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This event will be hybrid. To register for the in-person session, click here. To register for the virtual session, click here.
Speaker: David E. Hoffman, Journalist, Member of the editorial board of The Washington Post
Moderated by: Petra Kuivala, Doctor of Theology, is Associate at the Department of History at Harvard University and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki; Tania Bruguera, Senior Lecturer In Media & Performance, Theater, Dance & Media, Affiliate Of Art, Film, And Visual Studies and the Interim Chair of the Cuba Studies Program at Harvard University
David E. Hoffman will discuss his latest book, Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba, a biography of Oswaldo Payá (1952–2012), the Cuban opposition leader and visionary for democracy. Recipient of the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, Payá championed the ideas of civil and human rights on an island ruled by the authoritarian Communist Party. Among Payá’s efforts were the founding of the Christian Liberation Movement and the Varela Project, a citizen petition that demanded freedom from Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. The petition called for freedom of speech, worship and association, a referendum leading to free elections, as well as the establishment of free enterprise on the island and freedom for political prisoners. Payá’s life and work grew from a bedrock belief that individual liberties are neither granted nor controlled by state power. The event will discuss the process of researching and writing about Payá’s life and ideas as well as his role in Cuban civil society and the neglected history of the Cuban Republic in the first half of the century. David will be joined in conversation by Dr. Petra Kuivala.
David E. Hoffman is a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post. He was previously assistant managing editor, foreign editor, Jerusalem correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, and White House correspondent for the newspaper. His most recent book is Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba (Simon & Schuster, 2022.) He previously authored The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy (Doubleday, 2009), which won the Pulitzer Prize, The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal (Doubleday, 2015), a New York Times bestseller, and The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (PublicAffairs, 2002.) He has also been a correspondent for the PBS flagship investigative series FRONTLINE. He attended the University of Delaware and was a senior associate member of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, in 1994-1995. He lives with his wife in Maryland.
Petra Kuivala, Doctor of Theology, is Associate at the Department of History at Harvard University and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki. Kuivala has worked also as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. Her research and teaching intersect with the fields of theology and the study of religion, history, Cuban studies, and Latin American studies, addressing Christianity in the Americas, with a particular focus on religion in Cuba, the Cuban Revolution, and socialist society. Dr. Kuivala’s articles have been published in, among others, Cuban Studies, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, and International Journal of Cuban Studies. Her current research project, The Revolution, Religion, and Social Experience in Cuba, 1961–1991, funded by the Academy of Finland, analyzes the intersections of religion and lived experience in the social histories of the Cuban Revolution.
Tania Bruguera is a Cuban artist and activist whose performances and installations examine political power structures and their effect on society's most vulnerable people. Her long-term projects have been intensive interventions on the institutional structure of collective memory, education and politics. Bruguera has received many honours such as the Velazquez Prize, the Robert Rauschenberg Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Prince Claus Fund Laureate Her work has been extensively exhibited around the world, including the Tate Turbine Hall Commission and Documenta 11. Her work is in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Van Abbemuseum, Tate Modern and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana. Bruguera is Senior Lecturer In Media & Performance, Theater, Dance & Media, Affiliate Of Art, Film, And Visual Studies and the Interim Chair of the Cuba Studies Program at Harvard University.
Presented in collaboration with Cuban-American Undergraduate Student Association (CAUSA)