Cuban Research Institute Events

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  Memory ADN/Memoria DNA Experimental Flamenco with Niurca Márquez

  Niurca Marquez, Jose Manuel Dominquez, and Jose Lius de la Paz

  Memory ADN/Memoria DNA is an exploration of cultural memory and how it is passed down from one generation to the next. It is a voyage through the sayings, customs and stereotypes, at times filled with humor, at times nostalgic, that explores the idea of what is"Spanish"from the perspective of a particular group of Latino immigrants, namely Caribbean and coastal. It is a work of experimental flamenco that combines dance, theater and film and deconstructs the forms of flamenco music and dance. Join us for this compelling performance and fascinating experience.

  Niurca Márquez is an artist/researcher with a wide range as a creator and performer in film, site-specific work and staged performance. Her work has been commissioned by and presented on various curatorial platforms in Europe and the U.S. She has worked tirelessly on presenting new works that examine notions of identity, cultural memory and ritual in flamenco within a contemporary framework, as well as, works that delve into the multiple layers of communication and understanding in the form. She continuously examines the many intersections of tradition and vanguard to create new languages and expressions embedded in flamenco but informed by contemporary practices in dance and theater: a reflection on the work's historical placement and potential implications within a contemporary dance setting.

  José Manuel Dominguez, performer, theater director and writer, is the artistic director of the Antiheroes Project, a non-profit organization founded in 2011. With the goal of fostering inclusion through the arts and education, the organization focuses on creating and presenting contemporary performing arts, along with a strong educational component which includes year-round workshops for individuals of all abilities.

  José Luis de la Paz is a flamenco guitarist and co-founder of the Nu Flamenco Collaborative. He has performed throughout the world and has won numerous prizes for his work, including the Premio Jóvenes Interpretes-Bienal de Sevilla, Premio Asociación de la Prensa-Huelva, and Cuarto Cabales among others. In 1995 he appeared in Felix Grande's book Agenda Flamenca as one of the 20 best guitarists in Spain.

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  Mental Health Care in Cuba and the Diaspora A Panel Discussion

  Jennifer L. Lambe, Eugenio Rothe, and Hector R. Castillo Matos

  This panel takes as its cue the recent publication of Jennifer L. Lambe's book, Madhouse: Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History, focusing on Mazorra, the island's first psychiatric hospital. The book examines how, from its birth, Cuban psychiatry was politically inflected, drawing partisan contention while sparking debates over race, religion, gender, and sexuality. Psychiatric notions were even invested with revolutionary significance after 1959, as the new government undertook ambitious schemes for social reeducation. Debates about the treatment of mental health issues continued among exiles in South Florida. In particular, the 1980 Mariel boatlift turned into a psychiatric problem both for Cuba and the United States, due to the presence of a large number of mental patients among the migrants.

  This panel will feature the following speakers:

  • Dr. Jennifer L. Lambe, Department of History, Brown University

  • Dr. Eugenio Rothe, Department of Psychiatry, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Florida International University

  • Dr. Héctor R. Castillo Matos, Nueva América Community Mental Health Center, Miami

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  Craving Cuba Film Screening and Discussion with Director Zuzelin Martin Lynch

  Zuzelin Martin Lynch

  Craving Cuba is a documentary film about the Cuban-American experience and its complicated relationship with Cuba. It explores identity and what it means to be and become American in a time when the whole world is obsessed with Cuba.This is a story about identity, family, exile, and hope. Follow the journey of a Cuban-American woman who has never been to Cuba. Although she has always felt very American, there was always a strong pull to the other half of her identity. Like most in the exiled community, she grew up not being able to go to Cuba. After the December 17, 2014 announcement by President Barack Obama, everything changed.

  Released in February 2016, the film has been accepted to eight film festivals and won an Audience Best Documentary Feature Award at its World Premiere at the Gasparilla International Film Festival. Among those interviewed in the film are actor Carlos Ponce, journalist Soledad O'Brien, novelist Cristina Garcia, actress Carmen Peláez, author Ana Sofia Peláez, father Alberto Cutié, opera singer Eglise Gutiérrez, Raúl Moas (former executive director of Roots of Hope), and Guarioné Diaz, founding director of the Cuban American National Council.

