Neste trabalho analisamos a história do Instituto Cubano del Arte e Indústria Cinematográficos, primeiro organismo cultural criado após a Revolução cubana, e seu papel na política cultural, entre 1959 e 1991. Por meio da análise de documentos da política cultural, da revista Cine Cubano, além de depoimentos, críticas e alguns filmes que repercutiram especialmente os dilemas e questionamentos dos intelectuais cubanos, abordamos as tensões entre a política cultural oficial, o ICAIC e os projetos dos cineastas. Esse Instituto, pelo qual circularam muitos cineastas latino-americanos e europeus, foi palco de debates, disputas políticas e diversas polêmicas envolvendo filmes e tendências estéticas, como o realismo socialista e a nouvelle vague. Nossa tese é de que o ICAIC, pode ser considerado uma instituição privilegiada no meio cultural cubano, pois consolidou uma autonomia relativa em relação aos mecanismos de controle governamentais, por meio da ação dos cineastas e da mediação da direção do Instituto. Esta autonomia foi abalada, em diversos momentos, em função de fatores como a reestruturação do Estado, os fracassos econômicos e o acirramento do autoritarismo em Cuba, principalmente a partir dos anos 70. Ainda assim, o Instituto se readaptou às demandas políticas governamentais num jogo político de adesão e resistência à política cultural oficial, que tornou possível a produção de vários filmes ambíguos e críticos ao regime, ao longo desse período. / This work analyzes the history of the Cuban Institute for Art and Film Production (ICAIC) ? the first cultural organization created after the Cuban Revolution ? and its role in cultural policy between 1959 and 1991. Through the analysis of documents on cultural policy, the magazine Cine Cubano, in addition to testimonies, critiques and a set of films specifically relevant to the issues and dilemmas of Cuban intellectuals, the thesis delves into the tensions between official cultural policy, the ICAIC, and film makers? projects. Various Latin American and European film makers were involved with the institute, and it served as a forum for debate, political discussions and varied polemics related to film and aesthetic tendencies, including Socialist Realism and New Wave. The thesis proposes that ICAIC constituted a privileged institution in the Cuban cultural environment because ? through the action of film makers and the mediation of the Institute?s leadership ? it attained relative autonomy with respect to mechanisms of government control. This autonomy was unsettled, at different points, by factors such as state restructuring, economic failure and the entrenchment of authoritarianism in Cuba, especially from the 1970s onward. Still, the institute adapted to the demands of government policy through a political dynamic that alternated adhesion and resistance to official cultural policy, making possible the production of various films that were ambiguous and critical of the regime during that period.

In the centuries since the colonization of the New World, the people of Cuba created a strong musical tradition. Initially, their music mirrored the European composition canons of structural, melodic and harmonic order. The eventual confluence of its distinct cultural elements (i.e. the European, African, and, to a lesser extent, Amerindian) led to the emergence of a new, distinctly Cuban musical tradition. The wars for independence that began in the United States and Europe in the eighteenth century created a surge towards political and cultural autonomy that swept across the Latin American colonies, generating a wave of nationalism during the nineteenth century. After finally gaining its independence in 1902, Cuba sought to define itself as a nation. Cubans looked inward to their regional folklore—their indigenous and popular traditions—for the source of their national identity, a trend that became of primary interest to Cuban artists. The nationalist trend found full musical expression during the twentieth century, when composers turned to folklore for their inspiration in creating new art music (works for the concert hall) with a unique sound and vitality. This study concerns itself with the Cuban nationalist movement and its role in the creation of art music by twentieth-century Cuban composers, most specifically that of Mario Abril. The monograph is organized into three general sections: the first section (Chapters 2 and 3) identifies the significant characteristics of nationalism, describes the manifestation of some relevant nationalist movements (e.g., in Europe and Latin America), and explores the manifestation of the nationalist movement in Cuba. The second section (Chapters 4 and 5) provides a history of Cuban art music, concluding with a biographical sketch of composer Mario Abril. The third part (Chapters 6 and 7)consists of a study of the music, beginning with a description of the pertinent characteristics of Cuban popular music, followed by an examination Mario Abril’s Fantasía (Introduction and Pachanga) for clarinet and piano. The document concludes with remarks about the characteristics that qualify the work as an example of Cuban nationalist art music with suggestions for the study and interpretation of the work.

