Cuban Research Institute Events

Follow

• 

  Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba: Stories of Early Twentieth-Century Migration from Barbados

  Sharon Milagro Marshall

  Barbadians were among the thousands of British West Indians who migrated to Cuba in the early twentieth century in search of work. They were drawn there by employment opportunities fueled largely by US investment in Cuban sugar plantations. Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba: Stories of Early Twentieth-Century Migration from Barbados is their story. The migrants were citizens of the British Empire, and their ill-treatment in Cuba led to a diplomatic tiff between British and Cuban authorities.The author draws from contemporary newspaper articles, official records, journals and books to set the historical contexts which initiated this intra-Caribbean migratory wave. Through oral histories, it also gives voice to the migrants' compelling narratives of their experience in Cuba. One of the oral histories recorded in the book is that of the author's mother, who was born in Cuba of Barbadian parents.

• 

  The Power of Race in Cuba Racial Ideology and Black Consciousness during the Revolution

  Danielle Pilar Clealand

  In The Power of Race in Cuba, Danielle Pilar Clealand analyzes racial ideologies that negate the existence of racism and their effect on racial progress and activism through the lens of Cuba. Since 1959, Fidel Castro and the Cuban government have married socialism and the ideal of racial harmony to create a formidable ideology that is an integral part of Cubans' sense of identity and their perceptions of race and racism in their country. While the combination of socialism and a colorblind racial ideology is particular to Cuba, strategies that paint a picture of equality of opportunity and deflect the importance of race are not particular to the island's ideology and can be found throughout the world, and in the Americas, in particular. The Power of Race in Cuba gives a nuanced portrait of black identity in Cuba, based on survey data and interviews with formal organizers and hip hop artists.

• 

  A Conversation with Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera

  Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

  Join the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs as we welcome former FIU faculty and research fellow, the Hon. Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera, President of the Republic of Costa Rica. FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg will present President Solis with the FIU Presidential Gold Medallion, the highest honor the university bestows upon heads of state and other high ranking public officials. Following the presentation, President Solis will join us for an open discussion about Costa Rica, its challenges and opportunities: citizen security, renewable energy resources, environmental and climate change, infrastructure and Costa Rica's role in regional cooperation, among other topics.

  Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera is the 47th President of the Republic of Costa Rica. He is a professor, politician and diplomat. He has held management positions in philanthropic and multilateral organizations in Costa Rica and internationally, and served as Ambassador for Central American Affairs and Director General for Foreign Policy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the José Maria Figueres Olsen administration (1994 to 1998.) As a Fulbright Professor at FIU, Solis was an associate researcher with the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center. He has authored, co-authored or edited 10 books and more than 60 academic articles in specialized magazines published in Central America, South America, Europe and the U.S.

  Moderator: Frank O. Mora, Director, Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center.

• 

  Last Days in Havana

  Fernando Perez

  A Fernando Perez Film:

  Last Days in Havana (Ultimos Dias en La Habana)

  From Cuba, a lover letter to a city-in-waiting and its hard-up dreamers.

  Opens September 15, 2017

  Coral Gables Art Cinema

• 

  Diversión: Play and Popular Culture in Cuban America

  Dr. Albert Sergio Laguna

  After the rapprochement between the US and Cuba, this book updates the conversation about Cuban America by showing how this community has changed over the past 25 years. No longer a conservative Republican voting bloc, the majority of Cubans today want more engagement with the island instead of less. Albert Sergio Laguna investigates the generational shifts and tensions in a Cuban America where the majority is now made up of immigrants who arrived since the 1990s and those born in the US.To probe these changes, Laguna examines the aesthetic and social logics of a wide range of popular culture forms originating in Miami and Cuba from the 1970s through the 2010s.

  By unpacking this archive, Laguna explores our complex, often fraught attachments to popular culture and the way it can challenge and reproduce typical cultural ideologies—especially in relation to politics and race. In the wake of the largest migration wave to the US in Cuban history, Diversión and its focus on play are crucial reading for those who seek to understand not only the Cuban diaspora, but cultural and economic life on the island.

