Center for Global Education [CGE] |
Topics in Global History * |
Seminar: Cuba/US Relations * |
Field Study in Hispanic Culture * |
COURSE DESCRIPTION |
It is thought that the first humans arriving
to Cuba came from South America around 3500 B.C. They were fishermen and
hunter-gatherers Taínos, who were later joined by agriculturalists
Arawak Indians and by a few somewhat agressive Caribe tribes. They occupied
different sections of the island when Columbus "discovered" it on 27 October
1492 on his first voyage to the "new world." The island played a key role
in the early years of the Spanish colonial empire, including the Cortés'
expedition to México, which established Cuba as Spain's gateway
to both North and South America. When the encomienda system was
abolished in 1542 (by which the Indians were enslaved under the pretext
of "religious" instruction), African slave-laborers were brought to the
island. Unlike the North American slave trade, Cuba's African slaves were
kept together in their tribal groups and so certain aspects of their different
cultures were able to survive. In 1762, the British occupied the island,
increasing the number of slaves by 4,000 and changing the main cash crop
for the island from cattle and bovine products to sugar. By 1820, Cuba
had become a major hub of the Atlantic slave trade, out of which emerged
a multi-racial society and a complex culture based on European and African
traditions. This study tour will not only visit monuments, plazas, churches
and neighborhoods in the 500 year-old capital city of Havana, but will
also travel to several smaller towns and rural areas in western and central
Cuba, exposing participants to contemporary Cuban art, music, religion
and daily life in this controversial nation. Participants will also gain
insight into slavery and emancipation in the island's long struggle against
imperialism, and the origins and characteristics of the 1959 revolution,
an event whose political, social and cultural impact extended far beyond
the island itself. Upon their return, students will write a research paper
that would grow out of interests developed before and during the trip.
ACADEMIC DIRECTOR |
REQUIRED READING |
Jaime Suchlicki, Cuba: From Columbus to
Castro and Beyond (Washington, DC: Breassey's, 1997). A newly revised
and updated version of Cuba: From Columbus to Castro (New York:
Scribner, 1974), this carefully researched and written book offers an outstanding
analysis of the many miscalculations made by people on the Cuban issue.
It chronicles the colorful history and rich cultural heritage of the island
nation from the Spanish arrival and rule to Batista to Fidel, paying special
attention to the causes, evolution and direction of the Castro government
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This book too will be available
at the GMU bookstore.
REQUIREMENTS |
2. Attendance is mandatory at all group events during the trip. In addition, we will hold daily breakfast meetings in order to discuss the events of the preceding day and open up the issues of the day . Active participation in these discussions is essential.
3. While in Cuba, students must keep a journal, which will be collected at different points during the trip. Journal entries are intended as an opportunity for students to think through both the material presented on lectures and first hand observations. As a compendium of your first impressions on, responses to, and ideas about the Cuban reality, the journal will be an important resource in the writing of your final paper.
4. Upon returning from Cuba, students must
write a research paper on one of the topics suggested in the attached bibliography
or any other you have agreed with your advisor or with me. Undergraduates
must select and read two of the recommended books and two articles searched
on their own and their final paper should be about 2500 words (8-10 pages).
[If graduate students were to participate in this program, they must read
at least three books and three articles and their paper should be about
3500 words (14-16 pages)]. The university requires that grades should be
at the registrar's office four weeks after the tour. Thus your papers
should be in my hands no later than Monday, February 14.
GRADING |
Initial Paper-15%
Journal and participation in group discussions - 35%
Final Paper-50%
SCHEDULE AND DUE DATES [tentative; check for date changes] |
12/18/99
Final Orientation. Discussion of The Buena Vista Social Club [place
TBA]
Predeparture research papers due
1/2/00 Departure
1/17/00
Return to the US.