  Zuzelin Martin Lynch is a Cuban-American filmmaker, writer, and producer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born and raised in Elizabeth, N.J., and heavily influenced by her grandparents, she attributes her passion and drive to her Cuban roots. Her fascination with bicultural identity inspired the making of Craving Cuba and previous works, including the award-winning web series, Cooking for the Clueless and Fridays with Fabio.

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  Life Around the Hyphen: Inherited Legacies and Their Impact on How We Teach, Write and Talk about Exile/Immigrant Experiences

  Rebecca Friedman, Heather Russell, Boris Fishman, Jorge Duany, and Ana Luszczynska

  The Exile Studies Program

  In Collaboration with:

  The Betsy-South Beach Hotel

  The Department of English

  The College of Arts, Sciences & Education

  Panel Discussion

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  Absolutely American: The Enduring Power of Immigrant Literature

  Boris Fishman, William Anderson, and Jonathan Plutzik

  Boris Fishman was born in Minsk, Belarus, and immigrated to the United States in 1988 at nine. He is a graduate of both Princeton University (BA in Russian Literature) and New York University (MFA in Fiction). Following the completion of his studies, Mr. Fishman received residencies and fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, among others. His journalism, essays, and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, The New Republic, The Nation, The London Review o f Books, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and other publications.

  His first novel, A Replacement Life (HarperCollins), was published in 2014 to high critical acclaim. A front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review called it "bold, ambitious and wickedly smart... The only problem with this novel is that its covers are too close together." A Replacement Life was listed by The New York Times among the 100 Notable Books of 2014 and won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal. His second novel, Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo has also been selected as one of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books when it was published in 2016. Both novels received rave reviews from numerous notable publications, including The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, O, the Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Vogue, and others. Boris Fishman teaches in Princeton University's Creative Writing Program.

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  The Imagined Revolution: Cuba and the Vision of José Antonio Echeverría (La revolución soñada: Cuba y la vision de José Antonio Echeverría)

  Lillian Guerra and Lucy Echeverria

  José Antonio Echeverría (1932-1957) was a Cuban student leader who played a major role in the popular movement to overthrow Fulgencio Batista's government. Yet his historical significance and relevance have been selectively appropriated by the Castro government, despite his Catholic background and strong support for a democratic state in Cuba.This lecture will attempt to recover Echeverrfa's revolutionary ideals, based on national sovereignty and free elections, through his own words as documented in public speeches and writings.

  Dr. Lillian Guerra is the Waldo W. Neikirk Professor of Latin American History at the University of Florida. She is the author of many scholarly essays as well as three books: Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971 (2012), The Myth of José Marti: Conflicting Nationalisms in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba (2005), and Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico (1998). Visions o f Power in Cuba received the 2014 Bryce Wood Book Award from the Latin American Studies Association. Dr. Guerra has also received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. She recently completed a fourth book of history, Making Revolutionary Cuba, 1946-1959, forthcoming from Yale University Press, and a fifth work on state programs to engineer "ideal citizens"through political re-education in Cuba in the 1960s and 70s. A graduate of Dartmouth College, she received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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  Ciclo De Confernencias De La Fundacion Educative Carlos M. Castaneda

  Carlos M. Castaneda

  El compromiso de la Fundación Educativa Carlos M. Castañeda es promover el periodismo de excelencia, la libertad de prensa y los derechos humanos, principios fundamentales por los que vivió, defendió y ejerció la profesión de periodista Carlos M. Castañeda, fundador, director y consejero de periódicos en América Latina, Miami y el Caribe.

  Además de su programa de becas encaminado a apoyar la educación de periodistas hispanohablantes, la FECMC organiza foros, conferencias y talleres sobre temas relacionados con la política, la economía y el periodismo para fortalecer la libertad de expresión y la democracia en nuestra América. Con este fin, la FECMC ofrecerá tres conferencias consecutivas los primeros tres sábados durante el mes de marzo de 2017 a las 3 pm en la librería Books & Books, de Coral Gables.

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  Call for Applications Diaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants

  Cuban Reseach Institute

  The Cuban Research Institute (CRI), the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC), and the Florida International University Libraries are pleased to request applications from scholars and graduate students for the Diaz-Ayala LibraryTravel Grants for spring and early summer 2017.These awards are offered in honor of Cristobal Diaz-Ayala, the prominent music collector and independent scholar who donated his Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection to FIU in 2001.