• 

  Un Tipo Tipico: The Popular Humor of Guillermo Alvarez Guedes

  Albert Sergio Laguna

  Comedian Gullermo Aizarez Guides 11927-2013) was one of the most beloved figures in the history of Cuban popular culture. In tbs lecture. Professor Abort Sergio Laguna analyses Alvarez Guerfes's jokes in order to investigate how Cubans in Miami were imagining themselves politically. Culturally, and racially in the tumultuous 1970s and 1960. Laguna’s work illustrates the centrality of humor and play in a community that has often been described as angry, reactionary, and melancholic. He contends that our understanding of the Cuban diaspora is lacking not in serious, but n play.

• 

  "Lucky Broken Girl": Book Presentation by Author Ruth Behar | Comments by Richard Blanco

  Dr. Ruth Behar and Richard Blanco

  In this unforgettable multicultural comlng-of-age narrative—based on the author's childhood In the 1960s—a young Cuban-Jewlsh Immigrant girl Is adjusting to her new life In New York City when her American dream Is suddenly derailed. Ruthle's plight will Intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time.

  Ruthle Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro's Cuba to New York City. Just when she's finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English—and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood's hopscotch queen—a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie's world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

• 

  African Influences in Contemporary Cuban Art The Work of Manuel Mendive

  Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz

  Manuel Mendive (b.1944) was part of the first generation of Cuban artists to emerge from Cuba's national fine arts academy, San Alejandro, after 1959. Regarded as one of the foremost contemporary artists in Cuba and the Caribbean, Mendive incorporates visual elements rooted in West African religious and visual traditions into his painting. This lecture will look at the formative influences on Mendive's early work and will explore his mainstream academic training, the contextual impact of this local community, and the effect of his African consciousness, specifically the strands of Yoruba culture present in his Cuban heritage.

• 

  A Moveable Nation: Cuban Art & Cultural Identity in the Pérez Art Collection at FIU Academic Conference & Teachers'Workshop

  Cuban Art & Cultural Identity- Author: Cuban Research Institute

  The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) will hold a one-day meeting to assess the significance of Cuban and Cuban- American art for the construction of national and diasporic identities. This conference and book project will delve into some of the defining moments of Cuba's artistic evolution from a multidisciplinary perspective, including art history, architecture, history, literary criticism, and cultural studies. Situating Cuban art within a wider context of complex references, internal and external influences, and socio-historical connections, scholars will examine the enduring links between Cuban art and cultural identity. In particular, the conference will take advantage of the Darlene M. and Jorge M. Pérez Art Collection at FIU, which documents the historical trajectory of Cuban art since the late 1800s, beginning with Victor Patricio Landaluze's work excerpted above. Lecturers will be encouraged to include examples of Cuban art from the Pérez Art Collection at FIU.

  K-12 teachers from the Miami Dade County Public Schools are invited to attend the conference and participate in a hands-on workshop the following day to discuss the classroom applications of the material presented during the conference. The workshop is supported by LACC's U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant.

• 

  Buena Vista Social Club: Adios

  Coral Gables Art Cinema

  May 26- June 1

• 

  Miguel Failde... más allá del danzón

  Jessica Clemente

  Viernes de Musicalia es auspiciado por La Colección de Música Diaz-Ayala y el Instituto de Investigaciones Cubanas (CRI)

  Miguel Failde ha sido reconocido por la historiografía musical cubana como el creador del danzón, baile Nacional de Cuba. Fue aquel 1 de enero de 1879 cuando se dio a conocer "Las alturas de Simpson" ante la alta sociedad Matancera. Pero ¿qué hay detrás de este género denominado danzón?, ¿quién fue Miguel Failde?, ¿cómo se desempeñó su quehacer musical en las postrimerías del siglo XIX y los primeros 20 años del siglo XX? En esta ocasión, la musicóloga, cantante y percusionista Jessica Clemente nos ofrecerá respuestas a estas interrogantes.

