Afrocubanas

Afrocubanas

Author: Devyn Spence Benson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-05-22

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1786614820

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Originally published in Spanish and edited by Cuban historian Daisy Rubiera Castillo and playwright and theater critic Inés María Martiatu Terry, this ground-breaking edited collection is the first work of its kind. It places the experiences of black and mulata women at the center of Cuban history. Including essays from a mix of well-known and newly published Cuban authors, the volume examines the lives of Afrocubanas from the late nineteenth century to the present. The volume’s contributors collect and interrogate the voices of black Cuban women and the political, cultural, social, and ideological contributions they have made to the history of their nation. One of the unique qualities of Afrocubanas is that the text is the product of a grassroots community working group in Havana. A number of antiracist organizations emerged to fight racial inequality in light of Cuba’s new economic challenges after the fall of its chief trading partner, the Soviet Union in 1991. But, the Afrocubanas Project (founded in the mid-2000s) is one of the few groups that challenges racism and sexism together. The members of the Afrocubanas Project hail from a variety of professions, ages, and sexual orientations. They share a collective interest in challenging negative stereotypes about black women. This volume merges their activism and scholarship to offer a counter discourse to existing narratives about black women in Cuba while also creating and disseminating new knowledge about Afrocubanas. There is no other published work in English devoted to analyzing the political and intellectual dimensions of black Cuban women’s thought across the island’s history. This text is essential reading for scholars and students of Africana Studies, Afro-Latin American Studies, Caribbean history, and courses focusing on black women in the Atlantic region.


Book Synopsis Afrocubanas by : Devyn Spence Benson

Download or read book Afrocubanas written by Devyn Spence Benson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-05-22 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in Spanish and edited by Cuban historian Daisy Rubiera Castillo and playwright and theater critic Inés María Martiatu Terry, this ground-breaking edited collection is the first work of its kind. It places the experiences of black and mulata women at the center of Cuban history. Including essays from a mix of well-known and newly published Cuban authors, the volume examines the lives of Afrocubanas from the late nineteenth century to the present. The volume’s contributors collect and interrogate the voices of black Cuban women and the political, cultural, social, and ideological contributions they have made to the history of their nation. One of the unique qualities of Afrocubanas is that the text is the product of a grassroots community working group in Havana. A number of antiracist organizations emerged to fight racial inequality in light of Cuba’s new economic challenges after the fall of its chief trading partner, the Soviet Union in 1991. But, the Afrocubanas Project (founded in the mid-2000s) is one of the few groups that challenges racism and sexism together. The members of the Afrocubanas Project hail from a variety of professions, ages, and sexual orientations. They share a collective interest in challenging negative stereotypes about black women. This volume merges their activism and scholarship to offer a counter discourse to existing narratives about black women in Cuba while also creating and disseminating new knowledge about Afrocubanas. There is no other published work in English devoted to analyzing the political and intellectual dimensions of black Cuban women’s thought across the island’s history. This text is essential reading for scholars and students of Africana Studies, Afro-Latin American Studies, Caribbean history, and courses focusing on black women in the Atlantic region.

AfroCuba

AfroCuba

Author: Pedro Pérez Sarduy

Publisher: Ocean Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9781875284412

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This anthology looks at the AfroCuban experience through the eyes of the island’s writers, scholars and artists. "A rich portrait of AfroCuba—one of the most vibrant and least well-documented of the black Caribbean diasporas."—Stuart Hall An insightful look at Cuba’s rich ethnic and cultural reality. What is it like to be black in Cuba? Does racism exist in a revolutionary society that claims to have abolished it? How does the legacy of slavery and segregation live on in today’s Cuba? Essays, poetry, extracts from novels, anthropological studies and political analysis are brought together by editors Jean Stubbs and Pedro Pérez to create an outstanding anthology of Cuban scholars, writers and artists. Drawing on an extensive knowledge of Cuba, the editors have produced a multi-faceted insight into Cuba’s right ethnic and cultural reality. The book is divided into three sections: The Die is Cast, Myth and Reality and Redrawing the Line, introducing the reader to a wide range of previously unavailable Cuban authors, in which dissenting voices speak alongside established writers, such as Fernando Ortiz. Jean Stubbs is a professor of Caribbean and Latin American History at the University of North London. She has been a visiting associate professor at Hunter College, CUNY (New York) and Rockefeller scholar at the University of Florida (Gainesville), the University of Puerto Rico and Florida International University. Stubbs has published several other books, including Cuba: The Test of Time. Pedro Pérez Sarduy is an AfroCuban poet and journalist. He was writer-in-residence at Columbia University and a Rockefeller visiting scholar at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and the University of Puerto Rico. He has been the recipient of several literary awards and regularly undertakes speaking tours in the United States.


