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Speaker: Ambassador Jeffrey Delaurentis, Chief of Mission, US Embassy in Havana, Cuba (2015-2017); Non-Resident Visiting Fellow, DRCLAS Cuba Studies Program
Moderator: Alejandro De la Fuente, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics;...
Speaker: Guillermo J. Grenier, Professor of Sociology and Chair in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, Florida International University
Moderator: Alejandro de la Fuente, Professor of African and African American Studies and of History; Director, Afro-Latin American Research Institute, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University
The work presents the results of the most recent Cuba Poll, (November 2018) and compares the details with the opinions compiled by the research...
Graduate students in the humanities and social sciences explore new directions in Cuba studies through interdisciplinary, transnational, and multi-epochal approaches.
Library Theater in McKinlock Hall (Leverett House) 25 Mill Street, Cambridge MA 02138
Síntesis is one of the emblematic ensembles of contemporary Cuban music, due to the richness, variety and conceptual structure of their sonic style. Sintesis music pioneered the fusion of Afro-Cuban musical traditions with contemporary jazz and rock in the late 1970s. They are among the most recognized and popular...
La iniciativa privada constituye una bisoña experiencia en la Cuba actual. Aun cuando persisten un gran número de limitaciones legales, económicas y políticas para su desarrollo, muchos cubanos han decidido apostar por la creación de un negocio propio. Con el desarrollo del sector privado en los últimos años, se ha percibido un aumento de su peso en la economía nacional y su rol como actor social.
El sector vive un nuevo periodo de cambios, las regulaciones que rigen su funcionamiento han sufrido modificaciones, con...
Harvard University Jazz Master in Residence Chucho Valdés in concert with Harvard Jazz Bands
A concert featuring pianist Chucho Valdés, the 2019 Harvard University Jazz Master in Residence, with the Harvard Jazz Bands. The Cuban pianist, composer and arranger Chucho Valdés is one of the most influential figures in modern Afro-Cuban jazz. He is a six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Latin Grammy Award Winner. Born into a family of musicians in Quivicán, Havana province, Cuba, Dionisio Jesús "Chucho" Valdés Rodríguez, has distilled elements of the...
Moderator: Alejandro de la Fuente, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, Professor of African and African American Studies and of History at Harvard University; Director, Afro...
A través del diálogo entre el pianista y compositor Chucho Valdés y el Prof. Yosvany Terry, Narrativas Musicales ahondará en la vida y obra artística de Valdés, su concepción del Jazz y la música en general, sus contribuciones a la...
In the absence of a flourishing book industry, literary magazines become important vehicles of literary, intellectual, and political history in Cuba. This presentation investigates a located literary-critical battle between two Havana-based literary magazines that was central to the...
Speaker: Pablo D. Herrera Veitia, Afro-Latin American Research Institute, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
What is it like to be Afro-Cuban today? After more than a decade’s experience as an Afro-Cuban rap music producer, this is the question at the core of Herrera Veitia’s doctoral research in social anthropology. His presentation will explore how becoming a Hiphop practitioner vested him with a profound interest in the future of urban Afro-Cuban music in Havana. Following the question ‘What is Afro-Cubaneity?’ he argues that understanding what Afro-...
This panel explores how Cuban visual arts constitutes an important platform to understand a wide range of historical and current socio-political issues. The presenters reflect on topics such as the relationship between figurative art, race, and nation, the transcultural dynamics of Cuba’s concrete art, the contributions of monographs to existing historiography, and the role of the Cuban Art Foundation in the development of national arts and society.
“Concrete Cuba” Abigail McEwen, associate professor of Latin American art history at the University of...
Speaker: Alejandra Bronfman, Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Caribbean and US Latino Studies, at the University at Albany-SUNY
Moderator: Alejandro de la Fuente, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics Professor of African and African American Studies and of History Director, Afro-Latin American Research Institute, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University
Cuba was a center of the Caribbean “radio wars” of the...
The Communist Party in Cuba purveyed images of Fidel Castro that borrowed from Christian iconography in order to “sell” Fidel. Cuban artist José Angel Toirac and Bay Area writer Robert Glück present their recent collaboration, the artist book Parables. Parables gathers photos from magazines and newspapers like Granma, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party. It repurposes the Cuban Revolution as a Gospel, a new religion with a new scripture. Fidel performs the life of Christ, from his childhood in Nazareth to his ascension into Heaven. Toirac and Glück will...
Cuban Artist José Toirac and Art Curator Octavio Zaya will discuss the exhibition "OPIUM: Works by José Toirac", as...
Multimedia presentation that will use documentary films that examine the Afro-Cuban experience and explore Afro-...
Speaker: Ruth Behar, University of Michigan
Speaker: Chucho Valdés, composer and pianist
In the absence of a flourishing book industry, literary magazines become important vehicles of literary, intellectual, and political history in Cuba. This presentation investigates a located literary-critical battle between two Havana-based literary magazines that was central to the...