Throughout history, women have played an important role in literature. Nevertheless, since Sappho's poetry until now, feminine voices have had to struggle for recognition of their works. Before the nineteenth century, women were almost ignored in Spanish literature. Society kept them as "ángeles de la familia," taking care of their homes, husbands, and children. Some of them, such as María de Zayas y Sotomayor in Spain and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in Mexico, complained about their situation in their writings. However, they expressed their fight not as a generation but as individuals. In the nineteenth century, the ideas and ideals of Romanticism, were brought to Latin America from Europe. Cuba was among those countries where the new movement took roots. Initiated by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, a group of women began to participate in literary reunions, and to found newspapers and magazines where works authored by women, dedicated to feminist ideas, were published. They indeed through literature started to live out womanhood in order to intellectually leave the ideological prisons where society had been keeping them. This study scans the literary works of all Romantic women writers in Cuba. It specifically analyzes poetry and short stories, and investigates how these authors expressed themselves in their works against the patriarchal society, where they lived and wrote their books. An eclectic critical method has been used. Findings were very revealing. Only three of the fourteen writers studied in my dissertation had been previously mentioned by major critics. Most of them had been ignored. However, the greatest discovery was that they prompted something new: For the first time they projected themselves as a group, as a collective consciousness, and this fact established a difference with former women writers in Cuban literature before Romanticism. In other words, they produced a "Renaissance" in Cuba's literature. In spite of how they lived between 1820 and 1900, their struggles for women's rights have linked them to our current times.

This study analyzes Virgilio Piñera’s concept of performance in relation to his representation of mass media products and technologies. The central argument is that Piñera’s notion of theatrical representation connects fiction with politics in subversive ways, challenging assumptions of naturalness at different levels, from that of the gendered self, to the family and the nation. To support this argument, the study focuses on Piñera’s representation of a variety of mass media genres as these inspire everyday life performances, mainly in Cuba but also in Argentina. While fictional models and sentimental narratives from the mass media most often convey oppressive conceptions of gender, family, and nation, the author’s representation of the media’s pervasive influence questions and denaturalizes those conceptions. Piñera stresses the disruptive potential of individual performance against the repetitive character of both the mass media industry and the social reenactments of its sentimental myths. His references to mass culture thus destabilize structures of power, including stereotypes of both sexuality and gender. The analysis shows that Piñera’s fictions exhibit important characteristics of queer aesthetics. The study comprises a time span of almost three decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, and focuses on a selection of Piñera’s criticism, drama, poetry, and narrative. Within those texts, special attention is given to references to photography, radio programs, romance novels, movies, and popular music. The organization of Piñera’s texts in this study answers to both thematic and chronological considerations. Chapter 1 outlines the study’s objectives and methodology, also providing a background on critical studies about Piñera. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with plays and short-stories written before the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Chapter 2 examines texts that represent both family and nation in relation to a variety of mass media genres, from Cuban “radionovelas” to Hollywood gangster films. Chapter 3 focuses on two narratives, written in Buenos Aires, that address posing and self-representation in relation to issues of sexuality, masculinity, and power. Chapter 4 deals with a selection of poems written, for the most part, after 1959. In these poems, the literary use of photography stresses theatrical self-representation, often in direct resistance to revolutionary reformulations of masculinity in the figure of the “New Man.” / text

(in English): The topic of the present thesis is the lexical aspects of Cuban Spanish, primarily the influence of other languages on its vocabulary. The theoretical part is dedicated to the historical and cultural circumstances of the history of the Cuban variant of Spanish, it briefly outlines the evolution of the Cuban lexicography and, most importantly, it pays attention to the impact of other languages: Spanish of the conquerors, Indian languages, African languages, French, English, Chinese and Russian on Cuban lexis. In addition, a short part of the thesis is dedicated to the sociolinguistic situation in Cuba. The theoretical background serves as the basis for the practical part of the thesis, in which the occurrence of selected lexical items in the linguistics corpora CREA, CORPES XXI and Araneum Hispanicum Maius is examined.