Book Synopsis AfroCuba by : Pedro Pérez Sarduy

Download or read book AfroCuba written by Pedro Pérez Sarduy and published by Ocean Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology looks at the AfroCuban experience through the eyes of the island’s writers, scholars and artists. "A rich portrait of AfroCuba—one of the most vibrant and least well-documented of the black Caribbean diasporas."—Stuart Hall An insightful look at Cuba’s rich ethnic and cultural reality. What is it like to be black in Cuba? Does racism exist in a revolutionary society that claims to have abolished it? How does the legacy of slavery and segregation live on in today’s Cuba? Essays, poetry, extracts from novels, anthropological studies and political analysis are brought together by editors Jean Stubbs and Pedro Pérez to create an outstanding anthology of Cuban scholars, writers and artists. Drawing on an extensive knowledge of Cuba, the editors have produced a multi-faceted insight into Cuba’s right ethnic and cultural reality. The book is divided into three sections: The Die is Cast, Myth and Reality and Redrawing the Line, introducing the reader to a wide range of previously unavailable Cuban authors, in which dissenting voices speak alongside established writers, such as Fernando Ortiz. Jean Stubbs is a professor of Caribbean and Latin American History at the University of North London. She has been a visiting associate professor at Hunter College, CUNY (New York) and Rockefeller scholar at the University of Florida (Gainesville), the University of Puerto Rico and Florida International University. Stubbs has published several other books, including Cuba: The Test of Time. Pedro Pérez Sarduy is an AfroCuban poet and journalist. He was writer-in-residence at Columbia University and a Rockefeller visiting scholar at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and the University of Puerto Rico. He has been the recipient of several literary awards and regularly undertakes speaking tours in the United States.

Afro-Latinx Digital Connections

Afro-Latinx Digital Connections

Author: Eduard Arriaga

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1683402391

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This volume presents examples of how digital technologies are being used by people of African descent in South America and the Caribbean, a topic that has been overlooked within the field of digital humanities. These case studies show that in the last few decades, Black Latinx communities have been making themselves visible and asserting long-standing claims and rights through digital tools and platforms, which have been essential for enacting discussions and creating new connections between diverse groups. Afro-Latinx Digital Connections includes both research articles and interviews with practitioners who are working to create opportunities for marginalized communities. Projects discussed in this volume range from an Afrodescendant digital archive in Argentina, blog networks in Cuba, an NGO dedicated to democratizing technology in Brazilian favelas, and the recruitment of digital media to fight racism in Peru. Contributors demonstrate that these tools need not be state of the art to be effective and that they are often most useful when employed to sustain a resilience that is deep and historically grounded. Digital connections are shown here as a means to achieve social justice and to create complex self-representations that challenge racist images of Afrodescendant peoples and monolithic conceptions of humanity. This volume expands the scope of digital humanities and challenges views of the field as a predominantly white discipline. Contributors: Sandra AbdAllah-Álvarez | Adebayo Adegbembo | Maya Anderson-González | Eduard Arriaga | Silvana Bahia | Yvonne Captain | Monica Carrillo | Yancy Castillo | Alí Majul | Maria Cecilia Martino | Andrés Villar A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez


Book Synopsis Afro-Latinx Digital Connections by : Eduard Arriaga

Download or read book Afro-Latinx Digital Connections written by Eduard Arriaga and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents examples of how digital technologies are being used by people of African descent in South America and the Caribbean, a topic that has been overlooked within the field of digital humanities. These case studies show that in the last few decades, Black Latinx communities have been making themselves visible and asserting long-standing claims and rights through digital tools and platforms, which have been essential for enacting discussions and creating new connections between diverse groups. Afro-Latinx Digital Connections includes both research articles and interviews with practitioners who are working to create opportunities for marginalized communities. Projects discussed in this volume range from an Afrodescendant digital archive in Argentina, blog networks in Cuba, an NGO dedicated to democratizing technology in Brazilian favelas, and the recruitment of digital media to fight racism in Peru. Contributors demonstrate that these tools need not be state of the art to be effective and that they are often most useful when employed to sustain a resilience that is deep and historically grounded. Digital connections are shown here as a means to achieve social justice and to create complex self-representations that challenge racist images of Afrodescendant peoples and monolithic conceptions of humanity. This volume expands the scope of digital humanities and challenges views of the field as a predominantly white discipline. Contributors: Sandra AbdAllah-Álvarez | Adebayo Adegbembo | Maya Anderson-González | Eduard Arriaga | Silvana Bahia | Yvonne Captain | Monica Carrillo | Yancy Castillo | Alí Majul | Maria Cecilia Martino | Andrés Villar A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity

Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity

Author: Edna M. Rodríguez-Plate

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2005-11-16

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0807876283

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Lydia Cabrera (1900-1991), an upper-class white Cuban intellectual, spent many years traveling through Cuba collecting oral histories, stories, and music from Cubans of African descent. Her work is commonly viewed as an extension of the work of her famous brother-in-law, Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, who initiated the study of Afro-Cubans and the concept of transculturation. Here, Edna Rodriguez-Mangual challenges this perspective, proposing that Cabrera's work offers an alternative to the hegemonizing national myth of Cuba articulated by Ortiz and others. Rodriguez-Mangual examines Cabrera's ethnographic essays and short stories in context. By blurring fact and fiction, anthropology and literature, Cabrera defied the scientific discourse used by other anthropologists. She wrote of Afro-Cubans not as objects but as subjects, and in her writings, whiteness, instead of blackness, is gazed upon as the "other." As Rodriguez-Mangual demonstrates, Cabrera rewrote the history of Cuba and its culture through imaginative means, calling into question the empirical basis of anthropology and placing Afro-Cuban contributions at the center of the literature that describes the Cuban nation and its national identity.


Book Synopsis Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity by : Edna M. Rodríguez-Plate

Download or read book Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity written by Edna M. Rodríguez-Plate and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005-11-16 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lydia Cabrera (1900-1991), an upper-class white Cuban intellectual, spent many years traveling through Cuba collecting oral histories, stories, and music from Cubans of African descent. Her work is commonly viewed as an extension of the work of her famous brother-in-law, Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, who initiated the study of Afro-Cubans and the concept of transculturation. Here, Edna Rodriguez-Mangual challenges this perspective, proposing that Cabrera's work offers an alternative to the hegemonizing national myth of Cuba articulated by Ortiz and others. Rodriguez-Mangual examines Cabrera's ethnographic essays and short stories in context. By blurring fact and fiction, anthropology and literature, Cabrera defied the scientific discourse used by other anthropologists. She wrote of Afro-Cubans not as objects but as subjects, and in her writings, whiteness, instead of blackness, is gazed upon as the "other." As Rodriguez-Mangual demonstrates, Cabrera rewrote the history of Cuba and its culture through imaginative means, calling into question the empirical basis of anthropology and placing Afro-Cuban contributions at the center of the literature that describes the Cuban nation and its national identity.

Antiracism in Cuba

Antiracism in Cuba

Author: Devyn Spence Benson

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2016-04-05

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 146962673X

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Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race in Cuba and south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices relating to racial difference persisted despite major efforts by the Cuban state to generate social equality. Drawing on Cuban and U.S. archival materials and face-to-face interviews, Benson examines 1960s government programs and campaigns against discrimination, showing how such programs frequently negated their efforts by reproducing racist images and idioms in revolutionary propaganda, cartoons, and school materials. Building on nineteenth-century discourses that imagined Cuba as a raceless space, revolutionary leaders embraced a narrow definition of blackness, often seeming to suggest that Afro-Cubans had to discard their blackness to join the revolution. This was and remains a false dichotomy for many Cubans of color, Benson demonstrates. While some Afro-Cubans agreed with the revolution's sentiments about racial transcendence--"not blacks, not whites, only Cubans--others found ways to use state rhetoric to demand additional reforms. Still others, finding a revolution that disavowed blackness unsettling and paternalistic, fought to insert black history and African culture into revolutionary nationalisms. Despite such efforts by Afro-Cubans and radical government-sponsored integration programs, racism has persisted throughout the revolution in subtle but lasting ways.


