The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) at Florida International University (FIU) is dedicated to creating and disseminating knowledge about Cuba and Cuban Americans. The institute encourages original research and interdisciplinary teaching, organizes extracurricular activities, collaborates with other academic units working in Cuban and Cuban-American studies, and promotes the development of library holdings and collections on Cuba and its diaspora.
This collection of promotional material for events hosted by the Cuban Research Institute includes flyers, brochures and other ephemera.
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The Global Edge: Miami in the Twenty-First Century Book Presentation by Authors Alejandro Portes and Ariel Armony
Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University
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Classically Cuban Concert: The Essential Music of Cuba with the Alonso Brothers
Cuban Research Institute
The Cuban Research Institute is pleased to announce the 1 4th installment of its annual concert series. From the sensuality and seductive melodies of the bolero, to the exotic and complex rhythms of the mambo and cha cha, Cuba's rich musical heritage spans centuries and has influenced most popular music of our time. Virtuoso pianists and Cuban brothers Orlay Alonso and Orlando Alonso present an immersive experience that places the audience at the center of the "Golden Era" of Cuban music and entertainment of the 1940s and 1950s. This interactive show features a variety of Cuban styles such as mambo, cha cha, salsa, bolero, son, danz6n, and conga, and includes works by Celia Cruz, Ernesto Lecuona, Ignacio Cervantes, Miguel Fallde, and Damaso Perez Prado, among others.
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Cuban Migration to Chile: Lecture by Nelson Jaime Santana
Cuban Research institute, Florida International University
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"En Cuba somos fiesteros": Popular Festivals in 1970s Cuba
Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University
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Caring for the Aged in Latin America: The Cases of Chile, Cuba, and Uruguay
Elaine Acosta
Latin America is facing a great challenge coming from the aging of population in the context of a crisis of care. This phenomenon raises the issue of developing new and more research on comparative social policies. This book on caring for the aged in Latin America analyzes three of the oldest countries in the region: Cuba, Chile, and Uruguay.The volume describes and compares the legal regulations of care toward elderly people, the social policies on care and aging, and the programs and services offered to cover the needs of the aging population and their families. The book concludes with a series of lessons and recommendations resulting from comparative analysis. Finally, the authors (Drs. Elaine Acosta, Florencia Picasso, and Valentina Perrotta), with the support of the Social Policies in Latin America (SOPLA) program affiliated with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, assert the need to promote studies on comparative social policies on aging care, which would allow the assessment of the progress, obstacles, and challenges on the issue in Latin America.
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Havana Habibi: Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University
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After Maria: The Two Shores Film Screening and Discussion with Director Sonia Fritz
Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University
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Guantanamo and American Empire: The Humanities Respond
Don E. Walicek
This edited volume explores the humanities as a platform for understanding and responding to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, tensions between the United States and Cuba, and the contested place of freedom in American Empire. Its 12 chapters present the work of scholars and writers based in Cuba's Guantanamo Province, Puerto Rico, and various parts of the United States. Its essays, short stories, poetry, and other texts engage the far-reaching meaning and significance of Gitmo by bringing together what happens on the U.S. side of the fence-or la cerca, as it is called in Cuba-with perspectives from the outside world. Chapters include critiques of artistic renderings of the Guantanamo region; historical narratives contemplating the significance of freedom; analyses of the ways the base and region inform the Cuban imaginary; and fiction and poetry published for the first time in English.
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The Magnetic Pull of Guantanamo Bay: Responding to Violence with Hope
Don E. Walicek
Approaching Guantanamo Bay as a key discursive site in a global network of U.S. imperial power, this presentation uses the edited volume Guantdnamo and American Empire: The Humanities Respond (Walicek and Adams, 2018) to discuss the infractions on freedom that have taken place within and around the bay since it was seized by U.S. troops in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Described in terms of longitudinal patterns of violence, erasure, and hope, the analysis of these infractions assists in understanding the impact that the naval base known as "Gitmo" has had on economic, political, and social life in the U.S. as well as in Cuba, Haiti, and other parts of the Caribbean. Special attention will be given to two topics: the U.S. military's detention of migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, and suspected terrorists; and the censorship of artistic and literary works created by those held in the base's detention facilities, including the Muslim men that the U.S. government has treated as enemy combatants.
