Francisco Hernandez Moleres

Adjunct Instructor

Francisco Hernández Moleres is a historian of modern Europe and a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation, Lessons from Exile: The Spanish Civil War and Antifascist Education in France and Mexico, 1939–1962, traces how Spanish Republican refugees rebuilt communities of learning under conditions of fascism, internment, and migration, drawing on archives in France and Mexico. He has conducted research with support from a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship and has presented his work at the Western Society for French History and the Remembering Spaces of Internment (ReSI) conferences. His article “Awakening Subjects: Antifascism and Spanish Republican Refugee Education Projects in Postwar France, 1944-1951” will appear at the upcoming issue of the Journal of the Western Society for French History. At Wisconsin-Madison, Francisco has been TA for courses on Modern European History, Empire, Introduction to Global History and the French Revolution. He conducted research in Paris, Toulouse, Madrid, and Mexico City, and held affiliations with the Université Paris-Cité and the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid. He is participating in a team to design a memorial for the refugee camp of Saint-Cyprien in Southern France alongside architect Eric Sainero. He joins The Cooper Union as a part-time lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences to co-teach HSS-3 The Making of Modern Society.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.