Book Synopsis Antiracism in Cuba by : Devyn Spence Benson

Download or read book Antiracism in Cuba written by Devyn Spence Benson and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race in Cuba and south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices relating to racial difference persisted despite major efforts by the Cuban state to generate social equality. Drawing on Cuban and U.S. archival materials and face-to-face interviews, Benson examines 1960s government programs and campaigns against discrimination, showing how such programs frequently negated their efforts by reproducing racist images and idioms in revolutionary propaganda, cartoons, and school materials. Building on nineteenth-century discourses that imagined Cuba as a raceless space, revolutionary leaders embraced a narrow definition of blackness, often seeming to suggest that Afro-Cubans had to discard their blackness to join the revolution. This was and remains a false dichotomy for many Cubans of color, Benson demonstrates. While some Afro-Cubans agreed with the revolution's sentiments about racial transcendence--"not blacks, not whites, only Cubans--others found ways to use state rhetoric to demand additional reforms. Still others, finding a revolution that disavowed blackness unsettling and paternalistic, fought to insert black history and African culture into revolutionary nationalisms. Despite such efforts by Afro-Cubans and radical government-sponsored integration programs, racism has persisted throughout the revolution in subtle but lasting ways.

Caribbean Migrations

Caribbean Migrations

Author: Anke Birkenmaier

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2020-12-18

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1978814496

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"With mass migration changing the configuration of societies worldwide, we can look to the Caribbean to reflect on the long-standing, entangled relations between countries and areas as uneven in size and influence as the United States, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. More so than other world regions, the Caribbean has been characterized as an always already colonial region. It has long been a key area for empires warring over influence spheres in the new world, and where migration waves from Africa, Europe, and Asia accompanied every political transformation over the last five centuries. In Caribbean Migrations, an interdisciplinary group of humanities and social science scholars study migration from a long-term perspective, analyzing the Caribbean's "unincorporated subjects" from a legal, historical, and cultural standpoint, and exploring how despite often fractured public spheres, Caribbean intellectuals, artists, filmmakers, and writers have been resourceful at showcasing migration as the hallmark of our modern age"--


Book Synopsis Caribbean Migrations by : Anke Birkenmaier

Download or read book Caribbean Migrations written by Anke Birkenmaier and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-18 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With mass migration changing the configuration of societies worldwide, we can look to the Caribbean to reflect on the long-standing, entangled relations between countries and areas as uneven in size and influence as the United States, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. More so than other world regions, the Caribbean has been characterized as an always already colonial region. It has long been a key area for empires warring over influence spheres in the new world, and where migration waves from Africa, Europe, and Asia accompanied every political transformation over the last five centuries. In Caribbean Migrations, an interdisciplinary group of humanities and social science scholars study migration from a long-term perspective, analyzing the Caribbean's "unincorporated subjects" from a legal, historical, and cultural standpoint, and exploring how despite often fractured public spheres, Caribbean intellectuals, artists, filmmakers, and writers have been resourceful at showcasing migration as the hallmark of our modern age"--

Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World

Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World

Author: Solimar Otero

Publisher: University Rochester Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1580463266

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Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World explores how Yoruba and Afro-Cuban communities moved across the Atlantic between the Americas and Africa in successive waves in the nineteenth century. In Havana, Yoruba slaves from Lagos banded together to buy their freedom and sail home to Nigeria. Once in Lagos, this Cuban repatriate community became known as the Aguda. This community built their own neighborhood that celebrated their Afrolatino heritage. For these Yoruba and Afro-Cuban diasporic populations, nostalgic constructions of family and community play the role of narrating and locating a longed-for home. By providing a link between the workings of nostalgia and the construction of home, this volume re-theorizes cultural imaginaries as a source for diasporic community reinvention. Through ethnographic fieldwork and research in folkloristics, Otero reveals that the Aguda identify strongly with their Afro-Cuban roots in contemporary times. Their fluid identity moves from Yoruba to Cuban, and back again, in a manner that illustrates the truly cyclical nature of transnational Atlantic community affiliation. Solimar Otero is Associate Professor of English and a folklorist at Louisiana State University. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and Yoruba traditional religion in folklore, literature and ethnography. Dr. Otero is the recipient of a Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund grant (2013), a fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School's Women's Studies in Religion Program (2009 to 2010), and a Fulbright award (2001).


