360°: Contemporary Cuban Culture and Society in a Global Context
This cluster brings together students and faculty to understand a country whose past and future are bound up deeply with the United States and the rest of Latin America even as it has charted very different courses within contemporary history and social policy.
This cluster brings together students and faculty to understand a country whose past and future are bound up deeply with the United States and the rest of Latin America even as it has charted very different courses within contemporary history and social policy.
This cluster brings together students and faculty to understand a country whose past and future are bound up deeply with the United States and the rest of Latin America even as it has charted very different courses within contemporary history and social policy. Through multidisciplinary approaches to a changing Cuba today, students will explore vantages of culture and cinema, urbanism and law in order to understand this complex nation and to draw lessons for other states worldwide.
Courses
This class, taught by Gary McDonogh, frames Havana within a larger theoretical discussion of colonialism and post-coloniality (Fanon, Steinmetz, Babha, Mdembe, etc) through comparison with three other case studies: Hong Kong, Algiers and Belfast. Students will study the forms, structures (political, economic, social) of each city and their transformations over time, incorporating primary and secondary sources as well as films and other representations.
Drawing on critical race theory and legal scholarship, this class taught by Raymond Albert assesses the differing parameters of racial categorization, privilege, restriction/discrimination and social change in the United States and Cuba. Readings and discussion will demand analysis of legal paradigms as well as experiences of race and racism, as well as an understanding of how these different realms fit together.
Cuba has a vibrant tradition in film which has both represented social and cultural changes in the modern era and debated divisions, meanings and futures of Cuban society, dealing with issues of socialism, race, gender, expression and opportunity. In this class, taught by Enrique Sacerio-Gari, students will grapple with canonical and alternative cinema in both creative dimensions and contexts and in terms of social and political issues. Class will involve screenings, readings, meetings with filmmakers and other activities of the wider 360. Class taught in English although materials are available in Spanish and papers may be written in either; the class may also be divided into two to accommodate different skills and/or engagement.