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Anthro 316 (02), Spring 2008
Inside The Revolution:
An Anthropological Approach to Contemporary Cuba
Mondays, 1:15 – 4:05 pm, Skinner 212
Paul Ryer, Merrill 203
Office hours: Tuesdays 2:45 – 4:30 pm, and by appointment
el. 538-2954
Within the ethnographic and historical context of a revolutionary socialist state, this course seeks to investigate the nature of social life in Cuba today. In addition to addressing theoretical questions relating to the reproduction of racial and national ideologies in a Marxist state, we consider ethnographic material on the formal and informal economy, politics and the nature of charismatic leadership, material culture and consumption, migration and exile, gender relations, and legal systems within one of the more singular of the American republics, and in counterpoint, in its diaspora.
Course Requirements:
We will meet once per week, with time each session for lecture and for discussion. Grading will be on the basis of class participation & weekly written assignments (30%); a take-home midterm (30%); and a final essay (40%), on a topic previously approved by the instructor.
PART ONE: FROM COLONY TO NATION (1492-1902)
Mon, Feb. 4.
Introduction & syllabus. I will be out of town. In-class film: Suite Habana, dir. Fernando Pérez (2003), 80 min.
Mon, Feb. 11.
Lecture: From Columbus to Creoles: ethnogenesis & historical panorama. The Virgin of Charity & ajiaco: foundational narratives of cubanidad (Cubanness). The Haitian Revolution and Cuba into the nineteenth-century.
Readings:
Benítez-Rojo, Antonio (1992). “From the plantation to the Plantation,” in The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. Durham, Duke University Press, pp. 33-81.
Anderson, Benedict (1983). “Introduction” and “Creole Pioneers,” in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York, Verso, pp. 1-9; 37-65.
Pérez, Louis A, Jr. (1994). “Between Baseball and Bullfighting: The Quest For Nationality in Cuba, 1868-1898,” in The Journal of American History81(2), pp. 493-517.
Benjamin, Jules. (1990). The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation. Princeton, PrincetonUniversity Press, chs. 1-2.
Mon, Feb. 18.
Modes of production and race relations in Marxist perspective. Classificatory embarrassments, race and class.
Readings:
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Frederick (1970). The German Ideology: Part One, With Selections From Parts Two and Three, Together With Marx's "Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy". New York, International Publishers, pp. 4-95.
Marx, Karl. (1978). “The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, Robert Tucker, ed. New York, W.W. Norton, pp. 101-105.
PART TWO: FROM “PSEUDO-REPUBLIC” TO SOCIALISTREPUBLIC
Mon, Feb. 25.
Independence, the race war of 1912, & U.S. influence in the Republic.
Readings:
Brenner, Philip, LeoGrande, William, et al., Eds. (1989). “The Platt Amendment,” in The Cuba Reader: The Making of a Revolutionary Society. New York, Grove Press, pp. 30-31.
Benjamin, Jules. (1990). The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation, Princeton, Princeton University Press, chs. 3-6.
Fuente, A. d. l. (2001). A Nation for All : Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-century Cuba. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, pp. 23-95.
Mon., March 3.
From the Good Neighbor to the brink of revolution. Race, class, and cultural nationalism. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, charismatic authority and guerilla war. Review session for midterm TBA.
Readings:
Hermer, Consuelo and May, Marjorie (1996). “What to Wear,” in Havana (Chronicles Abroad). Miller, J. and S. Clark, Eds. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, pp. 56-73.
Geldof, Lynn (1991). “Fichu Menocal," in Cubans: Voices of Change. New York, St. Martin's Press, pp. 3-24.
Fuente, A. d. l. (2001). A Nation for All : Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-century Cuba.. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, pp. 99-171.
Weber, Max (1978). Economy and Society. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, Vol. 2, ch. 14, pp. 1110-1128.
Castro, Fidel (1989). “History Will Absolve Me,” in The Cuba Reader. P. Brenner, W. M. LeoGrande, D. Rich and D. Siegel, eds. New York, Grove Press, pp. 31-35.
Szulc, Tad (1986). Fidel: A Critical Portrait. New York, Avon Books, pp. 19-35.
Monday,March 10.
Por Primera Vez. The early revolution and transformations in class, race and gender. Making sense of state socialism. Documentary: Waiting for Fidel, 1975 (58 minutes). Readings for today are required; after class, begin take-home midterm exam.
Readings:
Benjamin, Jules. (1990). The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation. Princeton, PrincetonUniversity Press, chs. 7-8.
Smith, Lois and Padula, Alfred (1996). Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba. New York, OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 33-44.
Verdery, Katherine (1996). What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? Princeton, PrincetonUniversity Press, pp. 3-38.
Monday, March 17. Mid-semester break, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
PART THREE: SOCIALIST NATIONALISM VS. INTERNATIONAL RACISM?
Mon, March 24.
Gender, race and revolution, continued.