  The grants provide scholars and graduate students the opportunity to conduct research in the special collections and archives related to Cuba and Cuban Americans at the FIU Green Library, thereby expanding access to its unique holdings and enhancing their value as national resources. CRI, LACC, and the FIU Libraries are offering three research travel grants of up to $2,000 each to offset the costs of a minimum one-week stay to use the collections.

  Scholars and graduate students in the humanities and the social sciences whose work will be enhanced by using the resources of the collection are encouraged to apply. Two of the awards will be given to U.S.-based scholars or graduate students, in accordance with the requirements of LACC's U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant. Those residing in other countries are encouraged to apply for the remaining grant.

  To download the grant guidelines and application form, please visit the CRI website at https://cri.fiu.edu/programs/library-travel-grants/. For more information, please call 305-348-1991 or write cri@fiu.edu.

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  Out of Florida: Cuban-American Writers Read Their Work

  Iraida H. Lopez

  A new group of authors has coalesced to stake a claim in the Cuban-American literary scene. This event will bring together several second-generation fiction writers of Cuban origin, who will read from their recent work:

  • Chantel Acevedo, author of The Distant Marvels (2015), A Falling Star (2013), Song of the Red Cloak (2011), and Love and Ghost Letters (2005)

  • Jennine Capo Crucet, author of Make Your Home Among Strangers (2015) and Howto Leave Hialeah (2009)

  • Vanessa García, author of White Light (2015) and The Cuban Spring (2014)

  • Ana Menendez, author of Adios, Happy Homeland (2011), The Last War (2009), Loving Che (2003), and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd (2001)

  • Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes, author of Oye What I'm Gonna Tell You (2015), Everyday Chica (2010), and Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles (2009)

  Dr. Iraida H. Lopez, the moderator, is Professor of Spanish at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Her most recent book is Impossible Returns: Narratives of the Cuban Diaspora (2015).

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  The Train on the Northern Railway

  Marcelo Martin

  Cuban director Marcelo Martin's first feature-length documentary takes him on a single-wagon train from Moron to Punta Alegre in the province of Ciego de Avila in central Cuba. Halfway through, he stops in Falla, where he spent summer vacations as a child. What remains from the memories of his youth amounts to a rude awakening. Martin pulls no punches yet is clearly endowed with a painterly eye, and his first-person chronicle of broken dreams, promises, and lives is leavened by a vision as poetic as it is stark. The Train on the Northern Railway bears witness to a forgotten Cuba.

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  Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies Beyond Perpetual Antagonism: Reimagining U.S.-Cuba Relations

  Cuban Reseach Institute

  The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) af Florida International University is pleased to announce its 11 th Conference. The conference main theme, Beyond Perpetual Antagonism: Reimagining U.S.-Cuba Relations, will address a array of cultural, social, economic, and political topics related to the often complex and conflicting links between the two countries, both historically and in current times.Throughout the three-day event, over 200 scholars and students from the United States and other countries will participate in 45 panels, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences, including literature, music, the arts, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics.

  Registration is required to attend the event. Registration fees are detailed below and include three continental breakfasts, coffee, one reception, admission to an evening film screening, and all conference materials.To register and to obtain more information, please call (305) 348-1991, write cri@fiu.edu, or visit our website (cri.fiu.edu).

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  "Havana Sunset"

  Department of Music, Cuban Research Institute, The Miami Beach Society

  Reception honoring ARS LONGA's First Concert in South Florida. Enjoy Musical "Meet & Greet" Cocktails/Hor d'oeuvres

  Requested Contribution $100 per person

  Benefiting Tropical Baroque Music Festival & "Bach to School" Outreach Educational Program

  Miami Bach Society is a Non-Profit 501 (3)c

  Event co-sponsored by Curtiss Mansion & Gardens

  A nationally and locally designated historic site, listed on the United States National Register of Historic Sites

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  Miami International GuitART Festival 2017

  Mesut Ozgen

  Concerts, Masterclasses, Lectures, Luthiers Expo, Composition

  Competition Single Admission Tickets: $5 -15 Festival Passes: $25 - 60

  Florida International University School of Music Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center 10910 SW 17th St., Miami, FL 33199

