ARTICLES by Stephen A Cruikshank
This article presents the metaphor of the character Caliban seen in Shakespeare's The Tempest tha... more This article presents the metaphor of the character Caliban seen in Shakespeare's The Tempest that has been used as a manner to compare colonial subjectivities in postcolonial contexts throughout the Caribbean. Analyzing the sociological and economical impact of tourism on Cuba, this paper explores how tourism has given rise to a new subjected "Caliban" in Cuba through the promotion of social and economic disparities. The disparities inherent between the tourist and the Cuban in the country are seen all throughout the island: the disparity arrives from outside of the island, affects the operations within the island, and even influences the operations "below" the island through the development of the Cuban black-market. Caliban, as this paper proposes, is subjected in "every inch" of the island, yet no longer by colonialists that arrive by ship, but by tourists arriving by plane.
The following article uses a mixture of poetry and text to trace the cigar through various stages... more The following article uses a mixture of poetry and text to trace the cigar through various stages of Cuban history and highlights how the cigar has been translated and as a symbol useful to the construction of Cuban nationalism. In what ways does the cultural representation of the cigar throughout Cuban history create a performance of cultural values, identities, and heritage? As this paper reveals, such a question require us to translate the cigar smoke, to breathe in Cuban history, and to exhale the performance of metaphors.
The Brazilian favela is an urban hospice for bandits, villains of state power, that has drawn pub... more The Brazilian favela is an urban hospice for bandits, villains of state power, that has drawn public attention through the narratives of twenty-first century Brazilian film. Paulo Morelli's film adaptation of the Brazilian television series Cidade dos homens (City of Men) released in 2007 exemplifies the common structures of urban violence and political villainy associated with narratives of Brazilian favelas, the urban shantytowns filled with marginalized and pauperized 'scum' of the metropolis. This paper analyzes the film Cidade dos homens and its portrayal of the Rio de Janeiro favelas in accordance with the biopolitical philosophies of Gregorio Agamben and the post-Marxists Stephen Hardt and Antonio Negri. The favelados (the residents of favelas) are interpreted as marginalized citizens subjugated not only to political exploitation and socioeconomic exclusion, but to the biopower of state authority, which consequently has given way to a history of urban banditry. The protagonists of the film, two best friends "Ace" and Laranjinha, in order to better their life, rely on what this article details as a biopolitical resistance that can uproot them, once and for all, from the hegemonic cycle of violence and poverty that they are subjected to in the favela.
Ernesto Che Guevara— the man gets around, even nearly fifty years since his death. He is everywhe... more Ernesto Che Guevara— the man gets around, even nearly fifty years since his death. He is everywhere, a living mnemonic ghost of revolution that has mapped its way through time, culture, and space. "50 Shades of Che" (2015)—a mosaic of fifty images of Che Guevara that was presented in the Stirred Pop-Up Exhibit, University of Alberta, September 30, 2015—evokes how the memory of Che has been translated into numerous visual representations in popular culture.
The road movie of the Latin American border-films differs from the traditional Hollywood versions... more The road movie of the Latin American border-films differs from the traditional Hollywood versions. In Patricia Riggen's La Misma Luna (2007) and Cary Joji Fukunaga's Sin Nombre (2009) the road is not depicted as a place of escape that represents the freedom of the road, but rather as a means of escape towards the 'idea' of freedom that lies across the border. In each of these films, the United States border becomes the ideological line between an exiled past filled with economic and political oppression and the vision of a future filled with economic stability and political equality— all in all, an 'American dream' that can never be fully realized across the border when such a loss has been manifested on the southern side. The following article reveals how the identities of these migrants caught between the acts of subterfuge and the desires of refuge, creates an ambiguous formation of cultural identity different from that established in their homeland. The road, in this way, creates new hybrid identities that imitates well the modern Latin American condition of cultural mobility between borders.
The twentieth-century Cuban poet Virgilio Piñera was both a radical and rebellious writer who wro... more The twentieth-century Cuban poet Virgilio Piñera was both a radical and rebellious writer who wrote against the national discourses of his time. In his acclaimed poem La isla en peso Piñera challenges the Neobaroque discourse of Cuban identity by describing Cuba as 'insular' rather than innovative. The following article argues that La isla en peso, like a prophetic letter, seems to have foreseen seventy years earlier what the modern literary critic Abraham Acosta has recently described as a "threshold of illiteracy," that is, a disruption or illiterate interference of one's critical reading by exposing the contradictions of cultural nationalism. According to Acosta when the questions of cultural identity and difference are indistinguishable, an illiteracy emerges preventing one to read or discern into the ideological assertions of cultural and national identities. Piñera, as this article contends, provides through his poetry an early example of illiteracy by exposing the cultural discrepancy of national identity.