Readings:
Fuente, A. d. l. (2001). A Nation for All : Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-century Cuba.. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. Skim pp. 175-255; read pp. 259-316.
Lewis, Oscar, et al (1977) Four Women: Living the Revolution. An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba,Vol 2. Chicago: Univ of Illinois Press, pp. 237-256; 275-294.
Smith, Lois and Padula, Alfred (1996). Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba. New York, OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 131-167.
Required film: Portrait of Teresa, dir. Pastor Vega, 1979 (103 minutes).
Mon, March 31.
Lecture: theorizing socialist production. Internationalism. Major events of the 1970s to 1990s. Problematic of socialism from an inter-state system to the “Special Period.”
Readings:
Rosendahl, Mona (1997). “The Revolutionary Act,” in Inside The Revolution: Everyday Life in Socialist Cuba. Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, pp. 135-155.
Richmond, Mark (1991). “Exporting the Educational Revolution: The Cuban Project to Become a World Educational Power,” in Cuban Foreign Policy Confronts a New International Order. H. M. Erisman and J. M. Kirk. Boulder, Lyne Rienner Publishers, pp. 167-179.
Geldof, Lynn (1991). "Carlos Fundora," in Cubans: Voices of Change, pp. 70-91. New York, St. Martin's.
Chávez, Lydia, ed. (2005). Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar: Cuba Enters the Twenty-First Century. Durham: Duke Univ. Press, pp. 17-30; 45-61; 147-173.
Documentary: Mariposas en el Andamio (1995), 74 minutes.
Mon., April 7.
Just how exceptional is Cuba, really? Blackness, whiteness, and mestizaje across Latin America. Documentary: La Tropical (2001) 93 minutes.
Readings:
Wade, Peter (1997). Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. Chicago: Pluto Press, pp. 5-24, 59-79.
Twine, France Winddance (1997). Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil. New Brunswick: RutgersUniv. Press, pp. 87-133.
Fernandez, Nadine (1996). “The Color of Love: Young Interracial Couples in Cuba,” in Latin American Perspectives 23, no. 1(88 (Winter 1996)), pp. 99-117.
Fuente, A. d. l. (2001). A Nation for All : Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-century Cuba.. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, pp. 317-339.
PART FOUR: CUBAN-AMERICAN COUNTERPOINT
Mon, April 14.
Crossing the Straights of Florida. Reconfiguring cubanidad in the USA.
Readings:
Stepick, A. (2003). This Land is Our Land : Immigrants and Power in Miami. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Mon., April 21.
Cuban and Cuban-American Voices.
Readings:
Pérez Firmat, G. (1994). Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 1-47.
Palmié, Stephan (1997). “Which Centre, Whose Margin? Notes Towards An Archaelogy of US Supreme Court Case 91-948, 1993 (Church of the Lukumí vs. City of Hialeah, South Florida),” in Inside and Outside the Law: Anthropological Studies of Authority and Ambiguity. O. Harris, ed. New York: Routledge, pp. 184-209.
Herrera, A. O. R. (2001). ReMembering Cuba : Legacy of a Diaspora. Austin, University of Texas Press, pp. 83-121, 279-283, 289-299.
Required Film: The Super, dir. Leon Ichaso & Orlando Jimenez-Leal, 1979 (90 min.).
PART FIVE: AFTER ELIÁN
Mon., April 28.
Cuba and the second coming of the dollar: cultural producers and the post-Soviet state.
Readings:
Fernandes, S. (2006). CubaRepresent! : Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures. Durham, Duke University Press.
Documentary: Cuban Hip Hop All-Stars (2004).
Mon, May 5.
Back to a Not-So-New World Order? Daily life, art, fashion, and contemporary cubanidad.
Readings:
Brotherton, Pierre Sean (2005). “Macroeconomic Change and the Biopolitics of Health in Cuba's Special Period,” in Journal of Latin American Anthropology 10(2):339-369.
Hill, Matthew (2007) “Reimagining Old Havana: World Heritage and the Production of Scale in Late Socialist Cuba,” in Deciphering the Global: Its Scales, Spaces and Subjects. S. Sassen, ed. New York: Routledge, pp. 59-77.
Routon, Kenneth (2005). “Unimaginable Homelands? "Africa" and the Abakuá Historical Imagination,” in Journal of Latin American Anthropology 10(2):370-400.
Final Paper DueMonday, May 12, 5 pm, in Merrill House.
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Books on Reserve at Williston Library,
also Available for Purchase at the Odyssey Bookshop:
Benjamin, J. (1990). The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.
Marx, K., and Engels, F. (1970). The German Ideology: Part One, With Selections From Parts Two and Three, Together With Marx's "Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy". New York: International Publishers.
Stepick, A. (2003). This land is our land : immigrants and power in Miami. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Fuente, A. d. l. (2001). A Nation for All : Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-century Cuba. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press.
Fernandes, S. (2006). CubaRepresent! : Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures. Durham, Duke University Press.