Narratives of Suffering and the Creation of National Identities in Panama (1878-1936) – Rolando de la Guardia, The Latin American Centre

Rolando de la Guardia completed his PhD at University College London and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Latin American Centre in Oxford. Before coming to the Latin American Centre, he worked as a lecturer in history at the Florida State University campus in Panama and at Quality Leadership University – Panama. He is a founding member and spokesman of the recently established Asociación de Antropología e Historia de Panamá. Rolando obtained a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Minor in Latin American Studies from the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, United States). Afterwards, he graduated from two postgraduate programmes at the University of Barcelona (Spain): a Master in International Relations, specialising in international organisations, and a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Latin American History. He received his Ph.D in History from University College London, after writing Panamanian Intellectuals and the Invention of a Peaceful Nation (1878-1931), a thesis on the connection between ideas and the different strategies for building national and transnational identities. His main research interests are the history of internationalism, of education, of the political and cultural representations of emotions in Latin America. At the Latin American Centre, he is studying the political, cultural and intellectual impact and legacies of the French attempt to build at canal through Panama (1880-1903).