Book Synopsis Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World by : Solimar Otero

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World written by Solimar Otero and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World explores how Yoruba and Afro-Cuban communities moved across the Atlantic between the Americas and Africa in successive waves in the nineteenth century. In Havana, Yoruba slaves from Lagos banded together to buy their freedom and sail home to Nigeria. Once in Lagos, this Cuban repatriate community became known as the Aguda. This community built their own neighborhood that celebrated their Afrolatino heritage. For these Yoruba and Afro-Cuban diasporic populations, nostalgic constructions of family and community play the role of narrating and locating a longed-for home. By providing a link between the workings of nostalgia and the construction of home, this volume re-theorizes cultural imaginaries as a source for diasporic community reinvention. Through ethnographic fieldwork and research in folkloristics, Otero reveals that the Aguda identify strongly with their Afro-Cuban roots in contemporary times. Their fluid identity moves from Yoruba to Cuban, and back again, in a manner that illustrates the truly cyclical nature of transnational Atlantic community affiliation. Solimar Otero is Associate Professor of English and a folklorist at Louisiana State University. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and Yoruba traditional religion in folklore, literature and ethnography. Dr. Otero is the recipient of a Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund grant (2013), a fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School's Women's Studies in Religion Program (2009 to 2010), and a Fulbright award (2001).

From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz

From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz

Author: Raul A. Fernandez

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2006-05-23

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0520939441

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This book explores the complexity of Cuban dance music and the webs that connect it, musically and historically, to other Caribbean music, to salsa, and to Latin Jazz. Establishing a scholarly foundation for the study of this music, Raul A. Fernandez introduces a set of terms, definitions, and empirical information that allow for a broader, more informed discussion. He presents fascinating musical biographies of prominent performers Cachao López, Mongo Santamaría, Armando Peraza, Patato Valdés, Francisco Aguabella, Cándido Camero, Chocolate Armenteros, and Celia Cruz. Based on interviews that the author conducted over a nine-year period, these profiles provide in-depth assessments of the musicians’ substantial contributions to both Afro-Cuban music and Latin Jazz. In addition, Fernandez examines the links between Cuban music and other Caribbean musics; analyzes the musical and poetic foundations of the Cuban son form; addresses the salsa phenomenon; and develops the aesthetic construct of sabor, central to Cuban music. Copub: Center for Black Music Research


Book Synopsis From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz by : Raul A. Fernandez

Download or read book From Afro-Cuban Rhythms to Latin Jazz written by Raul A. Fernandez and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-05-23 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the complexity of Cuban dance music and the webs that connect it, musically and historically, to other Caribbean music, to salsa, and to Latin Jazz. Establishing a scholarly foundation for the study of this music, Raul A. Fernandez introduces a set of terms, definitions, and empirical information that allow for a broader, more informed discussion. He presents fascinating musical biographies of prominent performers Cachao López, Mongo Santamaría, Armando Peraza, Patato Valdés, Francisco Aguabella, Cándido Camero, Chocolate Armenteros, and Celia Cruz. Based on interviews that the author conducted over a nine-year period, these profiles provide in-depth assessments of the musicians’ substantial contributions to both Afro-Cuban music and Latin Jazz. In addition, Fernandez examines the links between Cuban music and other Caribbean musics; analyzes the musical and poetic foundations of the Cuban son form; addresses the salsa phenomenon; and develops the aesthetic construct of sabor, central to Cuban music. Copub: Center for Black Music Research

Performing Afro-Cuba

Performing Afro-Cuba

Author: Kristina Wirtz

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-06-05

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 022611919X

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Visitors to Cuba will notice that Afro-Cuban figures and references are everywhere: in popular music and folklore shows, paintings and dolls of Santería saints in airport shops, and even restaurants with plantation themes. In Performing Afro-Cuba, Kristina Wirtz examines how the animation of Cuba’s colonial past and African heritage through such figures and performances not only reflects but also shapes the Cuban experience of Blackness. She also investigates how this process operates at different spatial and temporal scales—from the immediate present to the imagined past, from the barrio to the socialist state. Wirtz analyzes a variety of performances and the ways they construct Cuban racial and historical imaginations. She offers a sophisticated view of performance as enacting diverse revolutionary ideals, religious notions, and racial identity politics, and she outlines how these concepts play out in the ongoing institutionalization of folklore as an official, even state-sponsored, category. Employing Bakhtin’s concept of “chronotopes”—the semiotic construction of space-time—she examines the roles of voice, temporality, embodiment, imagery, and memory in the racializing process. The result is a deftly balanced study that marries racial studies, performance studies, anthropology, and semiotics to explore the nature of race as a cultural sign, one that is always in process, always shifting.


