Cuban Heritage
Collection

New Directions in Cuban Studies Conference

Contours of Crisis: Major Challenges for Cuba Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

2023 Conference: October 18-20, 2023

The Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries will host the fifth edition of New Directions in Cuban Studies, a multidisciplinary conference to disseminate new work on Cuba and its global diaspora by advanced graduate students and emerging/early-career scholars. The conference will be held in person at the Kislak Center at the University of Miami on October 18 – 20, 2023. All conference sessions will be livestreamed. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required to attend.

Register to attend


Conference Schedule

Conference Speakers (Bios)

This year’s conference theme is Contours of Crisis: Major Challenges for Cuba Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. The title references tumultuous recent events on the island—e.g., COVID-19, a severe economic decline, new tensions in U.S.-Cuban relations, and historic levels of citizen protest and outmigration—as well as the need for critical perspectives on other major issues of concern in Cuban society.

The conference keynote address, “Deconstructing Cuban Blackness: Notes on Racialization and Nationhood in Contemporary Cuba,” will be delivered by Dr. Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, Associate Professor of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Cultural Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and inaugural Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Presidential Fellow at the Cuban Heritage Collection.

This year’s conference will also feature a special conversation with Dr. Lisandro Pérez, Professor and former Chair of the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at John Jay College, City University of New York. The program will conclude with a roundtable featuring invited experts on contemporary Cuban affairs.

The Goizueta Foundation generously funds this program with additional support from the Amigos of the Cuban Heritage Collection, the Wilbur L. and Jean L. Morrison Endowment for Cuban Studies at the University of Miami, the Program in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami, the Institute for the Advanced Study of the Americas at the University of Miami, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Please note that the conference will be bilingual, with presentations and discussions held in English and Spanish.  

Conference Schedule

DAY ONE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2023

5:00 p.m.

REGISTRATION
5:30 p.m.

WELCOME RECEPTION
7:00 p.m.

WELCOME REMARKS

  • Lisa Fish, Associate Dean for Collections Strategies, University of Miami Libraries
  • Amanda T. Moreno, Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair and Director, Cuban Heritage Collection
  • Michael J. Bustamante, Ph.D., Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami and Director of Academic Programs, Cuban Heritage Collection
7:15 p.m.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Goizueta Distinguished Presidential Fellow, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries
Deconstructing Cuban Blackness: Notes on Racialization and Nationhood in Contemporary Cuba

DAY TWO – THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023

8:30 a.m.

REGISTRATION
9:00 a.m.

WELCOME REMARKS

Amanda T. Moreno, Esperanza Bravo de Varona Chair and Director, Cuban Heritage Collection
9:15 a.m.

PATTERNS AND TRIALS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

  • Income and Tactics in the Practice of Daily Life in Havana
    – Miguel Díaz Cervantes | New School for Social Research
  • Artefacto etnográfico de relaciones, conocimientos, y memorias: la libreta de abastecimiento desde La Habana, Cuba
    – Adrian Fundora | Universidad Iberoamericana (México)
  • Religiones cubanas de antecedente africano durante el proceso de reavivamiento religioso reciente
    – Arisbel Lopez Andraca | University of Texas-Austin
  • Waiting as a Way of Life: The Affective Time of the Wait Line in Post-Special Period Cuban Culture
    – Luke Urbain | University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Hanna Garth, Ph.D., Princeton University (Moderator/Commenter)
11:00 a.m.

SOUNDS OF THE CRISIS

  • Un teatro para los oídos: dramaturgias de la escucha en el teatro cubano contemporáneo
    – Yohayna Hernández González | University of Montreal
  • El uso del sonido acusmático como metáfora de los fantasmas de la revolución cubana en tres documentales del cineasta cubano Alejandro Alonso Estrella
    – María C. Cumaná | Tulane University
  • Dinámicas de poder en el reguetón Cubano: por un modelo teórico desde las relaciones entre nodos y periferias simbólicas
    – Javier Soriano | Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Poitiers, Centre d’études et de Recherche Musicales (France)
  • Experimentar sonido: Experimenting/Experiencing Sounds of Crisis in Contemporary Cuban Women’s Jazz
    – Ruthie Meadows, Ph.D. | University of Nevada-Reno
  • Lillian Manzor, Ph,D. University of Miami (Moderator/Commenter)
12:30 p.m.

LUNCH BREAK
1:45 p.m.

DIGITAL COMMONS AND DIVIDES

  • Revendedores Online: Digital Exchange, Shifting Sociality, and Aspirational Autonomy in Contemporary Cuba
    – Miranda García | University of Michigan
  • El fenómeno Youtube y los YouTubers en Cuba
    – Cristina Parra González | Universidad Iberoamericana (México)
  • The Tropical City: Silicon Valley Imagines Havana’s Urban Landscape After the Obama Boom
    – Maile Speakman | University of Oregon
  • José Jasán Nieves, El Toque (Moderator/Commenter)
3:30 p.m.

SPECIAL SESSION

Crisis as Opportunity and Constraint: A Conversation about the Evolution of Cuban Studies

  • Lisandro Pérez, Ph.D. John Jay College, City University of New York
  • Michael J. Bustamante, Ph.D., University of Miami (Moderator)

DAY THREE – FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2023

NOTE: The first session of the day will be virtual. In-person sessions will resume at 11:00 a.m.

9:00 a.m.

WELCOME REMARKS

(Virtual)

Michael J. Bustamante, Ph.D., Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami and Director of Academic Programs, Cuban Heritage Collection
9:15 a.m.

CONTEMPORARY MIGRATION AND THE DIASPORA CONDITION

(Virtual)

  • Hacia los volcanes de Nicaragua: una mirada socio-geográfica de la migración cubana en el 2022
    – Laurine Chapon | Université Paris 3 Sorbonne (France)
  • Between precarity and prestige: migrant dance labor in times of crisis
    – Ruxandra Ana, Ph.D. | Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland)
  • When I Am Not Here, Estoy Allá: Visualizing Expansive Space-Time in Cuban Diasporic Memory
    – Kaillee Coleman, Tulane University
  • Jorge Duany, Ph.D., Florida International University (Moderator/Commenter)
11:00 a.m.

ARTISTIC RESPONSES

  • The Burden of Politics, the Guilt of Apathy: Ethnographic Reflections on Havana’s ISA in the Wake of J11
    – Alexander Werner | City University of New York (CUNY)
  • La opción cero: cine cubano, tiempo muerto, y modos alternativos de supervivencia
    – Isdanny Morales Sosa | University of Chile / Tulane University
  • Poemas contra la utopía nuclear: un análisis de Uranio empobrecido de Katherine Bisquet
    – Reynaldo Lastre | University of Connecticut
  • Paloma Duong, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Moderator/Commenter)
12:30 p.m.

LUNCH BREAK
1:45 p.m.

CLOSING ROUNDTABLE

Causas y cauces de la crisis cubana hoy: A Conversation with Experts

  • Elaine Acosta, Ph.D., CUIDO60 / Florida International University
  • Tamarys Bahamonde, University of Delaware
  • María José Espinosa, Center for Democracy in the Americas
  • Rafael Rojas, Ph.D., Colegio de México
  • Michael J. Bustamante, Ph.D., University of Miami (Moderator)
3:15 p.m.

CLOSING REMARKS