Bernardo Sandoval

I am a second-year PhD candidate in Hispanic Studies under the supervision of Professor Will Fowler and Dr Andrew Cusack. My research project is devoted to understanding 19th-century Mexican conservatism from the perspective of three aristocrats who were involved in and/or affected by the European intervention that led to the establishment of Maximilian's monarchy in Mexico. My work is based on memoirs and documentation found in archives of France, Austria, Italy, and Hungary. 

Other activities

Since September 2025, I have been the PGR student representative on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the School of Modern Languages.

Since February 2026, I have been doing a SGSAH internship in the art collections at the University of Stirling to assist in the preparation of a publication marking the 60th anniversary of its founding.

Background

My academic interests are varied, and before joining the School of Modern Languages, I researched the role of technologies in shaping political thought. I wrote my BA thesis on the introduction of motorised transport, speed, and slavery, drawing on the work of Ivan Illich and Hannah Arendt. For my MA in Curatorial Studies, I criticised photography as a neo-colonising technique that eliminates the artistic object and modifies the human gaze, based on the ideas of Yuk Hui, Bernard Stiegler, and Simone Weil.

During my exchange program at Corvinus University of Budapest, I studied the transition of Central European countries to democracy and their integration into the European Union.

From 2023 to 2024, I did a one-year creative research residency at the Centre International de Recherche et d'Éducation Agricole (C.I.R.E.C.A.). I produced an exhibition and a publication titled Un peintre folkloriste ? Pas du tout ! Chucho Reyes, expressioniste mexicain, with the archives that belonged to the Mexican artist Jesús Reyes Ferreira (1882 - 1977) and are currently stored in the library of Domaine de Boisbuchet, France.