Discussions of the Neobaroque began to find an important position in Latin American circles durin... more Discussions of the Neobaroque began to find an important position in Latin American circles during the twentieth century. The goal of these discussions was a reassessment of an American identity by using the Baroque as a historical catalyst for cultural transformation. One of the prominent figures during this period who connected the Baroque with questions revolving around Latin American identity was the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier. The following article examines Carpentier's theories on the New World Baroque taken from various essays published in La novela lationamericana en visperas de un nuevo siglo (1981). Through these essays, Carpentier's perspective of the Baroque is relayed into cultural themes of Latin America such as the importance of American solidarity, historical constancy, cultural innovation/progression, the natural environment, and urbanism. Analyzing the connection of such themes with the arrival of the New World Baroque sheds light on the crucial theoretical developments of Latin American identity during the twentieth century.
When thinking of the Baroque, the figures of gold-filled and elegant seventeenth-century churches... more When thinking of the Baroque, the figures of gold-filled and elegant seventeenth-century churches in Europe and Latin America are more likely to come to one's mind rather than a Caribbean island more renowned for sugar, Cohibas, and Fidel Castro. Nonetheless, in the twentieth century the Baroque was a particularly important tool for conceptualizing Cuban culture. We know that out of Cuba came a contingent of twentieth-century writings circulating the theme of the Baroque, however the question of why the Baroque migrated into Cuban contexts can seem rather obscure. This article explores this issue and analyzes the impact that the city of Havana has had on the cultural and architectural advances of the Neobaroque.
PUBLISHED CONFERENCE ARTICLES by Stephen A Cruikshank
As the tourism industry in Cuba boomed in the early twentieth century so did the imagination of w... more As the tourism industry in Cuba boomed in the early twentieth century so did the imagination of what Cuba had to offer. Images of paradise, tropical landscapes, beautiful dark-skinned women, humid cigars, and cheap alcohol flooded the minds of foreigners eager to escape on vacation and witness the place Christopher Columbus had once claimed as "the most beautiful land the human eyes have seen." At the same time however the internal eyes of Cubans were gazing far deeper into the meaning of what it meant to be Cuban. While tourism promoted a gaze from outside of Cuba, nationalism overtook the gaze within. Consequently, Cuban painting became an important medium of the national gaze, a visual representation of the ideological, cultural, political, social, and economic changes occurring inside the country. In particular, the work of arte nuevo seems to counteract this tourist gaze, shifting the image of Cuba as a simple hedonistic escape to a progressive transcultural and revolutionary nation. The following article, in this respect, aims to analyze various images of arte nuevo and reveal how these artists used images of Cuban landscape and Cuban people in a way that transcends the foreign gaze while promoting a cultural identity.
There has for a long time existed a stereotype in the Caribbean that has marked woman of colour a... more There has for a long time existed a stereotype in the Caribbean that has marked woman of colour as the exotic "other". The mulata, in particular, inherently carries the weight of prejudices that have labelled her as an alluring advertisement of sensuality, exoticism, and glamorous romanticism throughout the Caribbean. Her ebony skin colour and concluded predisposed eroticism is evidenced throughout history in tourist advertisements and various forms of marketing campaigns stemming from out of the Caribbean. This has left her labelled by the impressions of tourists and outsiders who are attracted to the ideas of her beauty like a sailor to the siren. The mulata exemplifies an alluring notion of the Caribbean as something "different," a female Caliban that is left to battle the colonization of prejudice and preconceptions arriving from abroad. This presentation aims to shed recognition on these stereotypes placed upon afro-latinas and analyze the modern consequences of the mulata complex in Latin American culture. It addresses the influence that the mulata complex has had on tourism, interracial relationships, gender equality, and racial identity throughout the Latin-American Caribbean.
POETRY by Stephen A Cruikshank
For those familiar with the sight of Cuban streets, particularly that of Havana, the photos repre... more For those familiar with the sight of Cuban streets, particularly that of Havana, the photos represented in this series of short poems will not be of surprise seeming as different forms of graffiti seen in words, phrases from famous revolutionaries, or quotations from Cuban patriarchs are a common sight and form of political and ideological expression in Cuban culture. Graffiti in this sense sparks not a feeling of societal rebellion in Cuba, but rather takes a very different place in urban Cuban culture promoting often revolutionary ideologies of the past through historical figures and words plastered along concrete walls and structures. Concrete walls, often the urban back drop of such graffiti, takes the form of a common motif throughout these five poems. Concrete represents a structure of durability and consistency that appeals to the message of graffiti throughout the island. Within such a metaphorical statement erupts a scandal of image versus reality in Cuban society, a society which arguably sees revolutionary ideology at work on walls perhaps at times more than within Cuba's growing modern culture that eagerly seeks ways to break through the old concrete ridden streets. That is to say, one is left to question whether the image on the concrete is as "concrete" as it appears.
