CUBA AT A CROSSROADS

An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Contemporary Cuba

SUNY-Geneseo
April 20–21, 2017

Thursday, April 20, 2017

5:45pm - 7:15pm: Welcome Reception, Big Tree Inn, Geneseo, NY**

7:30pm - 9:30pm: Screening of "Adiós Patria?  The Cuban Exodus" at the Riviera Theater, followed by a discussion led by the filmmaker Amy Serrano.

Friday, April 21, 2017

8:00am: Welcome remarks from Dr. Rose McEwen, Director of Latin American Studies, MCU-B

8:30-10:00am: Invited Session with Marc D. Perry & Esther Whitfield, MCU-B

Dr. Perry is a cultural anthropologist with a research specialization in race and racialization in the African Diaspora with a regional emphasis in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is the author of Negro Soy Yo: Hip Hop and Raced Citizenship in Neoliberal Cuba.

Dr. Whitfield’s work addresses war metaphors in Latin American political speech, literature and the arts, with a current focus on the Guantánamo Naval Base and its place in Cuba. She has worked extensively on Cuban culture of the post-Soviet period and on contemporary Latin American and Caribbean literature more broadly.

10:00-10:30am: Coffee Break & Book Fair, MCU-B

10:30am-11:30am: Keynote Address by Rafael M. Hernández; Havana, Cuba, MCU-B

Rafael Hernandez is a political scientist, professor, researcher and editor of Temas, a Cuban quarterly in the field of social sciences and the humanities; he is also a published poet, essayist and playwright. He has been professor and researcher at the University of Havana and the Higher Institute of International Relations; director of US studies at the Centro de Estudios sobre América (a think tank of the Central Committee of the CCP); and a Senior Research Fellow at the Instituto Cubano de Investigación Cultural “Juan Marinello”, in Havana. He has taught as a visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia, the University of Texas (Austin), the Centro de Investigación y Docencia  Económicas (Mexico), the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico, the University of Puerto Rico and Renmin University (Beijing); and conducted research at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Johns Hopkins, the Institute of Developing Economies (Tokyo) and other academic institutions in the US and Latin America. He has published several books and essays on Cuban and U.S. policies, inter-American relations, international security , migration, Cuban culture, civil society and politics. Some of his books, are Looking at Cuba. Essays on Culture and Civil Society (Critics National Award, 2001), The Other War. Studies on Strategy and International Security (2000), The History of Havana (2006), Play Ball. Debating US-Cuban Relations (coed., 2013, 2016). He received the Illiteracy Campaign Medal and the LASA Academic Excellency Award (2006).

11:30am-12:30pm: Lunch Break, See List of Recommended Restaurants

12:45-1:45pm: Concurrent Session 1

• Panel 1: Nature, The Environment & Sustainability, MCU-B
• Panel 2: Afro-Cuban Religion & Lydia Cabrera: Intellectual, Spiritual & Sexual Becoming, MCU-Rm 322
• Panel 3: The Place of Nostalgia & Affect in Narratives of Revolution & Immigration, MCU-Rm 323

1:45-2:15pm: Coffee break & Book Fair, MCU-B

2:15-3:15pm: Concurrent Session 2

• Panel 4: Exploring Gender in Contemporary Cuba, MCU-B
• Panel 5: Tourism at the Crossroads of Cuban-U.S. Relations, MCU- Rm 322
• Interdisciplinary "Flash" Presentations (10 minute, image-focused presentations), MCU-Rm 323

3:30-5:00pm: Invited Session with Elise Andaya & Nadine Fernandez, MCU-B

Dr. Andaya is a medical anthropologist whose work focuses on shifts in reproduction, gender ideologies, and kinship strategies in Cuba. She is the author of Conceiving Cuba: Reproduction, Women, and the State in the Post-Soviet Era.

Dr. Fernandez is a professor of Gender and Family Studies. Her prior research in Cuba is showcased in her book Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in Contemporary Cuba. Her current research is on Cuban immmigrants in Europe.

5:00-5:30pm: Coffee break & Book Fair, MCU-B

5:30-6:30pm: Round Table Discussion on Cuba at a Crossroads with Rafael Hernandez, Marc D. Perry, Esther Whitfield, Elise Andaya, and Nadine Fernandez, MCU-B

7:00pm: Symposium Closing with Dinner and live music, Glen Iris Inn, Castile, NY**

**These two events are for registered symposium participants only. Geneseo students, faculty and staff do not need to register to attend the film screening (4/20) and symposium presentations and discussions (4/21).

Sponsored By: 

With Additional Support From the:

Alan Lutkus International Film Series, Geneseo Office of International Programs, Geneseo Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Geneseo Departments of Anthropology, Black Studies, English, Environmental Studies, Film Studies, History, Languages & Literatures, Latin American Studies, Music, and Political Science & International Relations