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- Convenors:
-
Stephen Fay
(King's College London)
Jorge Catala Carrasco (Newcastle University)
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- Location:
- ATB G114
- Start time:
- 11 April, 2013 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Cuba is often portrayed as a meeting point for international cultural currents; this panel proposes to reverse the perspective and bring together explorations of the historical and modern-day presence of the island in the world, to examine the influence of transatlantic Cuba.
Long Abstract:
At the mercantile, military and imaginative axes of the Old and New Worlds, 'puesta en la encrucijada de las Américas donde se cortejan y besan todos los pueblos y civilizaciones' (as Fernando Ortiz famously claimed), Cuba has been commonly perceived and portrayed as a meeting point for multifarious international influences, as the 'key to the Caribbean' or 'gateway to the Americas', as a magnetic haven for 'aves de paso' in transatlantic cultural migrations. To examine this flow of people and perspectives in the opposite direction and scrutinise the island as an exporter of ideologies, creeds and cultures is less common. This panel proposes to bring together explorations of extra-insular and transatlantic Cuba, to examine the influence of Cuban-born 'birds of passage' on other shores, to chart the historical and modern-day presence of Cuba in the world. Of particular interest will be papers that incorporate consideration of overseas Cubans' backwards gaze towards their island patria and those that address the issue of 'homecoming' and its implications for insular society and psyche. Whilst the panel will be open to contributions from any discipline and on any historical period, the following topics might offer some initial reference points to potential participants:
- Padre Félix Varela and the offshore independence movement
- Internacionalistas cubanos in the Spanish Civil War
- Havana, New Orleans and the birth of jazz
- The socio-economics of Cuba's medical internationalism
- 'Hace calor en La Habana, mi hermana, y cuéntame de Madrid': the transatlantic music of Habana Abierta
Accepted papers:
Session 1Jorge Catala Carrasco (Newcastle University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will look at not only the impact of the Spanish Civil War in Cuban writers who volunteered and participated in the conflict (Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Carlos Montenegro, Alejo Carpentier), but also at their contribution during the civil war.
Paper long abstract:
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) dragged a thousand Cuban volunteers to fight for the Republic against Franco. Despite the close historical links between Cuba and Spain, the large community of Spaniards living in Cuba and the appeal for what has been considered the last Romantic war in Europe, the ideals of the Second Spanish Republic represented a tantalisingly real scenario through which many Cubans could channel their hopes and anxieties.The manifesto signed by Latin American intellectuals who attended the II Congreso Internacional de Escritores para la Defensa de la Cultura in Spain (1937), declared that "España es el futuro de […] Hispanoamérica. Trabajando por el triunfo de España trabaja el escritor nuestro por el triunfo de Hispano-América". This paper will look at not only the impact of the Spanish Civil War in Cuban writers who volunteered and participated in the conflict (Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Carlos Montenegro, Alejo Carpentier), but also at their contribution during the civil war.
Stephen Fay (King's College London)
Paper short abstract:
Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier and Jorge Mañach are well-know for their writings on Cuban identity and culture. This paper will explore some of the less-well known writings produced whilst on exilic escapes, literary tours or professional sojourns in New York, Paris and Madrid.
Paper long abstract:
Ortiz, Carpentier and Mañach are amongst the most notable Cuban writers of the twentieth-century. Between them they observed, analysed and enunciated Cuban identity and culture from the percipient perspectives of unorthodox ethnography, avant-garde literature and socio-cultural satire; to them is attributed much of the conceptual vocabulary that is still unavoidable when discussing the maravilloso, decadente and contrapuntístico Cuban condition, or cubanía, as Ortiz preferred.
Yet all three writers spent considerable amounts of time away from quotidian Cuba and immersed in other, even exotic, cultural and political milieux. This paper will read across the foreign correspondence and essayistic writings of Ortiz, Carpentier and Mañach whilst in New York, Paris and Madrid respectively, examining their reflections on home and on the 'unhomely' surroundings in which they found themselves. By doing so, the paper will attempt to trace lines of thought and deed between the writers' experiences in those far-off cities and the ambivalent borders all three charted around their island and its idiosyncrasies.
Luis Perez-Simon (University of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
Presently various internet "revistas de cultura cubana" work to de-territorialize Cuban culture, and problematize official Cuban cultural politics. This presentation aims to examine the history, politics, editorial policy and main actors of three of the most important magazines in this group.
Paper long abstract:
As the various waves of Cuban emigrants have settled outside of the island, they have established communities outside of the traditional Florida enclave of the Miami-Dade County area. Europe, Mexico and the Western United States in particular have seen larger number of Cuban implants since the fall of the Soviet Bloc. With the onset of internet journalism, what before had been small-circulation and locally-focused newspapers have found and ever-growing audience in cyberspace. We will examine the editorial histories, cultural politics, and main actors of three of the most influential cultural magazines outside of Cuba: the now defunct 'Revista Encuentro' (Madrid, Spain), La Habana Elegante [segunda época] (Texas, US), and Otro Lunes (Madrid, Spain/Berlin, Germany). We hope to distil the essence and consequences of the intricate web of competing, complementing and ultimately coherent interests of these journals as they pertain to the establishment of a legitimate Cuban culture outside the island of Cuba.