Final paper topic statements due before getting off the plane
2/14/00
Final papers due
ITINERARY (SUBJECT TO REVISION) |
January 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Beginning in Matanzas, an important
port city and an area rich in African traditions, we will travel to Jovellanos
an 18th century palenque (refuge for self liberated slaves). Here
we will visit with an extended family of Arará heritage who follow
Regla de Ocha. In nearby villages, participants will continue the exploration
of the AfroCuban religion created in the island by peoples associated with
the Lucumi tradition of the African Atlantic slave trade. We will visit
a modest ceramics studio and meet with the artist. Through the Office of
the Dean of Afro-Cuban Studies at the University of Matanzas, we will try
to attend private performances on different evenings by the Muñequitos
de Matanzas and the Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble and will attend a reception
with regional artists at their studios. On our way to the famous Varadero
beach, we will stop at Neptune's Cave, which, with its underground lagoon,
stalactites and stalagmites, is the largest cave of the Caribbean and shows
clear evidence of Indian occupation. It was also used as a secret hospital
during the war of independence. An area scholar will lecture on slave rebellions
in the region.
January 9, 10, 11, 12
We will travel to Trinidad, one of
the seven founding cities of Cuba (perhaps the best preserved of them all)
and a UNESCO World Heritage City. Founded by Diego Velázquez in
1514, it was from here that Cortés embarked on his expedition to
conquer México with 600 men. There, we will visit the historical
museums of the city and the Kongo Cabildo de Congos Reales originally founded
in 1787. Cabildos were the social community organizations permitted by
the Spanish slavery system but transformed into cultural shrines by Afro-Cuban
slaves using west African identity understandings of "nation". We will
attend a private dance and percussion demonstration. We have requested
to visit the burial "cave" of the last king of the cabildo who was buried
there in 1923 with his drums. Trinidad's early wealth came from the sugar
estates established during the 17th century on the rolling land
in the nearby "Valley of the Sugar Mills." This area is the largest industrial
archeological site in the Caribbean. We will explore the valley and visit
a restored 18th century sugar estate with an area archeologist.
An area scholar will also lecture on the social history of the sugar plantations.
Living Trinidad, we will stop in Santa Clara, site of the last and definitive
battle of the Revolution, where Che Guevara and his men captured an armored
troop train and subsequently the city.
January 12, 13, 14
Pinar del Río is the capital
of Cuba's most western province of the same name. Traveling west we will
climb up into the San Rosario Mountains where we will visit with members
of an agricultural cooperative and hike through a section of World Biosphere
Preserve, if possible, with a representative from the Ministry of Science
and the Environment (not yet confirmed ). In these relatively isolated
villages we will explore Toque-Yuka and Toque-Kinfuiti, both of these are
toques
de tambor which are unique to Cuba. We will also visit another tobacco
factory: the Donatien, and compare their artistry with the Partagas' in
Havana.
January 14, 15, 16, 17
Havana. More visits to the city with
two hours of daily lectures on the main figures of Cuban literature and
culture: Martí, Maceo, Carpentier, Lezama Lima, and Cabrera Infante.
January 15-16, we will go to the University of Havana, where two professors
from the institution will lecture on Cuban history and political systems.
An open debate on virtues and vices of socialism and capitalism is scheduled
in the morning of the 15th of January at the Center for the
Study of the United States at the University of Havana. We are also trying
to attend a baseball game with a lecture on the sociology of leisure time
in Cuba given (perhaps) by Dr. Jorge Hernández , Director of the
Center, with whom we have been in contact to prepare this itinerary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR FINAL PAPERS |
Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. New York : Harper & Row, 1971. Although the information in this book stops in 1970, it is a classical work of monumental research. Without doubt the most complete study on Cuba ever attempted.
Louis A. Pérez, Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford Univ. Press,1995. Traces the socio-political chronology of Cuba from Pre-Columbian times to present day Cuba.
Donald E. Schultz, ed.,Cuba and the Future. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. This book contains 11 articles dealing with today's Cuba and its possibilities for the future.
Cuban Studies, a journal published by the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh appears once or twice a year. It should be a good source of information on Cuban issues, although most of their articles, published in Spanish, deal with literary and cultural issues.
To get a general picture of Cuban history, it would be much to your advantage to check the following site prepared by Rock Around The Blockade, a socialist group from the United Kingdom, where several authors have written articles on the history of Cuba: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rcgfrfi/ratb/cuba/
1. Sugar, Slavery and Emancipation
Laird W. Bergad, Cuban Rural Society in the
Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas
(Princeton,
1990). Rebecca Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to
Free Labor, 1860-1899 (Princeton, 1985). Franklin Knight,
Slave
Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century (Madison, 1970). Esteban
Montejo, The Autobiography ofa Runaway Slave (New York, 1968). David
Murray, Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain and the Abolition of the Cuban
Slave Trade (Cambridge, 1980). Verena Mattnez-Alier, Marriage, Class
and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and
Sexual Values in a Slave Society. Miguel Barnet, Biography of a
Runaway Slave (Curbstone Press, 1994).