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Mulata Nation: Visualizing Race and Gender in Cuba
Alison Fraunhar
Repeatedly and powerfully throughout Cuban history, the mulata, a woman of mixed racial identity, features prominently in Cuban visual and performative culture.Tracing the figure, Dr. Alison Fraunhar looks at the representation and performance in both elite and popular culture. She also tracks how characteristics associated with these women have accrued across the Atlantic world. Widely understood to embody the bridge between European subject and African other, the mulata contains the sensuality attributed to Africans in a body more closely resembling the European ideal of beauty. Dr. Fraunhar explores these complex paradigms, how, why, and for whom the image was useful, and how it was both subverted and asserted from the colonial period to the present. From the early seventeenth century through Cuban independence in 1899 up to the late revolutionary era, Fraunhar illustrates the ambiguous figure's role in nationhood, citizenship, and commercialism. She analyzes images including key examples of nineteenth-century graphic arts, avant-garde painting, and magazine covers of the Republican era, cabaret and film performance, and contemporary iterations of gender.
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Cuban-American Political Culture and Civic Organization: Tocqueville in Miami
Robert M. Ceresa
Civic organizations are the heart of the story of the social and political power and influence of Miami's Cuban community. Few places in the United States have been transformed by immigration the way Miami has been transformed by Cuban exiles, and Cuban civic organizations help to explain why this is the case. This book addresses lessons to be learned about the nature of civic life from the experience of Cuban Miami. Drawing upon original ethnographic research, it looks into the cultural politics that leads to civic organizations success. Four different civic organizations are examined-Municipalities of Cuba in Exile, League Against Cancer, Cuban Consensus, and Saints Peter & Paul Catholic Church. This book will help answer what the impact of the organizations is likely to mean for Miami moving forward in the context of change, as the generation of Cuban exiles primarily responsible for the community's development disappears, and U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba continues to evolve.
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Manufacturing Sin: The Inquisition in Cuba between 1604 and 1614
Leonardo Falcon
Cuba was the religious administrative center of the Catholic Church in the circum-Caribbean since its diocese (established in 1517) eventually encompassed Cuba, Jamaica, and Florida. The island played a key role in the development of the Church and of the Inquisition within the Spanish empire in the region, which served as a buffer against the incursion on non-Catholic European powers in the New World. In this lecture, Leonardo Falc6n presents the latest findings of his doctoral dissertation research on the Inquisition in Cuba during the early years of the seventeenth century. Based on research in Mexico, Chile, Spain, and Cuba, he has determined that indeed there were efforts to establish an Inquisition Tribunal in Havana to counteract the English establishment of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The tribunal was the perfect complement to the defensive role of the Spanish military in the Caribbean frontier.
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Criollos, Peninsulares, and the University of Havana's Commemoration of the Third Centenary of Don Quixote (1905)
Ricardo Castells
The third centenary of the publication of Miguel de Cervantes'Don Quixote was celebrated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, but the Cuban commemoration was particularly problematic because of the social divisions that remained on the Island following the recent War of Independence of 1895-1898. On the one hand, the conservative Diario de la Marina newspaper used the centenary to celebrate the cultural relations between Spain and Cuba in an elaborate program held in what is now the Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso. On the other, the University of Havana held its own commemoration one week later to honor Cervantes while simultaneously proclaiming the Island's cultural and literary independence from Spain. This talk analyzes how the speeches of four of the University's professors reflected an early optimism about the young Republic's boundless opportunities, even as they dealt with the Island's recent colonial history. Dr. Ricardo
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Lezama Lima: Speaking Freely
Ernesto Fundora Hernandez
Lezama Lima: Speaking Freely (Lezama Lima: soltarla lengua) surveys the life and work of one of the most complex and interesting writers in the Spanish language. This documentary reviews the most outstanding traits of his rare personality, encompassing a broad panorama that includes the hermeneutical analysis of his work, the sociopolitical context in which he lived, and the more day-to-day anecdotes of this great Havana-born author. Through the eyes of his friends, disciples, and members of his "Delphic course," viewers can enjoy and approach a polyhedral Lezama Lima, who will make them rave about his transcendental knolwedge-characterized by a heterodoxical mystical and cultural range-as well as attract them to the personality of a common man who equally liked gossip, heretical and esoteric conversations, and smoking a good cigar or tasting a fleshy fruit. Director Ernesto Fundora Hernandez's fundamental motive in this audiovisual piece is to go beyond the myth surrounding Lezama Lima, bringing him closer to younger generations, based on an admiration that integrates poetic and mundane aspects of his life, transmuting the difficulting elements of his work, in the spirit of a Creole pleasantness which, without renouncing complexity, returns us to a potable and even funny Lezama Lima.
