Examines the full range of humanities and social science scholarship on people of African descent in Latin America.

Cuban studies is a highly dynamic field shaped by the country's distinctive political and economic circumstances. Mauricio A. Font and Carlos Riobo offer an up-to-date and comprehensive survey offering the latest research available from a broad array of disciplines and perspectives. The Handbook of Contemporary Cuba brings contributions from leading scholars from the United States, Cuba, Europe, and other world regions and introduces the reader to the key literature in the field in relation to rapidly changing events on the island and in global political and economic affairs. It also addresses timely developments in Cuban civil society and human rights. The guide also presents economic models and forecasts as well as analyses of the recent, pivotal Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. For students, scholars, and experts in government, it is a vital addition to any collection on Latin American studies or global politics.

AfroCuba focuses on the rich AfroCuban influence in the visual art of Cuba during the post-revolutionary period. It represents the first opportunity for U.S. audiences to appreciate nearly four decades of artistic production shaped by the influential forces of AfroCuban religion, social struggle, questions of cultural heritage, and personal and diplomatic relations with Africa. Representing the work of twenty-six artists residing in Havana and Santiago de Cuba, AfroCuba includes sixty prints and drawings masterfully executed in a variety of techniques, among them lithography, collagraph, woodcut, screen print, and ink and crayon drawing. The book includes essays by curator and art historian Judith Bettelheim, an expert on the African diaspora, with a foreword by Keith Morrison, an essay by Cuban artist and curator Alexis Esquivel, excerpts from David Mateo's Looking at Cuban Printmaking (Havana 2001), and a technical glossary by Sylvia Solochek Walters. Cuban artist and critic Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernandez) served as curatorial consultant.

Elizabeth B. Schwall aligns culture and politics by focusing on an art form that became a darling of the Cuban revolution: dance. In this history of staged performance in ballet, modern dance, and folkloric dance, Schwall analyzes how and why dance artists interacted with republican and, later, revolutionary politics. Drawing on written and visual archives, including intriguing exchanges between dancers and bureaucrats, Schwall argues that Cuban dancers used their bodies and ephemeral, nonverbal choreography to support and critique political regimes and cultural biases. As esteemed artists, Cuban dancers exercised considerable power and influence. They often used their art to posit more radical notions of social justice than political leaders were able or willing to implement. After 1959, while generally promoting revolutionary projects like mass education and internationalist solidarity, they also took risks by challenging racial prejudice, gender norms, and censorship, all of which could affect dancers personally. On a broader level, Schwall shows that dance, too often overlooked in histories of Latin America and the Caribbean, provides fresh perspectives on what it means for people, and nations, to move through the world.

The government has allowed vocal criticism of its policies to be expressed within the arts.

This book examines the first seven years of Omar Torrijos's military government, with particular attention to its efforts to build political institutions appropriate to the dynamics of class relations within Panama and the country's evolving dependency on the United States.

Latin Americans of African ancestry have historically been an oppressed and neglected minority. Almost all descended from slaves, and numbering perhaps 125 million people, they have generally been denied access to power, influence or material progress. While Afro-Latin Americans have frequently challenged their oppression, with some success, and have seen many aspects of their culture absorbed into mainstream Latin American life, persistent myths of 'colour-blind racial democracy' and blanqueamiento ('whitening') mask the insidious and often brutal reality of the discrimination they face. Written by scholars from many countries, No Longer Invisible charts the Afro-Latin American experience from slavery to contemporary times, showing the contrasts as well as the similarities across the region. Intended both for specialists and for interested general readers, the book makes an important contribution to the study of racism and anti-racism in Latin America today. The distinct but extraordinarily diverse ethnic and cultural identities of Afro-Latin Americans have received little official recognition. But today a growing movement is voicing pride in the Afro-Latin American heritage, asserting common identities and working to defend and advance collective rights. This fascinating book provides a major human-rights-focused survey that aims to reflect and be part of that process of rediscovery and renewal. Each chapter considers a particular country or subregion. The authors discuss the historical background, the legacy of resistance to oppression, how members of the minorities see themselves, their culture, the contemporary experience of discrimination, contrasting ethnic identities assumed by women and men, collective aspirations, the struggle for equality, and future prospects. The book also includes a wide-ranging general introduction, a final chapter that poses fundamental questions about comparative race relations in the Americas and beyond, a regional population map and black-and-white photographs. Please note that the terminology in the fields of minority rights and indigenous peoples’ rights has changed over time. MRG strives to reflect these changes as well as respect the right to self-identification on the part of minorities and indigenous peoples. At the same time, after over 50 years’ work, we know that our archive is of considerable interest to activists and researchers. Therefore, we make available as much of our back catalogue as possible, while being aware that the language used may not reflect current thinking on these issues.