2. Culture & Race in Cuba
Pedro Pérez Sarduy and Jean Stubbs, eds.,
Afro-Cuba:
An Anthology of Cuban Writing on Race, Politics and Culture
(Melbourne,
1993). Robin D. Moore, Nationalizing Blackness: Afro- cubanismo and
Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920-1940 (Pittsburgh, 1997). Lorna
V. Williams, The representation of slavery in Cuban fiction (Columbia,
MI : University of Missouri Press, 1994). Vera M. Kutzinski,
Sugar's
secrets : race and the erotics of Cuban nationalism (Charlottesville,
VA : University Press of Virginia, 1993). Catherine Davies, A place
in the sun? : women writers in Twentieth-century Cuba (London
& New Jersey: Zed Books, 1997).
3. The Struggle for Independence and Cuban
Anti-Imperialism
Louis A. Pérez, Cuba Between Empires,
1878-1902 (Pittsburgh, 1983). Christopher Abel and Nissa Torrents,
José
Martí: Revolutionary Democrat. London: Athlone, 1986. Rosalie
Schwartz, Lawless Liberators: Political Banditry and Cuban Independence
(Durham:
Duke University Press, 1989). David F. Mealy,
The United States in Cuba:
1898-1902 (Madison, 1963).
4. The Origins and Triumphs of the Cuban Revolution
Louis A. Pérez, Cuba under the Platt
Amendment, 1902-1934 (Pittsburgh, 1986). Jules R. Benjamin, The
United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty
in an Age of National Liberation (Princeton, 1990). Ramón L.
Bonachea and MartaSan Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, 1952-1959
(New
Brunswick, 1972). Luis E. Aguilar, Cuba 1933: Prologue to Revolution(Ithaca,
1972). Samuel Farber, Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933-1960 (Middletown,
1976). Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New York, 1986). Jorge
Castañeda, Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara
(New
York, 1997). Phillip Brenner, et al, eds., The Cuba Reader: The Making
of a Revolutionary Society (New York, 1989).
5. The Impact and Development of the Revolution
Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait (New
York, 1986). Jorge Castañeda,Compañero: The Life and Death
of Che Guevara (New York, 1997). Susan Eckstein, Back from the Future
(Princeton,
1994). Jorge Domínguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge,
1978). Juan del Aguila, Cuba: Dilemmas of a Revolution (Boulder,
1984). Max Micri, Cuba: Politics, Economics and Society (London,
1988). Phillip Brenner, et al, eds., The Cuba Reader: The Making of
Revolutionary Society (New York, 1989). John M. Kirk, Between God
and the Party: Religion and Politics in Revolutionary Cuba (Gainesville,
1989).
6. The United States and Cuba
Louis A. Pérez, Cuba under the Platt
Amendment, 1902-1934 (Pittsburgh, 1986). Jules R. Benjamin, The
United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty
in an Age of National Liberation (Princeton, 1990). Jorge Domínguez
and Rafael Fernández, US-Cuban Relations in the 1990's (Boulder,
1989). Wayne S. Smith, The Closest of Enemies (New York,
1987). Louis A. Pérez, Ties of Singular Intimacy (Athens,
1990).
History 387: Topics in Global History: (3:3:0). Study of historical topics or periods of special interest in global, Latin American, African, Asian, or Middle Eastern history. Topics announced in advance. May be repeated for credit when topic is different. |
Government 490: Seminar: Cuba / US Relations (1-3:3:0). Prerequisite: Open to Public and International Affairs majors with 60 credits. May be repeated for credit. Course can be one, two, or three credits. Subject varies. Readings, individual or group projects, and discussions of seminar papers constitute the content and format. |
Spanish 323: Field Study in Hispanic Culture (1-3:6:0). Prerequisite: 60 credits or permission of instructor. Study tour to an area of the Spanish-speaking world. Students must attend a series of lectures before the tour and must consult with the designated faculty member on a research project on a topic in Hispanic culture resulting in a paper or report. |