Thesis advisor: Paul Gray / Since Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba over fifty years ago, U.S.-Cuban relations have been defined by mutual hostility. As the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, the United States has labored to combat this repressive force that threatens democracy only ninety miles from its shores. In this paper, I analyze the embargo against Cuba and the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, both of which are U.S. government initiatives intended to weaken the Cuban government. I find that neither of these initiatives has been effective and that the United States’ failure to reevaluate longstanding and unsuccessful policies is detrimental to the populations they are intended to serve. In order to create more effective programs, the United States government must consider human rights in its decisions, continuously follow through with and reevaluate its policies, and ensure that initiatives are in the best interest of all parties involved. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Tradicionalmente as religiões afro-americanas são estudadas principalmente por meio de suas cerimônias, mitologia, hierarquia, organização ritual e conceitos éticos-filosóficos. Nesta tese se realiza uma aproximação da Santería1 cubana, religião de origem africana, por meio de sua cultura material. Com esta ideia se observou a presença desta religião na sociedade cubana contemporânea, inserida em um processo de transformações sócioeconômicas, em que ela, considerada uma prática subalterna assume um papel protogonista. Os objetos criados e/ou transformados para uso religioso funcionam na pesquisa como fio condutor para analisar os modos pelos quais a Santería é percebida dentro e fora da comunidade religiosa. Com esse intuito se realizou o exercício de examinar a apreensão de objetos para uso religioso em espaços públicos: museus e mercado, assim como privados: casas-templo. Questões como agência desses objetos, as redes de sociabilidade em que estão inseridos e seus processos de sacralização foram estudados com o auxílio de alguns pressupostos teóricos dos estudos sobre o consumo de cultura material. A etnografia foi decisiva para a construção da narrativa deste trabalho que confirmou a ideia de que a Santería se mantem intimamente vinculada às transformações atuais em Cuba. / Traditionally, African-American religions are mainly studied through their ceremonies, mythology, hierarchy, ritual organization and ethic-philosophical concepts. In the present thesis, one approaches the Cuban Santería, a religion of African origin, through its material culture. Bearing this in mind, we observed the presence of this religion in the Cuban contemporary society, inserted in a process of socio-economic transformations where it assumes an important role, although once it had been considered a marginal practice. The objects which are created and or transformed for the religious use are the connecting thread in the research to analyze how Santería is seen in and out of the religious community. In order to do so, we exanimated how religious objects are placed in public and private spaces for religious use: museums and markets and also the house-temples. Inquiries about the agency of those objects, the sociability networks in which they are inserted and their sacralization processes were studied with the assistance of some theoretical assumptions of the studies about the consumption of material culture. Ethnography was decisive to frame the narrative of this work, which confirmed the idea that Santería is still intimately affected and bound to the current transformations in Cuba.

Il est très délicat de parler « d’identité » cubaine sans la problématiser, la nuancer ou la circonstancier. Cuba est pourtant une île fouettée par des courants venus de tous les horizons, un creuset où se sont mêlées les cultures qui semblent définir son caractère propre. Le cas du théâtre est un exemple incontestable. Le théâtre cubain est un art plus ou moins sinistré à l’intérieur même de ses frontières. Mais après la révolution il commence à renaître. Le théâtre cubain a accompagné l’histoire de la révolution cubaine au milieu d’un siècle de grandes guerres et de mouvement de libération nationale. L’éclosion des années 1960 paraît ainsi être l’apogée de l’écriture dramatique cubaine, et la représentation dans le pays, de ce fait, le théâtre cubain rencontre une spécificité propre à l’intérieur et en dehors de l’île. Les dramaturges cubains représentent dans leurs œuvres la thématique cubaine dans et en dehors de l’île, intimement lié à la circonstance politique révolutionnaire et à ses conséquences dans la famille cubaine et l’individu. Tout ceci participe du « cubain », autant d’exemples qui montrent la difficulté de parler d’un théâtre cubain. Il n’y pas qu’une seule façon de faire du cubain, car chaque auteur, chaque histoire est différente et implique différentes manières de percevoir « la cubania », que ce soit dans l’aspect comique, tragique, réaliste, « absurdiste » ou politique, la spécificité de l’île est bien là. / It is difficult to talk about Cuban "identity" without making an issue of, qualifying or detailing it. Yet Cuba is an island lashed by currents from every direction, a melting pot of cultures which seem to define its own character. Theatre is a case in point. Cuban theatre is an art which is more less confined to the interior of its borders. But after the revolution, it has begun to be reborn. Cuban theatre has gone hand in hand with the story of the Cuban revolution in the middle of a century of great wars and the national liberation movement. The dawn of the 60s thus seems to be the peak of dramatic Cuban literature and, because of this, Cuban theatre, in the way that it is performed, encounters a specificity both on as well as off the island.". Cuban playwrights represent in their work the Cuban theme in and outside the island, intimately linked to the revolutionary political circumstances and to their consequences on Cuban families and individuals. All of this makes up what it is to be "Cuban", so many examples which demonstrate the difficulty of talking about Cuban theatre. There is not only one way to 'do' Cuban, since every author, every story is different and requires different ways to perceive "la cubania", whether it is in a comic, tragic, realist, "absurdist" or political way, the specificity of the island is always there.

