This study looks at the broader transformations in Cuban history through the case study of a single, yet symbolic, man, and proposes a new paradigm for understanding the dynamics of Cuban society and culture. It also examines the implications for Cuba’s aspiring national identity at the turn of the twentieth century, by detailing the interplay between fact and fiction in the story of Alberto Yarini: elite born; well-educated; politically and socially well-connected; powerful; and celebrated Cuban racketeer and chulo (pimp). Yarini was described as vibrant and triumphant at a time when other nation-building forces in Cuba were weak and ambivalent. A century after his dramatic death, Yarini became the quintessential public man in Cuban lore who symbolized a cubanidad (Cuban national identity) not defined in terms of the ideological hegemony of class, race, or gender, and who through his actions dispelled the ambivalence that plagued Cuban nationalism. Using archival documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, court records, memoirs, and published works, this study analyzes the confluence of national events and individual action in the formation of Cuban national identity. It contends that for Cuba, the failure of nation-building experiments resulted in an ambivalent national identity based on failed philosophical and political ideals of equality and prosperity. These ideals played out within the context of the realities of racial discrimination, political dissonance, and class and gender barriers. Instead of a cohesive sense of national character, for Cubans the result was a competing set of identities including a populist version that was defined through identification with antitypes and pseudo-heroes such as Alberto Yarini y Ponce de León (1882-1910), a rising politician and celebrated chulo of the early republic. The telling and retelling of his story has given rise to what has been termed the island nation’s first national myth – one that continues to evolve and grow in the twenty-first century. For many Cubans, the Yarini antitype provided an idealized national identity which in many ways was—and many argue continues to be— the expression of an elusive and ambivalent cubanidad.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

Orientador: José Alves de Freitas Neto / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-25T13:47:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SilvaJunior_JoseAntonioFerreirada_M.pdf: 1700054 bytes, checksum: 09c1830a8d95d190c305110e85ba4e6b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Este trabalho procura levantar e mapear discussões e debates político-culturais da segunda metade do século XX em Cuba, nas primeiras décadas da Revolução Cubana. A difusão de periódicos e impressos contribuiu para uma circulação diferenciada de ideias e discursos, envolvendo sujeitos históricos em diferentes dinâmicas entre o político e o cultural. Os intelectuais encontraram nesse tipo de meio de comunicação um espaço de expressão e engajamento com o processo revolucionário. A revista cubana Casa de las Américas se constituiu como centro de uma rede intelectual, a partir da qual se construiu e se difundiu um discurso revolucionário. Nossa proposta é partir desta revista, como objeto e fonte histórica, para aproximarmo-nos das ideias e noções conformadas entre intelectuais relacionados com o imaginário esquerdista da América Latina nos anos 1960 e 1970. Um dos nossos temas principais é a conformação de discursos identitários na revista. Defendemos que as identidades construídas discursivamente por Casa fazem parte da concepção que a própria revista tinha sobre sua atuação no processo revolucionário. Também, a questão em torno do papel do letrado é aqui analisada por nós. A publicação deu suporte para a formação de um discurso que valorizou e favoreceu uma estética e uma concepção de intelectual específicas para cumprir o que era visto como revolucionário. Devido à importância e à vigência que Casa estabelece para José Martí (1853-1895), as formas de discussão e apropriação da vida e obra deste letrado cubano figuram também em nossa argumentação, destacando mecanismos discursivos e formas de apropriação da história de Cuba. Dessa forma, passando por alguns temas político-culturais da revista, pretendemos abordar a história da esquerda latino-americana e da conformação de seu imaginário / Abstract: This work discusses and analyses the political and cultural debates during the first decades of the Cuban Revolution in the second half of the 20th century. In this context the dissemination of printed journals had contributed for the exchange of ideas and discourses, allowing the historical subjects to be immersed in a variety of political and cultural dynamics. Intellectuals found a space for expression and engagement with the revolutionary process in this type of media. The Cuban cultural journal Casa de las Américas was the center of an intellectual network from which the revolutionary discourse was built and spread. With the analysis of this journal we intend to get closer to the ideas and concepts that were being created and used by the Latin American leftist intellectuals of the 1960s and 1970s. One of our main themes is the conformation of identity discourses in the journal Casa de las Américas. The importance of the figure of the intellectual is another focused subject. We argue that the identities constructed discursively by this cultural journal are part of the design that the magazine itself had on its performance in the revolutionary process. The publication gave support to the formation of a discourse that valued and promoted a specific aesthetic and conception of intellectual which would fulfill what was seen as revolutionary. The important role that was reserved for José Martí (1853-1895) in Casa justifies our analysis of how his life and works were discussed and presented in the journal, emphasizing the discursive mechanisms and the different forms of appropriation of Cuban history. Thus, with the analysis of some political and cultural themes from Casa we intend to study the history of Latin-American left and the conformation of its imaginary / Mestrado / Politica, Memoria e Cidade / Mestre em História