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  Before Night Falls Reflections of the Life of Reinaldo Arenas with Music from Jorge Martin's Opera Before Night Falls

  Reinaldo Arenas and Jorge Martin

  Join the Florida Grand Opera and the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs for a special presentation exploring the life and times of Cuban writer and dissident Reinaldo Arenas. The event will feature spoken narratives and music from the opera Before Night Falls by Cuban American composer Jorge Martin. Based on Arenas' famous memoir, the opera follows his life from childhood poverty in the Cuban countryside to his emigration to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boatlift and his last decade in New York City.The work traces his trials and tribulations as a political prisoner disillusioned by the Cuban Revolution and persecuted by the Castro regime as a dissident writer and homosexual who was forced to smuggle his manuscripts abroad for publication. The opera premiered in 2010 to critical acclaim.

  Featuring

  Jorge Duany, Director, FiU Cuban Research Institute

  Uva de Aragon, Author

  Rich Denis, Heritage Program Director, Coming Out Cuba Foundation

  Florida Grand Opera Young Artists

  Sponsored by the Florida Grand Opera and supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts Co-sponsored by the FIU Cuban Research Institute, FIU Department of Modern Languages, FIU Honors College, FIU Spanish & Mediterranean Studies Program,TotalBank Distinguished Speaker Series, Coral Gables Congregational Church and Coming Out Cuba Foundation

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  Call for Panels and Papers- Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies

  Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University

  The Cuban Research Institute announces it 11th Conference, taking place from February 23 to 25th, 2017. The main theme "Beyond Perpetual Antagonism: Reimagining U.S. - Cuba Relations", invites interdisciplinary approaches to the links between Cuba and the United States, both historically and in current times. The deadline to submit proposals for panels and papers was October 31, 2016.

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  Voice of Change in Cuba's Non-State Sector Self-Employed Workers, Usufructuaries, Cooperative Members, and Buyers and Sellers of Housing Units

  Carmelo Mesa-Lago

  More than a million people, nearly one-third of Cuba's labor force, are employed by the "non-state sector"of the economy: self-employed workers, land usufructuaries, members of new cooperatives, buyers and sellers of private housing units, and other groups. Although the expansion of the non-state sector is the most significant structural reform initiated by Raul Castro, which has led to the gradual contraction of the state sector, little is known about the characteristics (such as age, gender, race, and education), socioeconomic conditions, and aspirations of the emergent non-state sector. Based on 80 interviews conducted in Cuba between 2014 and 2015, this book gathers the sector's voices; they speak about their level of satisfaction with their work and income, employed workers and forms of payment, profits and their distribution between investment and consumption, expansion plans for their microenterprises, receipt of external remittances and microcredits, competition and advertising, and payment of taxes.The book's key part details the main problems faced by self-employed workers and their desire to improve or change the situation.

  Dr. Carmelo Mesa-Lago is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author or editor of 93 books and 300 articles and book chapters about the economics of social security in Latin America, the Cuban economy, and comparative economic systems, translated into seven languages and published in 34 countries. He has received several prominent awards, including those from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (1991, 2002) and the International Labor Organization for his research, together with Nelson Mandela (2007). In 2015 he was chosen as one of the 50 most influential intellectuals in Ibero-America. He is a member of the Community Advisory Board of FlU's Cuban Research Institute.

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  History Will Absolve Me Fidel Castro: Life and Legacy

  Brian Latell

  One of Fidel Castro's most memorable quotes came in 1953. On trial for leading an assault on Havana's Moncaeda garrison he is quoted as saying "It does not matter. History will absolve me." Despite his leadership resulting in the loss of life and impoverishing of Cuba, Castro never wavered in his certainty that his life's work would be vindicated.

  His death on November 25, 2016 prompted conflicting reactions ranging from supreme grief to outright joy. As many observers noted: the time for history's judgment has come.

  Few people know Fidel Castro's life and career as well as CIA analyst Dr. Brian Latell who was assigned to Fidel Castro in the 1960s and tracked the leader for well over 35 years. In this book he reveals the mind and motivations of one of the most dominating leaders of the twentieth century based on his decades-long learning of Castro's habits, fears and passions.

