Cuban Studies

El presente trabajo llena el vacío sobre la literatura cubanoamericana que se evidencia en el abarcador Cuban Studies Since the Revolution (1992). Poco antes de esta fecha empezaron a aparecer textos que se distanciaban, por su sensibilidad, de la literatura de exilio y que respondían a otras inquietudes. Más allá de contemplar esta laguna, este ensayo gira en torno a la naturaleza intersticial de la literatura cubanoamericana en el sentido de que responde y se asocia a más de un ámbito, incluido el cubano de la Isla. Pese a dicha conexión, se señala la carencia de publicaciones, traducciones y crítica acerca de este corpus literario en Cuba, falta que habría que subsanar.

This paper was specially written for the International Congress ‘Juri Lotman's Semiosphere’  / Lotman@100 
https://jurilotman.ee/en/
https://jurilotman.ee/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Abstracts_Congress_Juri_Lotmans_Semiosphere.pdf
https://jurilotman.ee/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/21.02-Congress-program-Programme-II.pdf
CONGRESS 2022 “JURI LOTMAN’S SEMIOSPHERE”
February 25–28 at Tallinn University and the University of Tartu, Estonia
I remain deeply grateful  for their generous support to Desiderio’s daughter Joyce Navarro and his widow Tatiana Gorstko. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić; to Maria-Kristiina Lotman, to Tatjana Kuzovkina and Darja Dorving, All of them have invested time and intellectual insights, they have given significant impulses for my study, on this special occasion, celebrating Juri Lotman's work in the centenary of his birth in 2022.

This essay analyzes discourses and narratives of men who frequent the washrooms at public venues in Havana. The graffiti on toilet room walls works as an articulator of micro markets of sexual communication and gender/sexual relations. In this article graffiti is the focus of an ethnographic approach to everyday life and discourses on homoeroticism at play in those sites. The final part of the essay moves on from graffiti in public toilets to chart other places constituting a homoerotic ambiente in Havana.

In the annals of history, the year 2015 will be notable for the “migrant crisis” in Europe and for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States. It becomes doubly important to de-code the exodus of the Cubans under the Castro regime: first, to better understand certain mechanisms of international migrations; and secondly, to elucidate the relations between Cuba and the United States.
Dans l’histoire, l’année 2015 est notamment celle de la « crise des migrants » en Europe et du rétablissement des relations diplomatiques entre Cuba et les Etats-Unis. Le décryptage de l’exode de populations cubaines sous le régime castriste est doublement important. D’une part, il permet de mieux comprendre certains des mécanismes des migrations internationales. D’autre part, il livre un éclairage es-sentiel sur les relations entre Cuba et les Etats-Unis.

The abortion in Cuba is a fact socially accepted and widely practiced. This article tries to explain the reasons for this phenomenon and the demographic consequences of abortion for Cuban society as well.

Streszczenie: Aborcja na Kubie jest szeroko stosowana i społecznie akceptowana. W niniejszym artykule podjęto próbę wytłumaczenia powodów takiego stanu rzeczy, jak i konsekwencji demograficznych tego zjawiska dla społeczeństwa kubańskiego.

Cuba’s decision to focus on tourism as a source of hard currency and economic development makes international competitiveness a critical issue.  But what is the basis of international competitiveness in tourism?  And how can Cuba best develop its tourism industry to meet the twin goals of generating hard currency and economic development?  A framework for approaching these questions in the context of underdevelopment and socialist economic planning is presented here.  It is argued that the Cuban government’s current strategy of expansion and low price, combined with monopoly industry organization, presents high risks for declining net returns.

The Philippine-American War (c.1899 – 1913), which led to the colonial subjugation of the Philippines by the United States for over forty years and the suppression of the first independent republic in South-East Asia, is one of America’s forgotten wars. The historical amnesia surrounding this conflict is no accident. It is an enduring legacy of US government and military propaganda, widely disseminated by a largely supportive corporate press, which contributed in no small way to the American victory both at home and abroad. Propaganda is understood here as the deliberate falsification, distortion or tendentious portrayal of events to justify a political cause to the wider public. What I want to argue about this case, is that successful propaganda does not occur in the context of an otherwise rational and empirically verifiable public discourse. Successful war propaganda has to be reconciled with the self-respecting, symbolic self-interpretations of a national community. In the case of the United States, founded in part on a revolutionary republican imaginary but also a racialised and expansionist missionary vision of “Manifest Destiny”, this was not a simple or uncontested matter back in 1899.

