The introductory segment of the interview with Principal Hernandez.
The 2024-25 academic year marks a watershed moment for Victoria College as Dr. Angela Esterhammer ends her tenure as Principal after 12 years in office. As an associate professor of English, Dr. Hernandez focuses his research on eighteenth-century literature and culture. However, his unorthodox consideration of other investigatory frameworks, such as historical and anthropological, has led him to favour an interdisciplinary approach in his works. Such distinctive beliefs have led Dr. Hernandez to spearhead unique liberal arts programs in the Faculty of Arts and Science, which is later further discussed.
Such distinctive beliefs and unique contributions produce a hazy understanding and ask the question of Principal Hernandez’s perspectives and goals at Vic. To investigate these curiosities, The Strand recently interviewed Principal Hernandez. As the interview extensively covers several topics, it has been divided between two articles. The following article covers the professional background of Principal Hernandez while the other covers the philosophy of his aims as Principal.
Could you elaborate on your academic background, research, and the importance you attribute to interdisciplinary studies?
My background is in the literature of the long eighteenth century, from the Restoration, roughly sixteen-sixty, into the first and second generations of the Romantics, nineteenth century. My first book was on bourgeois tragedy which features ordinary people suffering with the gravitas of tragedy. I was interested in attempting to historicise affect and emotion in its contemporary context. Since then, my work has been situated between literature, history, and religious studies.
I have two projects currently at work. One is how reader and religious practice can overlap. For instance, a piece I wrote in 2022 was on contemporary uses of Jane Austen’s devotionals. More recently, I have been interested in authors’ house museums and how they function as pilgrimage sites. Wrapped into that are questions of secularism and practice versus belief. Another project, which I’m tentatively calling “The Empires Prayer Book,” uses the common prayer book in colonial, melanated, trans-Atlantic, and amorphous spaces without borders. I’m interested in how the prayer book metaphysically functions to span those spaces and how it works with communities.
What is the significance of interdisciplinary studies to you in your field and the humanities?
One of the things that interested me in the eighteenth century was considering “literature” as not narrowly literary. The novel was just emerging as a form during that period. Rather, what counted as literature might have been philosophy, aesthetics, history, or philology, whether you’re reading Hume, Gibbon, or Defoe alongside them—Defoe’s also interested in demographic economics and politics, et cetera. I felt I had a licence to range across that and ask big questions when what counted as literature was precocious. What is so exciting about working in my subfield is how people imagine, represent, and enact their world. I have colleagues who are well-read in the philosophy of mind and neuroscience because they are thinking about the models for common sense perception in the late eighteenth century. That approach seems very natural to me.
It seems that some fields necessitate an interdisciplinary understanding to have a broader perspective.
Certainly, when we are thinking about the way people read during the eighteenth century, students in my “Austen and Her Contemporaries” [ENG323] class had a great time thinking about what Jane Austen meant and understanding how contemporary readings changed as a historical, anthropological, and phenomenological question. Furthermore, increasingly, with modes that distance reading and data scientific approaches, it becomes a statistical, mathematical question.
You have held several administrative roles at UofT, one of which was a special advisor on liberal arts education at the Department of Arts and Sciences where you introduced new programs to improve liberal arts education. What were these programs, and why introduce them?
While I worked as the special advisor on liberal arts education for the Dean’s office, we imagined a unique program. It would have a cohort series of seminars animated by big liberal arts questions that expanded multiple disciplines to allow students to immerse themselves in the life of the mind. My team situated it alongside two other supports. On the one hand, a scholarship with some support in place and, on the other, crucial career transition support, including an internship. This program was the first of its kind because it balanced all three. If you help students see the pathways beyond the University, we empower them to immerse themselves in the life of the mind of the University. It is about aiding students who often have trouble reconciling with their long-term goals.
Could you expand on what you meant by “pathways outside of University”?
Many of our students are concerned about the next step. How do I get a career? How do I make that connection or secure that internship? We wanted to offer those kinds of support to empower them to think boldly, develop leadership in the classroom, and think interdisciplinarily by asking big questions across literature, social sciences, and the hard sciences. That program’s moved on, and Munk is now developing it. I tried to conceive the University as a space of inquiry, exploration, and curiosity. Many only get the opportunity in this sort of environment. One thing that excites me about Vic is its serious multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach which tries to support students in those possibilities.
Digressing from your past experiences and towards your future as principal. What is your role and influence as a principal, indirect or direct?
The simplest way to characterise the principal’s role and the principal’s office is as the College’s chief academic leader and administrator. This is in distinction with Victoria University and Emmanuel College, which have its principal, so I oversee Victoria College. I oversee the fellows’ and associates’ programming; the community life; and the academic community life of fellows, associates, and the students they mentor. We also have several research centres within the College, and capital-P and little-P programs. The little-P programs are faculty mentorship programs. Capital-P programs, meaning FAS programs or degree credits, include Literature and Critical Theory, Education, and Society, and are considered our upper-year programs. Things that come in between include Vic One, Vic One Hundred seminars, and the plenaries. All of these come out of my office and are organised through my staff in dialogue with me. So, I’m trying to shape the academic community life of Victoria College.
