Skip to content
Profile icon

Isabel Story

Senior Lecturer

Nottingham School of Art & Design

Role

Dr Story teaches about the socio-political context of key developments in global visual communication. She runs the Level 5 and Level 6 contextual modules in the BA Hons Illustration degree as well as teaching across Level 5 and Level 6 BA Hons Graphic Design degree.

Dr Story welcomes enquires from those who are interested in doing a PhD in topics related to visual communication. More information can be found via the NTU Doctoral School.

Career overview

Dr Story joined NTU in 2013, first as an Hourly Paid Lecturer in Visual Communications, then as an Associate Lecturer, and since September 2019 as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Visual Communications. She completed her BA (Joint Honours) in Spanish and Russian at the University of Nottingham, her MPhil in Russian Studies at the University of Cambridge, and her PhD in Latin American Studies at the University of Nottingham. She has taught at the University of Nottingham, and the University of Bristol. She has also worked in legal publishing and educational consultancy. Dr Story is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority.

Research areas

Dr Story's research focuses on Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic. There are three major strands to Dr Story’s existing research: first the politics and value of cultural exchange within the international socialist camp, and how culture is used to navigate (often tense) international relationships; second the protection and promotion of national heritage in Cuba; and third revolutionary citizenship and material culture. As such her research encompasses nation-building, independence projects, cultural history, and international socialism.

External activity

Dr Story is on the advisory board of the Cuba Research Forum and is also a member of the Special Interest Group ‘América Latina y los Balcanes: vínculos culturales y sociales’ which is supported through a strategic alliance between the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales and the Centro Iberoamericano at Novi Sad University (Serbia)

https://www.clacso.org/categoria/grupos-de-trabajo/grupos-especiales/grupo-

especial-cibam-clacso-america-latina-y-los-balcanes-vinculos-culturales-y-

sociales/

Dr Story’s recent conference papers include:

2022: ‘Preludio 11: a window into Cuban-GDR relations?’, Nottingham, Centre for Research on Cuba Annual Conference, 5-8 September

2022: ‘Mit sozialistischem Gruβ/Con saludos fraternales: notas sobre el intercambio cultural entre Cuba y la República Democrática de Alemania’, 9ª Conferencia Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Ciencias Sociales. CDMX/Online, 6 June 2022 ‘La relación cubano-soviética y tensiones dentro del campo socialista’, 1 foro del Grupo Especial CIBAM/CLACSO, online, 3-4 March 2022.

2021: ‘the Kremlin Chimes in Havana: Cuban-Soviet theatrical co-productions’, Latin American Studies Association Annual Conference, Vancouver/Online 25-29 May

2020 ‘Creating culture and combatientes: fostering unity in Cuba in the 1980s’ University of Nottingham, Centre for Research on Cuba Annual Conference, 7-8 September

2020: Alamar, Lada, José Martí, photographic presentation at the School of Art and Design Annual Research Conference, 17 June

2019: “Visuales verde olivas: las portadas como ventanas al concepto de la Revolución”, Instituto Juan Marinello, Centre for Research on Cuba Annual Conference, 10-11 April

2018: “Cuba’s negotiation of cultural heritage as a route to independence during the Cold War”, University of Nottingham, Centre for Research on Cuba Annual Conference, 11-13 September

2018: “Revolutionising the Soviet Mass housing system in Cuba”. University of Nottingham, Modern Languages Research Seminar, Nottingham, 6 June.

2018: “Culture in Cuba in the 1970s: Utopian Cultural Planning”. Latin American Studies Association Annual Conference, Barcelona 22-26 May.

2017: “Culture is not a luxury: Cuba and the USSR in the 1980s”. London School of Economics International History Research Seminar, London, 11 October

2017: “Political commitment and resistance: the visual arts in pre-Revolutionary Cuba”. Invited Guest Lecturer, Dalhousie University, Halifax, 27 September

2017: “The image and the experience of the Bolshevik Revolution in Cuban culture in the 1960s”. Centre for Research on Cuba Annual Conference, Havana 6-7 July

2017: “Socially committed art and the Cuban Revolution”. Society for Latin American Studies Conference, University of Glasgow. 6-7 April

2017: “The Cuban Russian Cocktail, explained with cocktails”. Aarhus University Festival of Ideas, Aarhus, Keynote speaker. 6 March

Sponsors and collaborators

Recently, Dr Story has been working with the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos, the Cinemateca de Cuba, CartelON, and the Cuban Ministry of culture on a project focusing on the protection and promotion of cultural practices which form part of Cuba’s cultural heritage.

Publications

Forthcoming:

Story, Isabel and Gallardo-Saborido, Emilio. 2022. ‘Mit sozialistischem Gruβ/Con saludos fraternales: intercambio cultural entre Cuba y la RDA’ in Las relaciones culturales entre América Latina y los países socialistas europeos durante la Guerra Fría. Novi Sad: CLACSO and CIBAM (in press)

Published:

Story, Isabel. 2021. ‘Cuba-Russia Cooperation: The History of Fraternal Disaster Management Collaboration’ in Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness in Cuba: Adaptation and Management. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Emily Kirk, Isabel Story and Anna Clayfield (eds). 2021. Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness in Cuba: Adaptation and Management. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Story, Isabel. 2020 'Cuban cultural heritage: a rebel past for a revolutionary nation', International Journal of HeritageStudies, 26:2, 218-220, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2019.1652924

Story, Isabel. 2019. When the Soviets Came to Stay: the Soviet Influence on Cuban Culture, 1961-1987. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Story, Isabel. Emily Kirk and Anna Clayfield (eds). 2018. Cuba’s forgotten decade: how the 1970s shaped the Revolution. Lanham: Lexington Books. ISBN: 978-1-4985-6873-9

Story, Isabel. 2018. “Utopian cultural construction: Cuban cultural organisation in the 1970s” in Cuba’s forgotten decade: how the 1970s shaped the Revolution. Ed. by Isabel Story, Emily Kirk and Anna Clayfield. Lanham: Lexington Books. ISBN: 978-1-4985-6873-9

Story, Isabel and Emily J. Kirk. 24 April 2018. ‘From the Castros to Cuba’s new president Miguel Díaz-Canel: continuity or change?’ LSE Latin America and Caribbean Blog. [Available at: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2018/04/24/from-the-castros-to-cubas-new-president-miguel-diaz-canel-continuity-or-change/ ]

Story, Isabel. 2018. “Debating the Revolution. The evolving role of the visual arts in Cuba” in Journal of Languages, Texts and Society, Vol.1, No. 2 https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/languagestextssociety/lts-journal.aspx ISSN:  2517-648X

Story, Isabel. 2018. (Translator) Fernando Martinez Heredia, “The Origins of Cuban Socialism” in Rethinking the Past in Cuba (Ed. Tony Kapcia). London: ILAS ISBN: 9781908857415

Story, Isabel and Arquitectura Subalterna. 2017. “Modulor’s Bastard Children: Inhabitants challenging the modernist straightjacket” Archifutures Vol.4: Thresholds, Barcelona: &beyond. ISBN: 978-84-947523-3-9

See all of Isabel Story's publications...