Miguel Rosas Buendia

Miguel Rosas Buendia is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies in the School of Modern Languages. Originally from Lima, Peru, he earned a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Brown University. His research interests include the history of science, environmental studies, and indigenous studies. Through the study of literary and scientific primary sources, he examines topics such as knowledge production, nationalism, and extractive industries, as well as the transatlantic exchange of ideas about the Pre-Columbian material culture. His book manuscript, tentatively titled Crafting a Technoscientific Nation, examines the circulation of new scientific, engineering, and archaeological paradigms and their role in nation-building in nineteenth-century Peru. This inquiry examines the transatlantic intellectual trajectory, governmental work, and academic writings of the Peruvian scientist Mariano de Rivero (1798-1857). The book examines Rivero’s conceptual and practical involvement in three central subjects: the Andean territory and its natural resources (with a focus on mining), the Pre-Columbian material culture and its archaeological/national interpretation, and the republic's future in the emerging industrial world. Trained in literary studies and cultural history, he has also published on poetry and travel writing and examined the intersections among the natural sciences, mining, and aesthetics in a global context. He is also the founder and director of the Latin American Environmental Humanities Lab (LAEH Lab), an interdisciplinary and cross-school initiative at the Ivan Allen College.