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Nicolle Alzamora (UoM): A Tale of Two Invasions: Fictional Excavations of Panama’s Difficult Pasts

Dates:26 November 2025
Times:17:00 - 18:30
What is it:Seminar
Organiser:School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
Speaker:Nicolle Alzamora
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  • In category "Seminar"
  • In group "(ALC) Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies"
  • In group "(ALC) Spanish Portuguese and Latin American Studies"
  • By School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

This talk is part of the seminar series of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Wed 26 Nov 2025, 5pm (UK time). This event will be in person, in Samuel Alexander Building, room A214. It can be followed online here: https://zoom.us/j/95860231166

Abstract: In this presentation, I focus on the novel Una corona con cantáridas (2018), by Panamanian author Rogelio Guerra Ávila, to explore the portrayal of two experiences of foreign invasion in Panama: the 1671 pirate attack led by Henry Morgan, and the US invasion of Panama in 1989. Written while a Truth Commission began investigating the human rights violations of the 1989 invasion, the novel uses the trope of excavation to interweave these two events, allowing for an analysis of the impact of narratives of transit in Panama’s relation with imperial powers throughout history, as well as in the construction of memory narratives of difficult pasts. Furthermore, this presentation will propose that the attitudes described in the novel toward lost goods and looting, in contrast to the loss of lives, can be explained by the pervasiveness of national narratives that see Panama, above everything else, as a place of transit and commerce. Hence, I read the frustrated promises of a found treasure in Una corona con cantáridas as a reflection of the unfulfilled expectations of prosperity brought by Panama’s transitist economic model.

Nicolle Alzamora is a PhD researcher in Latin American Studies at the University of Manchester.

Speaker

Nicolle Alzamora

Role: PhD researcher in Latin American Studies

Organisation: The University of Manchester

  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolle-alzamora/?originalSubdomain=uk

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A214
Samuel Alexander Building
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Ignacio Aguiló

ignacio.aguilo@manchester.ac.uk

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