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Havana's Colonial Architecture and 19th-Century Ironwork
Ileana Perez Drago
This lecture will center on constructions of Havana's late colonial period. During the 19* century, the fasades of the city's buildings underwent a remarkable transformation, with ironwork mimicking that taking place at the sane time in Europe. Havana's ironwork has been compared with that from Madrid, Seville, and CAdiz, a comparison that highlights the strong relationship among these cities during the Spanish colonial era. Dr. Perez Drago's research analyzes the ironwork of Havana's architecture and its relationship with European exponents via a comparison of catalogs from England, Germany, France, and Spain. Seventy-nine buildings located in Old Havana, El Cerro, and El Vedado were part of this study. Her research methodology offers an avenue that could be applied to other architectural elements as well.
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Supporting Democracy through the Experience of Others
Stefano Bottoni and Nikita Petrov
Sharing the memories and histories of countries that have transitioned to democracy is crucial for supporting democratic development across the world. By sharing these experiences, the global community learns valuable lessons about democracy. Join us for a discussion about the Romanian and Russian experiences of transition to democracy and the lessons learned throughout these experiences.
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Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York
Lisandro Perez
More than 100 years before the Cuban Revolution of 1959 sparked an exodus that created today's prominent Cuban-American presence, Cubans were settling in New York City in what became largest community of Latin Americans in the nineteenth-century Northeast. Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution brings this community to vivid life, tracing its formation and how it was shaped by both the sugar trade and the long struggle for independence from Spain. New York became the primary destination for Cuban emigres in search of an education, opportunity, wealth, to start a new life or forget an old one, to evade royal authority, plot a revolution, experience freedom, or buy and sell goods. Lisandro Perez beautifully weaves together their stories, showing the rise of a little-known but vibrant community that represents the origins of New York City's Latino presence. Historically rich and engrossing, Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution immerses the reader in the drama of Cuban New York.
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Cuba in the USA: A Journey around the Presence of Cuba in the United States through the Emilio Cueto Collection
Emilio Cueto
Cuba en/in the USA, by Emilio Cueto and Julio Larramendi, documents the long, broad, and profound presence of the Caribbean island in the United States, through prints, images, and all kinds of objects from Emilio Cueto's collection of Cuban memorabilia. This illustrated book is a journey through the North American geographic space in search of the marks left by the Pearl of the Antilles in the land of Uncle Sam. The texts in each chapter, generally brief, have the principal mission of giving the illustrated pieces a context and grouping them together in such a way that readers will be able to better understand their message.
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Galicia - Cuba: A Musical Journey Through The Galician Song Cantiga, Unha noite
Estibaliz Santamaria Cadaval
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Language, Lifestyle, and Identity in Puerto Rico
Anna Kaganiec-Kamienska
Although both Spanish and English have been co-official languages in Puerto Rlco since 1902 (with a brief interlude of Spanish-only from 1991 to 1993), Puerto Rico is not a bilingual society. The two languages derive their prestige from different sources and are not used equally in all domains. Spanish, as the national language, is symbolic of the Puerto Rican tradition. In turn, English is associated with socioeconomic prestige and attractive employment opportunities. However, individual language choices today seem to be influenced also by the global context and technological advancements in communication and media, among other factors. This new "global lifestyle" an integral part of which is the English language, leads to questions about current language attitudes in Puerto Rico and the relationship among language, lifestyle, and identity.
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Marti's Archive
Jorge Camacho
This lecture will analyze the importance of the archive for the construction of the nation. What is the archive and what role does politics play in it? Jorge Camacho will discuss the evolution of Jos6 Marti's works from the time of his death to today, and how they have been collected from different sources and a variety of ways. The talk will assess Carlos Ripoll's contributions to our understanding of Marti, and how Camacho's research project has led him to publish more than 50 previously unknown chronicles that Marti wrote while living in New York in the 1880s. The question that guides this lecture is how did we come to have a body of work that we call today his Obras completas? Are they really"complete"or are there still articles, poems, and translations that we still do not know about?
