Javier Arbona Homar, PhD

Updates

Explosivity: Following What Remains, photographs by Andrea Gaffney, University of Minnesota Press, 2025.

What I’m working on these days:

Preliminary stages of planning and editing a new collection of essays and writings on new directions in explosivity studies with public anthropologist Leah Zani, PhD.

UC Davis Humanities Institute Collaborative Research Fellowship for Monumental Disappearance with Rafael Capó-García, Memoria (De)colonial, Puerto Rico. | Episodio de Sur-Urbano: Descolonización del patrimonio podcast (en español).

“Smells like San Francisco: Vapors and Volatility in the City of Explosivity,”  detour project co-organized w/ Professor Adam Levy, Ohlone College, the Smell and Destroy (SAD) Collective.

Chapter for Demilitarization in Theory and Practice: An International Workshop, Fall 2026, convened by Crystal Mun-hye Baik and Anjali Nath, with the University of Michigan Press for a forthcoming collection of essays.

Contribution for “Particulate Matters” forum, convened by geographer Desiree Valadares for Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.

Also published…

(with Julie Sze) “Watefront/battlefront: Vallejo’s Black landscapes of resistance against police and environmental violence”. I give a short encapsulation of this chapter for the Routledge Architecture, Urban Space & Politics channel: here. | Podcast interview w/ Vallejo Sun.

Plus, I wrote a small feature on UC Davis memorials in the first issue of the San Francisco Review of Whatever.

Communication

✉︎ Email: jarbona [at] ucdavis [dot] edu *available for video or voice calls by appointment. I have Signal. Se habla español. 

Advising

American Studies undergraduate majors: Please reach out if you’d like to schedule an appointment or contact me first with a preliminary draft of your emphasis plan.

Office hours

Fall

Wednesdays noon-1pm online

Fridays noon-1pm in-person on campus

Contact me for details.

I’m usually available for video or in-person appointments (by request).

Inquiries

Public and media inquiries, collaboration opportunities, research questions, and grad/post-grad interest: please kindly email me (see above). I can also provide an encrypted Signal link. Thank you!

Pronouns & Pronunciation

he/him/his

My name is usually pronounced close to Spanish. It’s “Xavier” (eksavier) in the anglophone pronunciation. Puerto Ricans pronounce Javier starting with a “ha” (as in haha!); also, with accent on the e and an audible, rolled r at the end, sort of like this: Ha-vier.

To Italians, I’m “Saverio” (I studied for a period in Rome as an undergrad and thesis student; I can still speak and read Italian moderately but need practice). I use Arbona or Arbona-Homar (the H is completely silent and pronounced “Omar” with emphasis on the last syllable, like this: omár).

I don’t have a middle name. Arbona is my paternal last name, therefore I’m not “Javier Homar” nor “Professor Homar.” Professor Arbona is fine with me.