Prof Fernández-Melleda’s research focuses on a variety of topics that study Chilean literature, such as intersections between articulations of the female psyche, the criticism of neoliberal principles within a post-dictatorship context, biblical references in poetry and narrative, and memory/post-memory constructions in Chilean writing, among others.

At the moment, Bárbara is working on her book manuscript entitled Chilean Women’s Poetry under Neoliberalism, 1980-2020 which will be published by Edinburgh University Press in 2025. Her research features at top journals such as Literature Compass, Cultural Dynamics, and The Irish Review. She has also contributed with introductions to Salvador Allende’s “Last Speech to the Nation” and Rigoberta Menchú’s “First Visit to Guatemala City” and “An Eight-Year-Old Agricultural Worker” for the Encyclopedia Aesthetics and Politics in the Global South, edited by J.D Elam (Bloomsbury Academic).

Her research project, The Fall of Neoliberalism in the Chilean Post Dictatorship Novel (2000-2020) received the Early Career Scheme Fund by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) in 2022. The project lasts 3 years and was awarded HKD 415,000. Bárbara will begin writing her second monograph, arising from this research endeavour, in early 2025.

Lately, Bárbara has been exploring the cultural relationship between China and Latin America, more specifically with Chile through poets Pablo Neruda, Armando Uribe, and Pablo de Rokha. She was the recipient of the Luis Cha Fund for East/West Studies to conduct research to examine details concerning the great friendship between Pablo Neruda and Chinese poet Ai Qing, and how this permeated both poets’ production. In the 2024/25 academic year, Prof Fernández-Melleda was awarded the highly competitive General Research Fund grant for her project Pablo Neruda in China. She will conduct this research between 2025 and 2027, and the project includes cooperation with the Neruda Foundation in Chile and several Chinese institutions. 

As a Latinamericanist, Bárbara’s teaching portfolio is broad. She has lectured on Chilean culture, canonical authors from the Latin American Boom and Nobel Prize winners, XIX century foundational and abolitionist novels from Cuba, Perú and Argentina, Latin American visual culture and fine arts, and Latin American cultural theory. At HKU, Bárbara is devoted to the development of Latin American themed courses. For example, “Cultural Approaches to Dictatorship in Chile and Argentina”; “Global Latin America”; “Latin American/US Cultural Relations”; “Magical Realism in Literature and Film”; “Latin American Theatre and Dramatists”.

Prof Fernández-Melleda is a member of the Editorial Board for Memory Studies Review (Brill) and she works as a peer reviewer for a variety of prestigious journals in her field, including the Bulletin of Spanish Studies (Taylor & Francis).