Repeatedly and powerfully throughout Cuban history, the mulata, a woman of mixed racial identity, features prominently in Cuban visual and performative culture. Tracing the figure, Alison Fraunhar looks at the representation and performance in both elite and popular culture. She also tracks how characteristics associated with these women have accrued across the Atlantic world. Widely understood to embody the bridge between European subject and African other, the mulata contains the sensuality attributed to Africans in a body more closely resembling the European ideal of beauty. This symbol bears far-reaching implications, with shifting, contradictory cultural meanings in Cuba. Fraunhar explores these complex paradigms, how, why, and for whom the image was useful, and how it was both subverted and asserted from the colonial period to the present. From the early seventeenth century through Cuban independence in 1899 up to the late revolutionary era, Fraunhar illustrates the ambiguous figure's role in nationhood, citizenship, and commercialism. She analyzes images including key examples of nineteenth-century graphic arts, avant-garde painting and magazine covers of the Republican era, cabaret and film performance, and contemporary iterations of gender. Fraunhar's study stands out for attending to the phenomenon of mulataje not only in elite production such as painting, but also in popular forms: popular theater, print culture, later films, and other media where stereotypes take hold. Indeed, in contemporary Cuba, mulataje remains a popular theme with Cubans as well as foreigners in drag shows, reflecting queerness in visual culture.

Acts of suicide by enslaved people carried significant cultural, legal, and political implications in the emerging slave societies of British America and, later, the United States. This study features a wide range of evidence from ship logs and surgeon's journals, legal and legislative records, newspapers, periodicals, novels, and plays, abolitionist print and slave narratives in order to consider the intimate circumstances, cultural meanings, and political consequences of enslaved peoples' acts of self-destruction in the context of early American slavery.

From the forewords: "At a time when Cuba is undergoing immense economic and social changes, race becomes a kind of cultural litmus test for the national identity. . . . This anthology illustrates fully that it is possible to be both revolutionary and black in Cuba."—Manning Marable, Columbia University "The authors of Afro-Cuban Voices, also key actors in the new, unfolding dialogue about race in Cuba, make a seminal contribution through a forthright critique of ‘racial blind spots’ in official history and present-day racial discrimination."—James Early, director of cultural studies and communication, Smithsonian Institution From the series editor: "A courageous attempt to deal head-on with the issue of race in Cuba today. . . . Pérez Sarduy and Stubbs [seek to] put a human face on this debate, and do so well. The book will be received with relief by some and with frustration by others. Controversial it will undoubtedly be, since—as with most things Cuban—strong emotions are a given assumption. It will be an admirable beginning for the series and, it is hoped, will spark a much-needed debate in the United States on many aspects of the ‘Cuban question.’ It is about time."—John M. Kirk Based on the vivid firsthand testimony of prominent Afro-Cubans who live in Cuba, this book of interviews looks at ways that race affects daily life on the island. While celebrating their racial and national identity, the collected voices express an urgent need to end the silences and distortions of history in both pre- and postrevolutionary Cuba. The 14 people interviewed—of different generations and from different geographic areas of Cuba—come from the arts, the media, industry, academia, and medicine. They include a doctor who calls for joint U.S.-Cuban studies on high blood pressure and a craftsman who makes the batá drums used in Yoruba worship ceremonies. All responded to four controversial questions: What is it like to be black in Cuba? How has the revolution made a difference? To what extent is that difference true today? What can be done? Exposing the contradictions of both racial stereotyping and cultural assimilation, their eloquent answers make the case that the issue of race in Cuba, no matter how hard to define, will not be ignored. A volume in the series Contemporary Cuba, edited by John M. Kirk