Book Synopsis Performing Afro-Cuba by : Kristina Wirtz

Download or read book Performing Afro-Cuba written by Kristina Wirtz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visitors to Cuba will notice that Afro-Cuban figures and references are everywhere: in popular music and folklore shows, paintings and dolls of Santería saints in airport shops, and even restaurants with plantation themes. In Performing Afro-Cuba, Kristina Wirtz examines how the animation of Cuba’s colonial past and African heritage through such figures and performances not only reflects but also shapes the Cuban experience of Blackness. She also investigates how this process operates at different spatial and temporal scales—from the immediate present to the imagined past, from the barrio to the socialist state. Wirtz analyzes a variety of performances and the ways they construct Cuban racial and historical imaginations. She offers a sophisticated view of performance as enacting diverse revolutionary ideals, religious notions, and racial identity politics, and she outlines how these concepts play out in the ongoing institutionalization of folklore as an official, even state-sponsored, category. Employing Bakhtin’s concept of “chronotopes”—the semiotic construction of space-time—she examines the roles of voice, temporality, embodiment, imagery, and memory in the racializing process. The result is a deftly balanced study that marries racial studies, performance studies, anthropology, and semiotics to explore the nature of race as a cultural sign, one that is always in process, always shifting.

Afro-Cuban Identity in Postrevolutionary Novel and Film

Afro-Cuban Identity in Postrevolutionary Novel and Film

Author: Andrea E. Morris

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1611484227

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Afro-Cuban Identity in Post-Revolutionary Novel and Film examines the changing discourse on race as portrayed in Cuban novels and films produced after 1959. Andrea Easley Morris analyzes the artists' participation in and questioning of the revolutionary government's revision of national identity to include the unique experience and contributions of Cuban men and women of African descent. While the Cuban revolution brought sweeping changes that vastly improved the material condition of many Afro-Cubans, at the time overrepresented among Cuba's poor and marginalized, the government's official position was that racial inequities had been resolved as early as 1962. Although a more open dialogue on race was cut short, the work of several novelists and film directors from the late 1960s and 70s expresses the need to explore what was gained and lost by Afro-Cubans in the early years of the revolution, among them Manuel Granados, Miguel Barnet, Nivaria Tejera, Sara G mez, C sar Leante, Tom s Guti rrez Alea, Sergio Giral, and Manuel Cofi o. Their works participate in the process of redefining Cuban national identity that took place after the revolution and, more specifically, they explore the place of Afro-Cuban identity within a broader notion of revolutionary "Cubanness." This occurs through an emphasis on Afro-Cuban cultural practices that have constituted forms of resistance to colonial and neo-colonial oppression. This book examines the identity conflicts portrayed in these works and takes into account the artists' negotiation of their own status within the revolutionary context by looking at the narrative strategies used to address racial issues within the constraints placed on cultural production in Cuba after 1962.


Book Synopsis Afro-Cuban Identity in Postrevolutionary Novel and Film by : Andrea E. Morris

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Identity in Postrevolutionary Novel and Film written by Andrea E. Morris and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Afro-Cuban Identity in Post-Revolutionary Novel and Film examines the changing discourse on race as portrayed in Cuban novels and films produced after 1959. Andrea Easley Morris analyzes the artists' participation in and questioning of the revolutionary government's revision of national identity to include the unique experience and contributions of Cuban men and women of African descent. While the Cuban revolution brought sweeping changes that vastly improved the material condition of many Afro-Cubans, at the time overrepresented among Cuba's poor and marginalized, the government's official position was that racial inequities had been resolved as early as 1962. Although a more open dialogue on race was cut short, the work of several novelists and film directors from the late 1960s and 70s expresses the need to explore what was gained and lost by Afro-Cubans in the early years of the revolution, among them Manuel Granados, Miguel Barnet, Nivaria Tejera, Sara G mez, C sar Leante, Tom s Guti rrez Alea, Sergio Giral, and Manuel Cofi o. Their works participate in the process of redefining Cuban national identity that took place after the revolution and, more specifically, they explore the place of Afro-Cuban identity within a broader notion of revolutionary "Cubanness." This occurs through an emphasis on Afro-Cuban cultural practices that have constituted forms of resistance to colonial and neo-colonial oppression. This book examines the identity conflicts portrayed in these works and takes into account the artists' negotiation of their own status within the revolutionary context by looking at the narrative strategies used to address racial issues within the constraints placed on cultural production in Cuba after 1962.