This article provides a brief account of the American conquest of the Philippines and the attendant atrocities that accompanied the invasion. It will also explain how these brutal events were justified to the American public as hard but necessary acts of “Benevolent Assimilation”, for the benign tutelage of the Filipino. In particular, attention is paid to how propaganda was used to justify a colonial war, dehumanize the Filipino “other”, rationalize atrocities and erase alternative interpretations of events from the official record.

Enrique Gonzalez-Manet's book The Hidden War of Information translated by Laurien Alexandre, ironically is itself an example of  the dominated flows of information the author so excoriates.  This is a 1989 review of a 1988 English version of a Cuban book completed in 1985 that cites largely the literature in the 1979-1983 period. It may well be the first book published in English by a Cuban scholar since the Cuban revolution. So much in this Hook is vital information for North Americans, yet the U.S. information blockade of Cuba has kept it "hidden" until now.

Una mirada única a la política exterior española tras la guerra de Irak

Basándose en el acceso privilegiado a algunos de los actores más importantes de la política exterior española de los últimos tiempos —entre ellos el ex presidente del Gobierno José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero y el ex ministro de Asuntos Exteriores Miguel Ángel Moratinos—, este libro es un relato exhaustivo de las relaciones internacionales de España a partir del año 2000 y supone una nueva perspectiva sobre su desarrollo en materia de seguridad en una época de cambios drásticos.

Tras el fracaso de la guerra de Irak, en 2004 el Gobierno socialista de Rodríguez Zapatero decidió que la seguridad y la prosperidad del país no podían seguir apoyándose en medidas unilaterales y viejas alianzas de la Guerra Fría. En este mundo cambiante, este libro explora el concepto de «multilateralismo eficaz» impulsado por el PSOE, por el cual España abandonó el apoyo incondicional de Estados Unidos y abordó una serie de colaboraciones multilaterales con regiones de todo el mundo.

Exhaustivo y completo, España y la doctrina del multilateralismo eficaz ofrece una nueva historia internacional de la España contemporánea. Demuestra cómo en nuestro país los cambios internos confluyeron con las transformaciones globales y que, en el mundo actual, la diplomacia sigue siendo una herramienta que funciona.

This paper argues that Leonardo Padura’s historical novel El hombre que amaba a los perros presents a continuation of sorts of the detective genre. In emphasing an inverted order of time and a witness’s investigation into the past of Trotski’s assassin, Padura construes a logic of defeat both for the witnesses and the actors of world history. The witness turned writer, the politician, and his assassin become victims of manipulative states, and the “new” historical novel, instead of capturing the aftermath of great historical events, is relegated to documenting the failure to adjust of the individual subject.

Cuban culture has long been available to English speakers via translation. This study examines the complex ways in which English renderings of Cuban texts from various domains—poetry, science fiction, political and military writing, music, film—have represented, reshaped, or amended original texts. Taking in a broad corpus, it becomes clear that the mental image an Anglophone audience has formed of Cuban culture since 1959 depends heavily on the decisions of translators. At times, a clear ideological agenda drives moves like strengthening the denunciatory tone of a song or excising passages from a political text. At other moments, translators’ indifference to the importance of certain facets of a work, such as a film’s onscreen text or the lyrics sung on a musical performance, impoverishes the English speaker’s experience of the rich weave of self-expression in the original Spanish. In addition to the dynamics at work in the choices translators make at the level of the text itself, this study attends to how paratexts like prefaces, footnotes, liner notes, and promotional copy shape the audience’s experience of the text.

This paper focuses on community development and its relationship to eco-tourism as a means of creating a sustainable future for local Cuban communities. If communities control local resources to create economic opportunities for local goals, there is a greater chance that community development will be more effective and sustainable. Local empowerment can play a key role in community development through ecological and cultural tourism. The focus of this paper is Cuba's potential to develop into a major ecological and cultural tourism center within international tourism. Recent policy announcements regarding the intention to diversify Cuba's economy and move people into private enterprise will require new employment opportunities, especially those with lower opportunity costs and resources. The growth of small paladares (restaurants run by self-employed owners) and casas particulares (rooms for rent in private homes), which provide low environmental impact and resource use, are compatible with eco-cultural tourism's emphasis on the local. In an era of increasing environmental costs and resource scarcity, eco-cultural tourism offers a sustainable alternative to conventional tourism.

