CUBANS

Credit: National Geographic

Toward a New Civil Society

IN M O V E M E N T :

Symposium Thursday-Friday, November 7 - 8 Organized by Antonio Jos Ponte (Holder of the Andrs Bello Chair of Latin American Culture and Civilization at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU for Fall 2013, and Deputy Editor of Diario de Cuba)
Thursday November 7th 6:30 pm: Introduccin: Antonio Jos Ponte 12.30 pm: Lunch 2:00 pm: PANEL III: MUSIC, CINEMA, LITERATURE AND POLITICS Nora Gmez Torres (Cuban Research Institute at FIU, Miami), Music and Politics in Contemporary Cuba Manuel Zayas (Filmmaker), The Institutional Crisis of Cuban Cinema: Independents Are Back Esther Whitfield (Brown University), Guantanamos Cuban border: Art, Literature and the Naval Base Moderator: Ana Dopico (NYU). IN ENGLISH 4:00 pm: Coffee

6:50 pm: PANEL I: HISTORIA CRTICA, JUSTICIA SOCIAL Y CIUDADANA AMBIENTAL Rafael Rojas (CIDE, Mxico D.F.; Princeton University), Caminos de la historia crtica Armando Chaguaceda (Instituto de Investigaciones Histrico Sociales de la Universidad Veracruzana), Cuba: justicia social y ciudadana en tiempos de reforma Johanna Cilano Plaez (Escuela de Derecho, Universidad de Xalapa), El ejercicio de la ciudadana ambiental en Cuba: legados y desafos de la experiencia cubana Moderator: Ada Ferrer (NYU). IN SPANISH Followed by reception Friday November 8th 10:30 am: PANEL II: NATION, REVOLUTION, NEW MEDIA AND LITERATURE Walfrido Dorta (Graduate Center, CUNY), (Un)common Paths and Useless Energies: On Some Recent Cuban Writings Lizabel Mnica (Princeton University), How New Media (Un)Shapes Contemporary (Cuban) Literature Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo (Writer), Is Literature Possible After the Cuban Revolution? Moderator: Jacqueline Loss (University of Connecticut). IN ENGLISH

4:15 pm: PANEL IV: DIVERSIDAD CULTURAL Y DOMESTICACIN POLTICA Abel Sierra Madero (Center for Latin American Studies, University of Miami), Del hombre nuevo al travestismo de Estado. El discurso de la diversidad como retrica de transicin en la Cuba postsocialista Roberto Zurbano (Articulacin Regional Afrodescendiente para las Americas y el Caribe; Casa de las Amricas), Se acab el querer: Los negros y el debate racial en la esfera pblica cubana Moderador: Antonio Jos Ponte IN SPANISH Followed by reception

