Cuba Today:
Continuity and Change since the 'Periodo
Especial'
Monday, October 4
8:15-9:00 Registration/Breakfast
Elebash Recital Hall (First Floor)
9:00-10:45 Opening Plenary Session
Changing Perceptions, Emergent Perspectives
Moderator: Mauricio Font, Bildner Center & The Graduate Center
- Critical Perspectives on Civil Society in Cuba
Sujatha Fernandes, Princeton University
- Religion and Civil Society in Cuba
Margaret E. Crahan, Hunter College and The Graduate Center
- Everyday Socialism and Consumer Capitalism during the Special
Period
Katherine Gordy, Cornell University
- Thinking Cuba Clearly: Policy Implications
Arturo López-Levy, University of Denver
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
Skylight Conference Room
11:00-12:45 Concurrent Sessions
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 1 Transforming the Economy: Agriculture and Energy
Moderator: TBA
- A Decade of Economic Reform and Change in Cuba’s Agricultural
Sector
William Messina, University of Florida
- Food Security in Cuba since the Special Period
James E. Ross, University of Florida
- The Lawmaking Process in Cuba: The Anatomy of the Bill on Agricultural
Cooperatives
Peter Roman, Hostos Community College and The Graduate Center
- The Future of Cuba's Energy Sector: Challenges and Opportunities
A.F. Alhajji, Ohio Northern University
Terry L. Maris, Ohio Northern University
Panel 2 Writers and the Período Especial: Echoes, Mirrors,
and Waves
Moderator: Araceli Tinajero, City College
- The Importance of Soviet Traces in the Transition
Jacqueline Loss, University of Connecticut
- Writing in the Special Period
Myrna García-Calderón, Cornell University
- Hegemony of Form: Change and Continuity in the Cuban Social
Discourse
Alfonso-Garcia Osuna, Kingsborough Community College
- Literary Production in the Special Period
Patricia D. Catoira, Montana State University-Bozeman
12:45-1:45 Lunch Break
Dining Commons
1:45-3:30 Concurrent Sessions
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 3: Transforming the Economy: New Actors and Dilemmas
Moderator: Carlos Seiglie, Rutgers University and Columbia University
- Los problemas del desarrollo y la inserción internacional
de Cuba
Mauricio de Miranda Parrondo, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali,
Colombia
- Evolution or Revolution? Cuba’s Banking and Financial
Sector Reforms after the Special Period
Mario González-Corzo, Lehman College
- To Live Outside the Law You Must be Honest: Daily Illegality
and Its Effects
Dick Cluster, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- The Informal Economy of Havana
Samuel Taylor, Yale University
Panel 4 Gender and Sexuality since the 1990s
Moderator: Arnaldo Cruz-Malave, Fordham University
- Party and State in Cuba: A Gender Perspective
Ilja A. Luciak, Virginia Tech
- Love and Sex Tourism in Havana: An Ethnographic Perspective
Gisela Fosado, University of Michigan
- The Women of CUJAE: Breaking the Glass Ceiling in Engineering
Cindy O’Hara*
Gilda Vega Cruz*
- Continuity and Change in Women’s Short Fiction Production
since the ‘Período Especial’
Barbara Riess, Allegheny College
- Sex in the Narrative of the 1990s
Eduardo Béjar, Middlebury College
3:30-3:45 Coffee Break
Skylight Conference Room
3:45-5:30 Concurrent Sessions
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 5 New Migration, Changing Diaspora
Moderator: Robert Smith, Baruch College
- On Deconstructing Immigrant Generations: Cohorts and the
Cuban Émigré Experience
Susan Eckstein, Boston University
- Leaving Cuba: Balseros, Boteros and el Bombo
Ted Henken, Baruch College
- God Has No Borders: Transnational Religious Ties Between
Cubans in Miami and on the Island
Katrin Hansing, University of Bayreuth, Germany
- Occupying Havana: Property, Race and Cuban Diasporic Literature
Antonio López, Rutgers University
Panel 6 Engaging Perplexity: Films and the Performing Arts
Moderator: Jerry Carlson, The City College and The Graduate Center
- Between Sueño and Esperanza in Post-Soviet Cuba:
“Suite Habana” and “Un Enano en La Botella”
Elliot Young, Lewis and Clark College
- Chago de Guisa and the Performance of a Syncretic Identity
of Tolerance and Resistance in Cuba’s ‘Special Period’
Elizabeth Ruf, Columbia University
- The Nueva Trova Cubana: Empty Rhetoric or Critical Voice?