  El marco de investigación de Jessica Clemente se enfoca en el patrimonio musical Cubano, específicamente en el legado africano y la herencia de Miguel Failde. También nos deleitará con su interpretación al piano de una selección de danzones.

• 

  La Mulata in the Spanish Caribbean From Stage to Films Lecture by Yesenia Fernández Selier

  Yesenia Fernandez Selier

  In the last decades, several scholars have analyzed the semiotics of La Mulata's ubiquitous presence in Cuban popular culture. Those visual and literary analyses have centered on the Island's national production, leaving aside transnational renditions. Yet the icon of La Mulata traveled with the exile of Cuban minstrel theater after 1869 to Mexico and Puerto Rico, among other circum-Caribbean nations, adopting local themes and slang. La Mulata was already recognizable in Latin American popular culture by the 1920s and gained new levels of dissemination with the development of Latin American cinema. This lecture will partially map out the itinerary of La Mulata avatar in Latin American films and contemporary cultural practices. It will pay close attention to the intersection of the performers'race and the scenic discourses they enact, theorizing the functions of this translation and analyzing the relevance of the repertoire of La Mulata in today's Latino visual and popular culture.

  Yesenia Fernandez Selier is a Cuban-born performer and researcher. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. She also holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from New York University and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Havana. She has received fellowships from CLACSO, the CUNY Caribbean Exchange Program, and the Cuban Heritage Collection of the University of Miami Libraries. Her work on Afro-Cuban culture, encompassing dance, music, race, and identity has been published in Cuba, the United States, and Brazil. She is a recipient of the 2017 Dfaz-Ayala LibraryTravel Grants at FIU.

  View Part 1 and 2 of lecture here:

  http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/crivideo/69/

  http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/crivideo/68/

• 

  La Mulata in the Spanish Caribbean From Stage to Films

  Yesenia Fernandez-Selier

  In the last decades, several scholars have analyzed the semiotics of La Mulata's ubiquitous presence in Cuban popular culture. Those visual and literary analyses have centered on the Island's national production, leaving aside transnational renditions. Yet the icon of La Mulata traveled with the exile of Cuban minstrel theater after 1869 to Mexico and Puerto Rico, among other circum-Caribbean nations, adopting local themes and slang. La Mulata was already recognizable in Latin American popular culture by the 1920s and gained new levels of dissemination with the development of Latin American cinema. This lecture will partially map out the itinerary of La Mulata avatar in Latin American films and contemporary cultural practices. It will pay close attention to the intersection of the performers'race and the scenic discourses they enact, theorizing the functions of this translation and analyzing the relevance of the repertoire of La Mulata in today's Latino visual and popular culture.

• 

  The Bearers of Sacred Sound Ritual Musicians of Miami

  Vicky Jassey

  The making of the first set of consecrated bata drums, central to the Cuban religion of Regia de Ocha, in the United States happened in Miami in 1975. Prior to this, the fledgling religious community honored their orichas (deities) using guiros (beaded gourds), a campana (a metal hoe blade), and a conga. At the time only a handful of Cuban exiles knew the sacred rhythms, chants, and ceremonial protocols of a musical tradition that spans centuries and continents. Since the 1980 Mariel boatlift, the number of ritual drummers has continued to grow, as many arrive with the knowledge while others acquire it on U.S soil. Those in the community estimate that there are now over a hundred ritual musicians and at least fifty sets of consecrated bata drums in Miami alone. This lecture reflects on the lived experiences of these professional musicians and the changing landscape of their world. The research presented follows a three-month oral history collection project by ethnomusicologist and performer Vicky Jassey.

  Vicky Jassey is a British Visiting Scholar currently affiliated with the Cuban Research Institute and the Digital Libraries of the Caribbean at Florida International University. She completed her M.A. in Performance at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She was awarded a South West Wales Doctoral Partnership scholarship and is now a third-year Ph.D. student in the Ethnomusicology Program at Cardiff and Exeter Universities in the UK. Her Ph.D. research focuses on gender narratives in Cuban bata performance. She has spearheaded Afro-Cuban music in the UK by facilitating a community arts organization, Bombo Productions, which mobilizes artists within the genre to create and support a range of performance and educational events around the UK.

