of Cambridge. ‘Queer Memory and Resistance in Tengo miedo torero (2020)’.
Jul 2023 Cuiring the Americas, University of Cambridge. ‘Cada vez que muero (2023): Trans Performance, Embodiment, and Resistance in Colombia’
Apr 2023 SCMS Conference, Denver, US. ‘Wandering Boxes, “Worldling Potential”: Reframing Queer Aesthetics in Retablo (2017)’
Jun 2022 NECS 2022, National University of Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania. ‘Queer Monsters from the Global South: A Countersexual Reading of As boas maneiras (2017)’
Oct 2022 Posthuman Bodies & Embodied Posthumanisms, University of Warwick. 'Queer Bodies from the Tropics: A Posthuman Reading of The Untamed (2016)'
Jul 2022 Screen Studies Conference, University of Glasgow, online. ‘Wandering boxes: appropriation and subversion of queer aesthetic in Retablo (2017)’
Jun 2022 NECS 2022: Epistemic Media: Archive, Atlas, Network, National University of Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania. ‘Queer Monsters from the Global South: A Countersexual Reading of As boas maneiras (2017)’
Apr 2022 AHGBI Conference, Institute of Modern Languages Research, London. ‘“Es como si yo no existiera en este mundo”: The Depiction of Queer Subjectivity in Señorita María (2017)’
Mar 2022 SCMS Conference, online. ‘Queer Aliens: The Countersexual Potential of The Extra-Terrestrial in The Untamed (2016)’
Jul 2021 Quo Vadis?: Arts and Humanities Research in the 21st Century, UCL, London. ‘Rethinking Latin American queer cinema from a decolonial perspective’
May 2021 Queer Representation: Pasts, Presents and Futures, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh. ‘Screening Through Silence: The Representation of Queerness in Retablo (2017)’
Outreach and Public Engagement
May 2026 Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities Symposium 2026, University of Edinburgh. Speaker on Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships application process.
Feb 2026 Wasafiri 124: Presencia y Resistencia, British Latinx Writing and Art, London. Speaker at the launch event.
Jan 2026 SCMS – Queer and Trans Caucus, online. Speaker at the launch of Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression (2026) by Jacob Engelberg
Feb 2022 Selwyn College MCR, LGBTQ+ History Month Seminar Series, University of Cambridge.
Jun 2021 GSB Seminar, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. ‘Melorealism in Colombian cinema’
Sep 2018 Colombian research in the UK 5th Annual Summit: Research to transform, University of Cambridge. ‘Research on Colombian Cinema: Representation, Stereotypes, and Society’