Nicolle Alzamora (UoM): A Tale of Two Invasions: Fictional Excavations of Panama’s Difficult Pasts
| Dates: | 26 November 2025 |
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| Times: | 17:00 - 18:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Speaker: | Nicolle Alzamora |
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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 A112. 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
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
A112
Samuel Alexander Building
Manchester