There has for a long time existed a stereotype in the Caribbean that has marked woman of colour as the exotic "other". The mulata, in particular, inherently carries the weight of prejudices that have labelled her as an alluring advertisement of sensuality, exoticism, and glamorous romanticism throughout the Caribbean. Her ebony skin colour and concluded predisposed eroticism is evidenced throughout history in tourist advertisements and various forms of marketing campaigns stemming from out of the Caribbean. This has left her labelled by the impressions of tourists and outsiders who are attracted to the ideas of her beauty like a sailor to the siren. The mulata exemplifies an alluring notion of the Caribbean as something "different," a female Caliban that is left to battle the colonization of prejudice and preconceptions arriving from abroad. This presentation aims to shed recognition on these stereotypes placed upon afro-latinas and analyze the modern consequences of the mulata complex in Latin American culture. It addresses the influence that the mulata complex has had on tourism, interracial relationships, gender equality, and racial identity throughout the Latin-American Caribbean.

12th Annual Green Economics Institute Conference  10-12th June 2017
3 Days St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, Keeping Social and Environmental Justice Alive in an age of Tyranny..
Reforming Economics.
Green Finance, Green Investment & Green Economics
Reclaiming The Economy from Privatisers, Fossil Fuellers, Xenophobes and Divide and Rulers.
Keeping social and environmental justice alive in this new age of Barbarism- Post Truth and Post Science

La aprobación de la Constitución de 1901 que instauró la República de Cuba privó a las mujeres, tanto blancas como afrocubanas, del derecho a participar en el sistema electoral. En un contexto marcado por la primera ola feminista en los EEUU, las mujeres cubanas fundaron las primeras agrupaciones sufragistas y feministas para crear un estado de conciencia favorable a sus demandas y promover cambios legislativos que favoreciesen su acceso a las instituciones y una mayor igualdad en el código civil. Además de la lucha por el derecho al voto, las mujeres demandaron mayor protección laboral, se movilizaron en campañas educativas y por la paz, crearon ligas benéficas y asistenciales y participaron en los movimientos insurreccionales de 1933 y 1952. Su creciente activismo político y social fue generando entre las mujeres un mayor compromiso con los problemas nacionales y facilitó su expansión hacia el espacio público en los años previos a la revolución y la llegada de la segunda ola femin...

Durante la primera guerra de independencia de Cuba, que comenzó en 1868 y duró diez años, aparecieron en la isla y los Estados Unidos varias narraciones que hablaban del conflicto bélico. Una de estas narraciones fue escrita por Lila Waring de Luaces, una norteamericana casada con un cubano. En este ensayo discuto ese texto y lo comparo con otro, aparecido después de la guerra, escrito por otra sobreviviente en la isla. En ellos destaco las formas de representar la violencia y el Yo en estas narraciones, así como lo más importante: el archivo de hechos que van creando como contrapeso a la historia oficial del poder español en Cuba.

RESUMO: Por meio deste projeto será possível analisar o internacionalismo proletário promovido pela República de Cuba como um fator fundamental nas Relações Internacionais. A pesquisa busca observar fatos por meio de uma ótica Marxista, da universalização do proletariado e da influência dos grandes internacionalistas revolucionários: Fidel Castro e Che Guevara. O segundo capítulo do projeto estará destinado apenas a explicar as principais teorias Marxistas da Relações Internacionais. Será abordado neste projeto também as grandes contribuições  no âmbito de cooperação internacional exercidos pela República de  Cuba durante os últimos anos à favor da sociedade internacional, como  por exemplo, projetos educacionais, intervenções e programas médicos e ajuda armada por todo o mundo.

ABSTRACT: Through this project it will be able to review the proletarian internationalism promoted by the Republic of Cuba as an important factor to the International Relations. This research seeks to observe facts through a Marxist view of the universalization of the working class and the influence of the greatest revolutionaries internationalists: Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. On the second chapter, it will be assigned to explain the greatest Marxists theories in the International Relations. Also, on this project it will be shown the huge contribution done by the Republic of Cuba to international cooperation in the past years on behalf of the international society, such as, through educational projects, interventions and medical programs and armed aid through the whole world.

