Serra Hughes

I am a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam. My dissertation, Worlding Communication: Novel Communication Barriers in Global Science Fiction and Speculative Literature, examines how speculative fiction imagines the limits and possibilities of communication across worlds, species, and languages.

My research sits at the intersection of world literature and science fiction studies, drawing on authors such as Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia E. Butler. I have participated in the Institute for World Literature at Harvard University, and my earlier training spans literary studies (BA and MA, Stockholm University) and Middle Eastern and Islamic history (BA, Simon Fraser University).

Co-organizer of University of Amsterdam's annual ASCA Workshop, 2025.

I am Director of Custom Tours at Adventures Abroad Worldwide Travel, a small-group cultural tour operator, where I design custom and group itineraries across every continent. With roughly twenty years in the travel industry, I specialise in culturally rich, small-group journeys — working directly with destination partners around the world to build tours from the ground up: routing, costing, hotels, guides, and the details in between.

Recent projects have taken me from multi-country southern Africa circuits to walking tours in Central Europe, Japan, South America, and beyond.

Explore our tours or request a custom quote here.