academic bios

short bio (115 words)

Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is assistant professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and associate director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the US-Mexico Underground (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) and Y Tu Mamá También: A Queer Film Classic (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025), and editor of Media Travels: Toward an Atlas of Global Media (Amherst College Press, 2025). His work has appeared in the journals Social Text; Feminist Media Histories; Television & New Media; Lateral; Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience; Popular Communication; Communication, Culture, and Critique; and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, as well as several edited collections.

long bio

Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is assistant professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and associate director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching covers global media cultures, digital technologies, border studies, infrastructure studies, and Latin American media.

His first book, Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the US-Mexico Underground (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) examines how media forms and technologies shape perceptions about the borderlands and help reimagine the stakes of border-making practices. His second book analyzes the legacy, popularity, and queer significance of the Mexican film Y Tu Mamá También and is forthcoming from the Queer Film Classics series at McGill-Queen’s University Press. He also regularly writes about the class, race, and gender politics of Spanish-language programming in new streaming platforms. His work has appeared in the journals Social Text; Feminist Media Histories; Television & New Media; Lateral; Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience; Popular Communication; Communication, Culture, and Critique; and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, as well as several edited collections.

Llamas-Rodriguez is co-editor of [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies, the first peer-reviewed open access academic journal of videographic scholarship. He has published bilingual video essays and criticism in NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, and Tecmerin: Revista de Ensayos Audiovisuales.

Llamas-Rodriguez actively engages in public humanities projects. He is a member of the Global Internet TV Consortium, a network of media scholars studying the implications of internet-distributed screen content around the world, and co-lead (with Dr. Kim Brillante Knight) of The Migrant Steps Project, a public humanities initiative that prompts walking reflections through engagement with curated narratives about migration.