In this course, students will be introduced to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the concept of development and different discourses around them. Two key concepts, advocated by decolonial and feminist scholar-activists, for the study of local communities and their sustainable development; namely, the concepts of “delinking” and “positionality” will also be presented and discussed. The premise of this course is to show how these concepts provide us with non-normative and post-disciplinary perspectives for knowledge production on local development. In addition, these concepts are argued to also be important for sustainable development (Mignolo, 2016), especially in relation to the many attempts worldwide for the reconstitution of local ways of seeing, sensing and becoming in the world.

LES ÉTAPES DE LA MISE EN TOURISME DE CUBA
Par Patrice BALLESTER et Karima KHODJA
1ère étape : Cuba, tourisme d’aventure et d’affaires dans les Caraïbes.
2ème étape : La période des premières infrastructures hôtelières de luxe.
3ème étape : Des investisseurs américains, des casinos, un eldorado. 
4ème étape : Vers un « Monte-Carlo des Amériques » ?
5ème étape : Du triangle des jeux à l’accélération des transports aériens. 
6ème étape : La période révolutionnaire 1959.
7ème étape : Tourisme de congrès et en direction des pays de l’Est, Bloc socialiste-communiste.
8ème étape : 1989, la fin du bloc soviétique, le tourisme comme moteur d’une nouvelle image culturelle et politique.
9ème étape : Le tourisme comme instrument du maintien du régime cubain ?
10ème étape : Vers une ouverture réussie et gains issus de la mondialisation ?
La naissance du tourisme à Cuba se fait par étape, mais cette croissance de l’activité de loisir s’explique à travers des atouts et des aménités exceptionnelles pour ce pays de 110 922 km² composé d'une île principale et de plus de 1 600 îlots, notamment des avantages climatiques et géo-morphologiques. Dix étapes concernant la mise en tourisme de l’île s’entrevoient.
THE STAGES OF CUBA TOURISM
By Patrice BALLESTER and Karima KHODJA
1st stage: Cuba, adventure and business tourism in the Caribbean.
2nd stage: The period of the first luxury hotel infrastructures.
3rd stage: American investors, casinos, an El Dorado.
4th step: Towards a “Monte-Carlo of the Americas”?
5th stage: From the triangle of games to the acceleration of air transport.
6th stage: The revolutionary period 1959.
7th stage: Congress tourism and towards the countries of the East, Socialist-Communist bloc.
8th stage: 1989, the end of the Soviet bloc, tourism as the instrument of a new cultural and political image.
Step 9: Tourism as an instrument for maintaining the Cuban regime?
10th step: Towards a successful opening and gains from globalization?
The birth of tourism in Cuba is done in stages, but this growth in leisure activity can be explained by exceptional assets and amenities for this country of 110,922 km² consisting of a main island and more than 1,600 islets, including climatic and geo-morphological advantages. Ten stages concerning the tourism development of the island are glimpsed.

Mediatic gambiarras are alternative and improvised forms of media consumption. They emerge in adverse or restrictive contexts. Signal the need for connection on the part of those who use them. In the island of Cuba, paquetes, sets of files containing pop culture content, music, series, US blockbusters, among others, not shown in Cuban media systems, are the most established cultural form of mediatic gambiarra on the socialist island. The article presents the result of a research project carried out between the years 2015 and 2017, based on an ethnographic-inspired methodology, with field interviews and participant observation in the city of Havana, with the purpose of debating different uses of the paquetes by consumers and fans of pop culture in the Cuban context. Contradictions about the practices of paqueteros-subjects who sell paquetes in online and offline network creations-are mapped from the emergence of traces of capitalism in Cuba that pass through the always conflicting relationship between residents in Havana and migrants in Miami in symbolic disputes on the island. The questions raised in the field signal for different matrixes around transnationalism in Latin America, geopolitical issues and point to understandings about the singularities and challenges of contemporary Cuba.

Este artículo aborda las formas de la posmemoria socialista, el pasaje de una generación a la siguiente de los restos y vivencias de la cultura soviética en Cuba. Se analiza a dos jóvenes autores, nacidos durante los años 80, que comenzaron a publicar ya en el siglo XXI y que trabajan con las memorias y los restos del socialismo. Se trata de Karel Bofill Bahamonde, y su poemario Matrioshkas (La Habana: Ediciones Unión, 2010) y Absolut Röntgen (La Habana: Editorial Caja China, 2009), el libro de cuentos de Abel Fernández-Larrea.