06.05.2013/ 6:00 p.m.
NYU (New York University), CLACS. Auditorium of King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, 53 Washington Square South. New York, United States.
Distinguished Speaker series
Organized by José Muñoz and Coordinated by Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) of New York University (NYU)
What left of Cuba? Culture, Politics and Civil Society
.Access COMMUNIQUÉ #1 OF THE PRC
This Distinguished Speaker series addresses where Cuba is now in the geopolitical imaginary that once heralded Cuba as the exemplar of radical left projects in Latin America. In recent years, Cuban culture has challenged the projects of the revolution and has recast the cold war frames of embargo, exile, and exceptionalism. A new generation of writers, bloggers, visual and performance artists, and political activists and dissidents have insisted on freedom of expression, the rule of law, the politics of remembering, and the notion of civil society. Both on and off the island, many campaign “for an other Cuba” (Por Otra Cuba), reclaiming the nation and challenging the state. From a burgeoning presence in social media to smaller, poignant acts of reclamation such as political tattoos and graffiti, these social actors are creating spaces of expression and action that open fissures and apertures in the discourse of the revolution and the control of the state. Although they vary in political philosophies, these new voices demand both universality and contingency: an agenda that mixes the politics of human rights, Cuban values, and the unfinished projects of both the republic and the revolution.