• 

  Caribbean Children's Music Rhythms, Melodies, and Lyrics Lecture by Marta Hernández Candelas

  Marta Hernandez Candelas

  Children's songs are a natural way to play and communicate with children around the world. A child can understand his or her world better and share emotions while singing with friends and caretakers.The purpose of this presentation is to share the findings of the author's research at the Dfaz-Ayala Music Collection at FIU about Caribbean children's songs. The talk wil emphasize songs for preschoolers and their possibilities of being adapted for instrumental playing as well as for family-based music education programs. Finding Cuban children's songs has not been an easy task. They should be shared in the same manner as other forms of popular music.

  Dr. Marta Hernández Candelas is a Professor in the Graduate Program in Music Education at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. She has been the manager of national music education projects such as "Awakening Musical" and is a violin teacher of the Suzuki Method. In addition, she practices music therapy in the Neurointensive Unit of the Hospital HIMA San Pablo in Caguas, Puerto Rico. She has also worked as a professional violist for the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, and various chamber music ensembles. Professor Hernández Candelas has a doctorate in Music Education from the University of Granada in Spain, a master's degree in String Pedagogy, and a bachelor's degree in Viola Performance, both from Temple University, and a second master's degree in MusicTherapy from Illinois State University. She is a recipient of the 2017 Dfaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants at FIU.

  View video of this lecture here:

  http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/crivideo/66/

• 

  Carlos Ripoll's José Marti Lecture by Enrico Mario Santi

  Enrico Mario Santi

  Carlos Ripoll (1922-2011) was a Cuban scholar who lived in the U.S. for close to half a century, during which he carried out outstanding research on several Cuban historical, literary, and political topics. Chief among them was Ripoll's life-long interest in the life and work of José Marti. Based on personal acquaintance with Ripoll, reading of his works, and a survey of Martiana donated by Ripoll himself to the FIU library upon his death, Dr. Santi will explore Ripoll's reading of Marti, his legacy and, in particular, what Ripoll called repeatedly "the falsification of José Marti in present-day Cuba."

  Dr. Enrico Mario Santi is the William T. Bryan Endowed Chair of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky. He holds a Ph.D., an M.A., and a M.Phil. from Yale University and a B.A. from Vanderbilt University. He has held teaching positions at Duke, Cornell, and Georgetown. A former coeditor of the flagship journal Cuban Studies, he has published widely on Fernando Ortiz, José Lezama Lima, Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and many other cultural and political issues. Dr. Santi has authored 10 books, edited 18 volumes, and published more than 100 articles, essays, and interviews. His essays have been collected in several volumes, notably in Mano a mano: Ensayos de drcunstancia (2013) and Bienes del siglo: Sobre cultura cubana (2010). He is a recipient of the 2017 Diaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants at FIU.

  View video of this lecture here:

  http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/crivideo/65/

  http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/crivideo/64/

• 

  Foro “Presente y futuro de nuestras sociedades civiles”

  Gonzalo Aguerrevere

  Agenda:

  9:30 a 10:00 Registro de asistentes.

  10:00 a 10:15. Palabras de bienvenida. Roberto Ruiz-Casas. Presidente del Foro de Promoción Democrática Continental, Director de Democracia Participativa, y Director de Cultivamos una Rosa Blanca.

  Moderador: Gonzalo Aguerrevere, Director de la Familia Ignaciana, Director del Foro de Promocion Democratica Continental, y Director de VenAmérica.

  10:15 a 10:35 Padre Luis Ugalde SJ. Caso Venezuela.

  Sacerdote Jesuita vasco-venezolano. Licenciado en Filosofía y Letras, en Sociología y en Teología. Maestría en Historia Económica y Social de Venezuela. Doctorado en Historia. En universidades de Venezuela, Colombia y Alemania. Superior Provincial SJ de Venezuela (1979-85). Presidente de la CLAR (Confederación Latinoamericana de Religiosos (1985-88). Rector de la UCAB (1990-2010). Presidente de AUSJAL (Asociación de Universidades SJ de América Latina 1998-2008).