  Asa Latin American specialist for the CIA and the National Intelligence Council for over four decades, Dr. Latell has served seven presidents and won the CIA's Distinguished Intelligence medal. He currently serves as Senior Research Associate and Adjunct Professor at the Jack D. Gordon Institute. He is the author of After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of Cuba's Revolution, which has been published in eight languages, as well as Castro's Secret's: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

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  Tourism in Cuba Riding the Wave Toward Sustainable Prosperity

  Frank O. Mora

  Tourism is booming n Cuba.Two big international shocks to the Cuban economy have contributed to this development. First, Cuba can no longer depend on its main international commercial partners —Venezuela, Brazil, China— to subsidize its faltering economy. The second shock was the December 2014 rapprochement and relaxation of restrictions on U.S. travel to the island.The number of U.S. visitors doubled in 2016; by 2030 the Cuban government expects to host in excess of 10 million tourists. Despite these projections, Cuba's hospitality industry has increasingly lagged behind other countries in the region in the quality of its offerings and services.

  Authors and experts assess the organizational structure and financial picture of the various players and offer policy options for Cuba to achieve its economic goals for the tourism sector and the country as a whole.They look at the role to be played by U.S. actors, including the government, to support that growth and also offer views on how the uncertainty of a new U.S. administration is affecting those expectations.

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  Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies Beyond Perpetual Antagonism: Remaining U.S-Cuba Relations

  Cuban Reseach Institute

  Eleventh Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies Beyond Perpetual Antagonism: Remaining U.S-Cuba Relations

  Hosted By the Cuban Research Institute Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University

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  Classically Cuban Concert: A Century of Cuban Music, 1840-1940

  Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University

  12th installment of the Classically Cuban concert series, featuring pianist Jose Ruiz Elcoro and soprano Eglise Gutierrez.

  Sunday, December 4, 2016 | 5:00-7:00 PM | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus | Wertheim Performing Arts Center

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  Memory ADN/ Memoria DNA- Experimental Flamenco with Niurca Marquez

  Initiative for Spanish and Mediterranean Studies, Florida International University

  Memory ADN/Memoria DNA is an experimental flamenco event that explores cultural memory and its passing between generations.

  Among the artists involved are Niurca Marquez, Jose Manuel Dominguez, and Jose Luis de la Paz.

  December 1 ,2016 1 6:30 PM | Coral Gables Museum 1285 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables

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  Setting the Record Straight: Cuban- Jewish Responses to the Holocaust (1938-1948)

  Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University

  This lecture by Dr. Rosa Perlmuter, professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discusses the complicated public, private and inherited memories of the Holocaust and its reception by the Jews of Cuba.

  Event held on Sunday, November 20,2016 at 2 PM at Jewish Museum of Florida- FIU

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  Cuban Science Fiction: An Exploration of Life on the Isolated Island through the Powerful Lens of Imagination

  Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University

  Jose Miguel Sanchez (also known as Yoss), one of the most prolific and internationally-known science fiction writers from Cuba, lectures on the history of Cuban sci-fi and how science fiction on the island has become a code to evade censorship and looking beyond the everyday.

  Thursday, November 17, 2016 | 3:00 PM | FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus | Green Library (GL) 220

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  Reading Cuba: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Literature

  Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University

  The Department of Modern Languages and the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University are pleased to announce the conference Reading Cuba. Moving beyond the study of literature as an isolated cultural product, this conference proposes to examine the complex connections between culture and social praxis in Cuban and Cuban-American literature. In the spirit of reading literary texts from an interdisciplinary perspective, conference participants will reevaluate Cuban texts as spaces of interactions where aesthetic, social, and cultural elements collide.

  Keynote speakers included Dr. Eliana Rivero, University of Arizona and Dr. Rafael Rojas, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, Mexico

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  A Voice of Otherness: The Catholic Church in the Cuban Revolutionary Reality, 1959-1986 Lecture by Petra Kuivala

  Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University

  Petra Kuivala, a doctoral researcher in theology at University of Helsinki, will present on her upcoming dissertation which analyzes how the Catholic Church has consciously developed an idea of Cuban Catholicism both as a reaction and a precaution in regard to the Cuban social context.

  Wednesday, November 16, 2016 112:30 PM | FlU Modesto A. Maidique Campus | Green Library (GL) 220