Cuba Represent!

Fernandes Sujatha Fernandes

Description

In Cuba something curious has happened over the past fifteen years. The government has allowed vocal criticism of its policies to be expressed within the arts. Filmmakers, rappers, and visual and performance artists have addressed sensitive issues including bureaucracy, racial and gender discrimination, emigration, and alienation. How can this vibrant body of work be reconciled with the standard representations of a repressive, authoritarian cultural apparatus? In Cuba Represent! Sujatha Fernandes-a scholar and musician who has performed in Cuba-answers that question.Combining textual analyses of films, rap songs, and visual artworks; ethnographic material collected in Cuba; and insights into the nation's history and political economy, Fernandes details the new forms of engagement with official institutions that have opened up as a result of changing relationships between state and society in the post-Soviet period. She demonstrates that in a moment of extreme hardship and uncertainty, the Cuban state has moved to a more permeable model of power. Artists and other members of the public are collaborating with government actors to partially incorporate critical cultural expressions into official discourse. The Cuban leadership has come to recognize the benefits of supporting artists: rappers offer a link to increasingly frustrated black youth in Cuba; visual artists are an important source of international prestige and hard currency; and films help unify Cubans through community discourse about the nation. Cuba Represent! reveals that part of the socialist government's resilience stems from its ability to absorb oppositional ideas and values.

Sujets

• Cultural studies
• Cuba

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 25 octobre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822388227
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Cuba Represent!

CubaepRserent! Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures ! Sujatha Fernandes DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM AND LONDON 2006

nd printing,  ©  Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 

Designed by Heather Hensley

Typeset in Quadraat by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Permissions/Subventions: Earlier versions of Chapter  appeared as ‘‘Fear of a Black Nation’’ in theAnthropological Quarterly, no. (): – , and as ‘‘Island Paradise, Revolutionary Utopia or Hustler’s Haven’’ in theJournal of Latin American Cultural Studies (): –; Web site <www.tandf.co.uk>.

For my parents, Sylvie and Joe Fernandes

Contents

ix

xi

xv



















List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction:Artistic Public Spheres and the State

. Remaking Conceptual Worlds:Changing Ideologies in Socialist Cuba

. Old Utopias, New Realities:Film Publics, Critical Debates, and New Modes of Incorporation

. Fear of a Black Nation:Local Rappers, Transnational Crossings, and State Power

. Postwar Reconstructions:State Institutions, Public Art, and the New Market Conditions of Production

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

. DJ Flipper



. Anónimo Consejo



. Magia MC of Obsesión



. Adeyeme Umoja of Anónimo Consejo

. Papo Record



. Carlos Garaicoa,Homenaje a 



. Alexis Esquivel,La soga maravillosa





. Elio Rodríguez,The Temptation of the Joint Venture

. Elio Rodríguez,Tropical



. Alexis Esquivel,Acción afirmativa



. Carlos Garaicoa,Ahora juguemos a desaparecer(I)

. Carlos Garaicoa,Ahora juguemos a desaparecer(II)

. Carlos Garaicoa,Cuando el deseo se parece a nada

. Carlos Garaicoa,En las hierbas del verano(I)

. Carlos Garaicoa,En las hierbas del verano(II)

. Carlos Garaicoa,Cuatro cubanos(I)

. Carlos Garaicoa,Cuatro cubanos(II)