  Secretario de Educación de los jesuitas para América Latina (2010-2016) Individuo de número de la Academia Venezolana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales. Coordinador de Educación de los Jesuitas de Venezuela y Director de CERPE (Centro de Reflexión y de Planificación Educativa).

  10:35 a 10:55 Carlos Alberto Montaner. Caso Cuba

  Escritor y periodista. Analista político para CNN en español. Ha sido profesor universitario en diversas instituciones de América Latina y Estados Unidos. Montaner ha escrito más de 25 libros, incluyendo novelas, miles de artículos. Ha recibido los premios de Periodismo de Nueva York (1975), el ABC de Sevilla (España (1981) y el de la Fundación Independiente de Periodismo (1999). El 12 de mayo de 2006 recibió de manos del presidente de Nicaragua Enrique Bolaños la Orden Rubén Darío en Grado de Gran Oficial, la más alta condecoración del país. Ha sido calificado por la Revista Poder como uno de los columnistas más leídos e influyentes de lengua española. Es vicepresidente de la Internacional Liberal y actual Presidente del Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

  10:55 a 11:15 Carlos Sanchez Berzaín. Caso regional latinoamericano.

  Abogado experto en Derecho Constitucional, Master en Ciencia Política y Master en Sociología, Politólogo. Miembro fundador del Ateneo Jurídico Boliviano. Catedrático de Derecho Constitucional y de Derecho Internacional. Catedrático de análisis político Maicop, Universidad de Salamanca. Catedrático y miembro del claustro académico de la Maestría MAICOP de la Universidad Camilo José Cela, España. Director del Interamerican Institute for Democracy. Ministro de Estado de la República de Bolivia cinco veces. Diputado Nacional Jefe de la oposición parlamentaria. Pre candidato presidencial. Ha escrito ,entre otras obras, “La dictadura del siglo XXI en Bolivia”, “Lucha por la democracia”, “las dos Americas” democracia y dictadura. Vive exiliado, como asilado político en EEUU.

  11:15 a 11:45 Ronda de preguntas y respuestas. Máximo 2 minutos por pregunta.

  11:45 a 12:00 Palabras de cierre. Luis Corona. Presidente de VenAmérica.

• 

  The Feminization of Aging and Migration in Cuba: Prospects and Challenges of a "Silent Revolution" Lecture by Elaine Acosta González

  Elaine Acosta Gonzalez

  Cuba is facing another crisis, a more invisible and yet unacknowledged one. The "crisis of care" is already present in Cuban society and one of its main causes is the "silent revolution" based on the problems associated with the aging of the population. Two traits of contemporary Cuban migration are closely tied to this sociodemographic process: the high migration rate of young Cubans and the growing participation of women in the migrant flow. This lecture will address several issues related to the feminization of migration and its impact on the social organization of care for older adults in Cuba.

  Dr. Elaine Acosta González is a Cuban sociologist now living in Miami. She holds a Ph.D. in International and Intercultural studies from the Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain, and a Master's degree in Latin America Studies from the Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago, Chile. She is currently the Co-Director of the Family, Care, and Well-Being Research Program (CUIFABI). She is the former Director of the Master's Program in Sociology at the Alberto Hurtado University. Her most recent book is titled Cuidados en crisisy mujeres migrantes hada España y Chile: Dan más de lo que reciben [Crisis in Care and Women Migrants to Spain and Chile: They Give More Than They Receive] (2015).

• 

  Living and Eating Comida Criolla in New York City

  Melissa Fuster

  Based on interviews with Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans living in New York City, this talk reviews differences in how traditional Hispanic Caribbean cuisines (comidas criollas) are defined and experienced by these communities. These experiences are linked to the contrasting migratory experiences and relationships with communities back"home"in the Caribbean.