Lauren Shaw, The Graduate Center
- Cuban Choteo Revisited: The Role of Humor in Recent Works
of Literature and Film
Iraida H. Lopez, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Tuesday, October 5
8:30-9:00 Registration/Breakfast
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
9:00-10:45 Concurrent Sessions
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 7 Environment: From Concern to Active Environmentalism
Moderator: Avecita Chicchón, Wildlife Conservation Society
- Environmental Planning and Heritage Tourism in Cuba
Joseph Scarpaci, Virginia Tech
- Cuban Environmental Conservation since the Special Period:
Marine Protected Areas as a Window on Changing Social, Ecological
and Economic Relationships
Alison G. Cliath, Washington State University
Wendy Weisman, Rutgers University
- Sustainable Sovereignty: Political Aspects of Australian
Environmental Collaboration with Cuba
Adrian H. Hearn, La Trobe University, Australia
- Who Owns Paradise? A History of Cuba’s Environment
and Environmentalists
Alexander Nixon, Stanford University*
Panel 8 Resurgent Ethnic Identities
Moderator: Ruth Behar, University of Michigan
- ‘Renace el sueño:’ Remaking Havana’s
Barrio Chino
Kathleen López, University of Michigan
- Special Identities in the Special Period: The Case of West
Indian Cubans
Andrea Queeley, The Graduate Center
- Boricuas in the Caribbean
Pedro Pedraza, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College
- Chinese-Cubans in Cuban History: From Near Slavery to the
‘Período Especial’
Terri R. Dabney, New School University
10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
Skylight Conference Room
11:00-12:45 Concurrent Sessions
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 9 Religious Revival?
Moderator: Margaret Crahan, The Graduate Center and Hunter College
- Old Tensions, New Hopes: Religion in Contemporary Cuba
Yolanda Prieto, Ramapo College
- Reflections of Religion and the Contemporary Cuban Black
Public Sphere: Afro Cuban Community in a Contemporary Habanero Ifa
House Temple
Ariel Fernandez, Rutgers University
- Change in Cuban Social Work Education: Government Response
to Emerging Societal Problems
David Strug, Yeshiva University
- Proyecto DIASPORA(S): Raising Questions about the Coupling
of Nation and National Art in Post-Soviet Cuba
Todd Ramón Ochoa, Columbia University
Panel 10 Havana: Renegotiating Space and Identity
Moderator: Jill Hamberg, Empire State College-SUNY
- Private Plots, State Power and the Modeling of Havana's
Urban Gardens
Adriana Premat, York University, Toronto and NYU
- Centro Habana: Ruins and the Fiction Industry
Esther Whitfield, Brown University
- Negotiating Changing Identities through the Urban Space
of Havana
Cecilia Lawless, Cornell University
- Homosexuals and Public Space in Havana
Scott Larson, Hunter College
1:00-2:00 Lunch Break
Dining Commons
2:00-3:45 Concurrent Sessions
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 11 Cuba in a Changing World
Moderator: Sujatha Fernandes, Princeton University
Washington’s Cuba Wars: An Update
Daniel P. Erikson, Inter-American Dialogue
Gorbachev's Legacy for Russian/Cuban Relations Post 1991
Mervyn J. Bain, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
Cuba-Mexico Relations: From Salinas to Fox: Real and Perceived Effects
of Changing the Benchmark of Legitimacy
Patricia Olney, Southern Connecticut State University
Continuity and Change in Argentine-Cuban Relations
Kezia McKeague, Wake Forest University
Panel 12 Cuba in the Information Age
Moderator: Alfonso Quiroz, Baruch College and The Graduate Center
- Facing the Internet Dilemma. The Political Challenges of
the New Information and Communication Technologies
Bert Hoffman, Institute of Iberoamerican Studies, Germany
- History of the Cuban National Library: Shaping Culture and
Politics
Carlos Riobó, Barnard College
- Foreign Direct Investment in Costa Rica’s High Technology
Sectors: A Potential Avenue for Cuba?
Omar E. Perez Villanueva, Centro de Estudios de la Economia*
Paolo Spadoni, University of Florida
4:00-5:30 Session
Ninth Floor Conference Rooms
Panel 13 Closing Panel: Where is Cuba Heading?
Moderator: Mauricio Font, Bildner Center & The Graduate Center
- The Ruth Room and Other Tales From the New Cuba
Ruth Behar, University of Michigan
- TBA
Susan Kaufman Purcell, The Americas Society/Council of the Americas
- TBA
Luly Duke, Fundacion Amistad
- The Cuban Transition and Its Politics
Samuel Farber, The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College
*To be confirmed
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