SPAN 497-003 Cuba: A Hybrid Island

This interactive course examines Cuba’s long and complex history with Spain and Africa, and the ways in which a unique hybrid culture was produced through political, social, racial, and religious influences. We start with the indigenous population of the Caribbean before 1492, and its continued presence in Cuba. We explore Spanish colonialism and the slave trade, focusing on the African roots of its literature, music, and dance, with special attention to the blending of African beliefs with Catholic religious strands and hybridity as it relates to concepts of race, gender, and transculturation. We analyze how the aesthetics of poetry-making blended with political ideology and how the Spanish language is interlaced with linguistic strands from African dialects. Included are films on cultural memory and music-making in pre- and post-revolutionary Cuba.