• 

  Living and Eating Comida Criolla in New York City

  Melissa Fuster

  Based on interviews with Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans living in New York City, this talk reviews differences in how traditional Hispanic Caribbean cuisines (comidas criollas) are defined and experienced by these communities. These experiences are linked to the contrasting migratory experiences and relationships with communities back"home"in the Caribbean.

  Dr. Melissa Fuster is an Assistant Professor in Public Health Nutrition at CUNY Brooklyn College and a Faculty Fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute. Dr. Fuster has over ten years of experience in community-based research, focused on minority and immigrant populations in the United States and, internationally, in Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean. Her research interests include food security and the sociopolitical and cultural factors affecting food practices and nutritional outcomes. She holds a Ph.D. in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts University and a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Florida International University.

• 

  Spanish Legacies The Coming of Age of the Second Generation A Panel Discussion with Author Alejandro Portes

  Alejandro Portes, Lorenz Cachon Rodriquez, and Richard Tardancio

  Much like the United States, the countries of Western Europe have experienced massive immigration in the last three decades. Spain, in particular, has been transformed from an immigrant-exporting country to one receiving hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. Today, almost 13 percent of the country's population is foreign-born. Spanish Legacies, written by internationally known experts on immigration, explores how the children of immigrants—the second generation—are coping with the challenges of adaptation to Spanish society, comparing their experiences with those of their peers in the United States.

  This panel discussion will feature the following speakers:

  • Dr. Alejandro Portes, Howard Harrison and Gabrielle S. Beck Professor of Sociology (Emeritus), Princeton University

  • Dr. Lorenzo Cachón Rodríguez, Visiting Scholar, College of Arts and Sciences, Winthrop University

  • Dr. Richard Tardanico, Associate Professor, Departament of Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University

• 

  Vestido de Novia Film Screening and Conversation with the Filmmakers

  Marilyn Solaya, Lisandra Chaveco Valdes, and Jesus E. Munoz Machin

  Join the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs for the Miami premiere of the film Vestido de Novia, followed by a conversation with the filmmakers at the Coral Gables Museum (across from Coral Gables Art Cinema).

  Set in Havana in 1994, the film explores transgender culture in Cuba. Rosa Elena - a 40-year-old assistant nurse, caretaker for her sick father and recently married to Ernesto, the chief engineer of a construction brigade - is unhappy with the life she is living and returns to sing in the all-male choir where she worked before meeting her husband. As a secret of the past reveals itself, both Rosa Elena and Ernesto are exposed to the structural violence of the hegemonic patriarchal context in which they live.

  Marilyn Solaya is an actress, documentarían and director of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). She is a member of the Network of Artists UNETE for Non-Violence against Women and author of documentaries including Mírame mi amor, En el cuerpo equivocado and the fiction feature Vestido de Novia, recognized in both national and international film festivals since its release in December 2014.

  Lisandra Chaveco Valdés is a journalist, member of the Ibero-American and African Network of Masculinities (RIAM), reporter for Revista Mujeres of Editorial de la Mujer and collaborator with the United Nations System in Cuba.

  Jesús E. Muñoz Machín is a journalist, member of the Ibero-American and African Network of Masculinities (RIAM) and consultant on gender issues for the United Nations Development Program in Cuba.

• 

  Severo Secreto Film Screening and Panel Discussion With Co-Directors Oneyda González and Gustavo Pérez Moderated by Catalina Quesada Gómez

  Oneyda Gonzalez

  Severo Secreto is an extended visual essay on the life of the prominent Cuban exile writer Severo Sarduy (1937-1993), the creator of the concept of the Neo-Baroque in literature. The film focuses on Sarduy's formative years in Cuba, his interest in black culture, performance, ritual, and experimental poetry in the early years of the Cuban Revolution. The documentary is based on extensive interviews with the writer's friends, classmates, and fellow members of literary groups, including François Wahl, who shares his archives and offers testimony of Sarduy's working method and private universe.

  Oneyda González, born in Camagüey, Cuba, holds a Master's in Latin American Culture. She teaches Fiction Screenwriting and Documentary Theory and Technique at the Higher Institute of Art in Camagüey. She is the editor of the book Escrito sobre un rostro (2003), which includes essays by several authors on Severo Sarduy.