Against the backdrop of the 1933 and 1959 Cuban Revolutions, dance became highly politicized as performers interacted with the state and expressed ideas choreographically about race, gender, and social change. Starting in the 1930s, citizens invested in ballet as a means for cultural progress. In the 1940s and 1950s, a growing cadre of ballet professionals and their supporters advocated for the government to subsidize the form. Simultaneously, carnival, cabaret, and concert dancers sparked widespread discussion about nation and racial formation, specifically the place of blackness and whiteness in Cuba. As a result, performers and patrons established the political valence of dance as means for reflecting on larger questions about self and society. After 1959, dancers adapted to the regime change while pursuing longstanding projects. Ballet dancers performed aggressive choreography in fatigues, along with traditional ballets from Europe and Russia, as part of their revolutionary repertoire. Dance teachers built upon previous pedagogical efforts and contributed to new social engineering projects to “improve” Cuban youth. In parallel, modern and folkloric dancers choreographically critiqued patriarchy and race relations in a supposedly post-racial society. These performances developed a Cuban way of dancing and watching dance, the latter characterized as engaged and talkative. Dancers and publics built a vibrant establishment that eventually transcended national borders with Cubans dancing and teaching abroad in the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile, dancers contributed to the growing tourist industry and pushed for institutional changes at home in the late 1980s. In 1990, Cuba entered a crisis that destabilized the relationship between dance and politics that had developed over the previous six decades. During this period, different dance forms including cabaret, carnival, ballet, modern dance, and folkloric dance received various levels of public and state support. I argue that there were important continuities in dance hierarchies with ballet holding the greatest cultural and political capital starting in the 1930s. I also contend that dancers of different genres employed similar tactics to navigate sociopolitical shifts and expressive parameters across the decades. They consistently shaped dance institutions and asserted the value of their work to revolution and nationhood. This social and cultural history of Cuban dance sheds light on the reach and limitations of state power in Cuba as numerous constituencies engaged with the revolution, maneuvering for agency within a limited public sphere.

Orientador: Carlos Alberto Sampaio Barbosa / Banca: Charles Monteiro / Banca: José Luis Bendicho Beired / Resumo: Gestado nas matas da Sierra Maestra, em meio aos conflitos entre rebeldes e a ditadura de Fulgencio Batista (1952-1958), o jornal Revolución dirigido por Carlos Franqui cumpria o papel de divulgar as conquistas e os ideais dos insurgentes. Com o triunfo da Revolução em 1959, o periódico deixou a clandestinidade e tornou-se um influente veículo de informação do período. Nele trabalharam vários profissionais entre os quais, fotógrafos cujos frutos de suas produções cooperaram na eternização da Revolução como um dos eventos significativos do século XX. Depois dessa virada histórica, os holofotes dos principais meios de comunicação do mundo passaram a dedicar maior atenção aos passos que seriam dados por aquele país. Logo nos primeiros meses, o jovem governo revolucionário encetou uma série de reformas em vários âmbitos da sociedade, sobretudo em regiões rurais onde predominaram durante décadas a pobreza e a ausência de serviços básicos como educação e saúde. Diante das lentes dos fotógrafos de Revolución, os camponeses cubanos passaram a ter suas condições de vida e seus rostos propagados por toda a Ilha, ao passo em que um imaginário sobre si era construído no intuito de sensibilizar, conscientizar e mobilizar a sociedade, principalmente dos centros urbanos, a participarem do processo de mudanças sociopolíticas do país. Porém, os resultados obtidos a partir da meticulosa análise quantitativa e qualitativa do montante de fotografias presentes tanto no jornal quanto no seu suplemento Campo de Revolución, organizadas e catalogadas mostraram que a moldagem desse imaginário não fora unívoca ou rígida, pois a realidade histórica vivida intensamente pelos cubanos nos primeiros três anos tornou-a flexível. Além disso, a metodologia empregada na análise das fotografias permitiu-nos discutir outros assuntos inerentes ao universo rural cubano / Abstract: Raised in the forests of the Sierra Maestra, amid conflicts between rebels and the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-1958), the newspaper Revolución led by Carlos Franqui played the role of publicizing the achievements and ideals of the insurgents. With the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the newspaper left the clandestine and became an influential vehicle of information of the period. In it worked several professionals among whom, photographers whose fruits of their productions cooperated in the eternalization of the Revolution like one of the significant events of century XX. After this historic turnaround, the spotlight of the world's mainstream media began to pay more attention to the steps that would be taken by that country. In the early months, the young revolutionary government embarked on a series of reforms in various areas of society, particularly in rural areas where poverty and lack of basic services such as education and health prevailed for decades. Faced with the lenses of the photographers of Revolución, the Cuban peasants began to have their living conditions and their faces propagated throughout the Island, while an imaginary about themselves was built in order to raise awareness, raise awareness and mobilize society, especially the urban centers to participate in the process of socio-political changes in the country. However, the results obtained from the meticulous quantitative and qualitative analysis of the amount of photographs present in both the newspaper and its Campo de Revolución supplement, organized and cataloged, showed that the molding of this imagery was not unequivocal or rigid, since the historical reality lived intensely by Cubans in the first three years made it flexible. In addition, the methodology used in the analysis of the photographs allowed us to discuss other subjects inherent to the Cuban rural universe / Mestre