With the support of Diario de Cuba 53 Washington Sq. South

PAPERS
Rafael Rojas, Caminos de la historia crtica Un anlisis de diferentes maneras de elusin o interpelacin de las tramas centrales de la historia oficial cubana, que pueden observarse en la produccin acadmica ms reciente de la isla y la dispora. La crtica del discurso histrico de legitimacin del socialismo cubano ha experimentado en los ltimos aos una importante reproduccin, que ya es documentable y analizable como un corpus historiogrfico propio. Esta intervencin se propone resear algunas de esas crticas, con el propsito de describir el debate poltico que subyace a la discusin historiogrfica. Armando Chaguaceda, Cuba: justicia social y ciudadana en tiempos de reforma A partir del impacto combinado de la crisis socioeconmica de los ltimos veintitrs aos y las transformaciones en las polticas sociales desarrolladas al calor de las actuales reformas, se explora el fenmeno de la justicia social en su relacin con el estado de la ciudadana en tanto fenmeno sociopoltico y jurdico instaurado bajo el rgimen vigente. Johanna Cilano Pelez, El ejercicio de la ciudadana ambiental en Cuba: legados y desafos de la experiencia cubana Un anlisis del fenmeno de la construccin de una ciudadana ambiental y el rol de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil cubana que desarrollan una labor ambiental. Alcances y lmites del asociacionismo civil en el contexto cubano, participacin ciudadana, desarrollo y autonoma. Walfrido Dorta, (Un)common Paths and Useless Energies: On Some Recent Cuban Writings Recent writings on Cuban literature are faced with a repertoire of discourses saturated with comments on Cuba and its national reality. The paper will analyze how these writings deal with forgetting this paradigm of representation and source of legitimacy. The works of Jorge Enrique Lage, Osdany Morales, Jamila Medina, Legna Rodrguez, among others, dispense with the capital C of Cubanness and become machines that produce narratives without an obvious purpose. We will discuss the relationship between the figures of (un)translatability in these writings and the demands posed by labels such as postnational, postrevolutionary, transnational or cosmopolitan literature. Lizabel Mnica, How New Media (Un)Shapes Contemporary (Cuban) Literature Although the presence of new media within the island is rather limited, the literary field in Cuba cannot be fully understood without taking into account the circulation of digital material among writers and scholars. Since the end of the nineties, people in the island are receiving, editing and redistributing large amounts of digital content. For most, this is not just a new archive of cultural references, but also a new/alternative medium in itself. The virtual flow connects outside and inside, popular culture and academic knowledge, official news and personal reports. How this circulation is affecting the way we think about literature and the role of the writer in a landscape of globalization and radical national changes? Is Cuban literature itself, as a conceptual corpus, being (un)shaped by these archives? Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Is Literature Possible After the Cuban Revolution? The paper will discuss the short-circuits between writing and politics, and the straitjacket imposed by the fiction of the writer versus the fiction of the State. Is there anyone left writing in Cuba today? Self-censorship as the measure of all things, say authors (narrating at sea). Culture is the first thing that must be saved, says authority (every Cuban should know how to narrate, and to narrate well). Amnesia versus omniscience. We Cuban narrators suffer from an excessive self-preservation instinct. Will it be possible to create credible consensus in Cuba after half a century of totalitarianism? Is it possible to read literature after the Literacy Campaign? Once our Maximum Narrator is silent or dead, will there be a Cuban literature after the Revolution? Nora Gmez Torres, Music and Politics in Contemporary Cuba Given the relative isolation of the oppositional movement in Cuba, the tight control over the media and the wide circulation of music through independent networks, could music become a more effective arena for political practice? Concrete examples from a variety of music genres show how the cultural public sphere informed by popular music in the last two decades has challenged moral and political boundaries and rehearsed identities, stances, and social relations not yet permissible in politics. Moreover, music has become a public scenario for opposition and dissent and a concrete social site that stands as a form of politics itself in contemporary Cuba. Manuel Zayas, The Institutional Crisis of Cuban Cinema: Independents Are Back For the first time, Cuban independent filmmakers are starting to lead film production in the island, faced with an obsolete Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) and an institutional crisis that has affected the renowned International Film School (EICTV) of San Antonio de los Baos and the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema, headed by Gabriel Garca Mrquez. Esther Whitfield, Guantnamos Cuban border: Art, Literature and the Naval Base The bases ambiguous legal status and indefinite lease have lent themselves particularly well to the rhetorically nebulous and potentially endless War on Terror, and the Castro brothers antiimperialist rhetoric has since the early 1960s targeted the U.S. occupation of Guantnamo. Nevertheless, literary and artistic production in and around the naval base offers a counterpoint to the languages of war that have converged there. Marc Falkoffs Poems from Guantnamo (2007), an edited collection of poetry by detainees brought to Guantnamo from battlegrounds in Afghanistan, includes expressions of solidarity with the Cuban people that undermine the hostility that has defined the base from both sides of its border. Similarly, fiction, poetry and visual culture recently produced in the Cuban province of Guantnamo particularly El camino de la estrategia, an ongoing multi-media project by Caimanera-based artists Alexander Beatn and Pedro Gutirrez examine the influence on local life of the bases fame as a site of detention and torture, countering the belligerent rhetoric of political leaders. Abel Sierra Madero, Del hombre nuevo al travestismo de Estado. El discurso de la diversidad como retrica de transicin en la Cuba postsocialista Un anlisis de cmo el Centro Nacional de Educacin Sexual (CENESEX) utiliza el discurso sobre la diversidad sexual como retrica de transicin, una suerte de ajuste poltico y discursivo al escenario post-socialista trado por las reformas de Ral Castro. El rol del CENESEX en la reconstruccin del pasado de la Revolucin y en los escamoteos de la memoria histrica. Este panorama constituye lo que pudiera denominarse travestismo de Estado, que contribuye a frenar la aparicin de un genuino movimiento de activistas por los derechos sexuales. Este travestismo de Estado procura reconstruir la legitimacin del Estado cubano a la vez que garantiza una domesticacin de la poltica y el control de las identidades sexuales y sociales. Roberto Zurbano, Se acab el querer: Los negros y el debate racial en la esfera pblica cubana El negro en Cuba, como sujeto y como grupo social ha encontrado en los ltimos lustros una visibilidad en la Academia, la Poltica y el Mercado que suele sorprender, molestar e interesar a muchos. Diversidad de discursos, organizaciones, agendas antirracistas y ciudadanas, espacios digitales y debates pblicos se suceden en la ultima dcada. Tendencias, conflictos y aspiraciones que comienzan a perfilarse en una lucha contra el creciente neorracismo y por la construccin de una ciudadana.