  Gustavo Pérez, born in Camagüey, Cuba, is a poet and self-taught documentalist and photographer. He is the director of more than 15 documentaries, including Todas iban a ser reinas (2006) and Ave María (2009).

  Dr. Catalina Quesada Gómez is a Lecturer in Spanish at the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the University of Miami. She is the coeditor of Cámara de eco: homenaje a Severo Sarduy (2017).

• 

  Memory, Conflict and Reconciliation A Half-Day Conference

  John F. Stack Jr., Martin Palour, Henrik Syse, Glenn Hughes, Aurora Morcillo, Michael Zantovsky, Marifeli Perez-Stable, Liliana Trevizan, Carlos Gonzales, Marie Janouskova, Michal Smid, and Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat

  Join the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy for a half-day conference exploring the role of memory in conflict and reconciliation. A distinguished group of scholars and practitioners will articulate diverse perspectives on the nature of memory, its role in public discourse, and the ways it can both feed conflict and promote reconciliation.

  1:15 PM-1:30 PM I OPENING REMARKS

  John F. Stack, Jr., Founding Dean, Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

  Martin Palous, Director, Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy

  1:30 PM-3:30 PM I PANEL 1: REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

  Henrik Syse, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute; Member, Norwegian Nobel Committee, Oslo, Norway "Memory as a Means of Reconciliation and Dialogue: Philosophical and Practical Reflections on Memory and Conflict"

  Glenn Hughes, St. Mary's Chair in Catholic Philosophy, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas "Uses and Abuses of Memory"

  Aurora Morcillo, Professor, FIU Department of History; Director, Spanish and Mediterranean Studies Program "Between Memory and History: A Proustian Intervention"

  Ambassador Michael Zantovsky, Director of Vaclav Havel Library, Prague, the Czech Republic The Responsibility to Remember: Memory as an Attribute of Being

  3:00 PM -3:20 PM I COFFEE BREAK

  3:20 PM ~ 5:00 PM I PANEL 2: THE CURRENT USES OF MEMORY AND CLOSING REMARKS

  Marifeli Perez-Stable, Professor, FIU Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies "Cuban National Reconciliation"

  Liliana Trevizan, Professor of Modern Languages, State University of New York at Potsdam "A Museum and Democratic Performance in Chile"

  Carlos Gonzales, Independent Journalist and Filmmaker; Founder and CEO, Mentora News, Philadelphia "Diary of Ukraine's Forgotten War"

  Marie Janouskova and Michal Smid, Representatives ofPostBellum, Prague, Czech Republic "The Mission of the Non-Profit Organization Post Bellum"

  Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, Writer and Educator; Co-founder and Spokesperson, Cuban Democratic Directorate "Beyond Narratives: Cuba's Struggle for Memory"

  5:00 PM-6:00 PM I CLOSING RECEPTION

• 

  Madhouse Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History

  Jennifer L. Lambe

  On the outskirts of Havana lies Mazorra, an asylum known to—and at times feared by—ordinary Cubans for over a century. Since its founding in 1857, the island's first psychiatric hospital has been an object of persistent political attention. Drawing on hospital documents and government records, as well as the popular press, photographs, and oral histories, Dr. Jennifer L. Lambe charts the connections between the inner workings of this notorious institution and the highest echelons of Cuban politics. Across the sweep of modern Cuban history, she finds, Mazorra has served as both laboratory and microcosm of the Cuban state: the asylum is an icon of its ignominious colonial and neocolonial past and a crucible of its republican and revolutionary futures.

  Dr. Jennifer L. Lambe is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Caribbean History at Brown University. She earned her Ph.D. in Latin American and Caribbean History at Yale University and her B.A. in Gender Studies and History at Brown University. Her work has received support from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Coordinating Council for Women in History, and the Cuban Heritage Collection of the University of Miami Libraries. Dr. Lambe is coeditor of the volume New Histories of the Cuban Revolution, currently under review by Duke University Press.