One of the strongest memories I have of a past summer spent in Rio was the impression of the Cris... more One of the strongest memories I have of a past summer spent in Rio was the impression of the Cristo o redentor statue, a thirty-metre-tall Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ made out of 635 metric tons of soapstone. The arms themselves stretch twenty-eight metres horizontally across the top of the Rio mountains. If I close my eyes I can hear the sounds of the squeaky trolley rolling up the mountain where the statue rests. I can smell the humid air of the tropical Brazilian jungle and envision the span of coastline beaches colonized by my sight at the top— it's a sight to see. It's also a symbol to see, one of those symbols that has both wrecked havoc and brought peace upon philosophies and nations alike.Inasmuch as the statue rests as a symbol of Brazilian culture, it rests as a global symbol of Christianity that has covered time, space, and cultures for centuries. For me I can not help but see those horizontal arms like a crossroad of time and space, a statue of statutes that has marked my life as it has that nation. Being that my memory of Brazil is transfixed on that iconic statue, I cannot help but observe with it the connection—crossroads per se—between iconicism and memory, between symbols and nostalgia, between the translation of language and culture, and the ekphrasis of poetry and image.
What is the space of words and language? The following work of seven poems reveals how language—j... more What is the space of words and language? The following work of seven poems reveals how language—jumping between Spanish and English—can both take up space on a page and create spaces in the imagination. Sounds, rhythms, shapes, and poetic device shape the following pages in a way that causes the reader to look to the spaces beyond the words themselves.
PHOTOGRAPHY by Stephen A Cruikshank
The Following image won an honorable mention award as part of the Images of Research Collection C... more The Following image won an honorable mention award as part of the Images of Research Collection Competition at the University of Alberta in 2016. The image is published in the University of Alberta's Education and Research Archive.
The following image reveals the contradictions of Cuban society: the incredible architectural aesthetics, for example seen in the figure of the Havana Capital (el Capitolio) here and the deterioration and impoverishment of the capital city depicted in the dark garbage ridden streets. Light and darkness; aestheticism and degradation; ramshackle buildings and radiant people— these are the dialectics of modern day Cuba.
Such contradictions are also at play in the socio-economic conditions of Cuba. On one end exists a flourishing black market filled with the capitalist entrepreneurship of prostitution and illegal business while on the other exists a socialist system advocating for a past revolution's victory. My PhD research analyzes how the expressions of the black market—including the rise of sex-tourism—has been recently expressed in Cuban arts. Ever since this last trip in 2013, I have seen this photo as a great metaphor for my work on Cuban culture. It is a summary of the Cuban condition caught between the shadowy black markets of the streets and the luminescent optimism of the socialist government, between prostitutes and tourists, trashy streets and vibrant beaches, and the debris piled upon the ground and the baroque that reaches to the skies.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS by Stephen A Cruikshank
Resulting from the recent attention in 2016 provided by Dylan's Nobel victory, Cohen's death, and... more Resulting from the recent attention in 2016 provided by Dylan's Nobel victory, Cohen's death, and Downie's final tour and tragic diagnosis, a reflection on the work of singer-songwriters has hit Canada with force. Recent attention of Canadian listeners and readers have been drawn to the cross-over between music and literature, between what is sung and what is written, and what is heard and what is read. This presentation, presented at Congress 2017 at Ryerson University with the CCLA, analyses this transition between music and literature from a critical perspective. Two questions are confronted: How has this transition been represented? Secondly, what impact does the transition between music and poetry have on Canadian culture? Drawing from the Canadian context, I pull from three important artists including Cohen, Downie, and the iconic Joni Mitchell who, although in different ways, all exemplify to some extent a transition between music and poetry.
Conferencia Magistral, CECAN Universidad de Oriente, Cuba April 10-12, 2017
En este año el mundo... more Conferencia Magistral, CECAN Universidad de Oriente, Cuba April 10-12, 2017
En este año el mundo ha sido testigo a la muerte del comandante Fidel Castro, a la presidencia de Trump, y al crisis global de refugiados desde el Oriente Medio. Sin duda, "los tiempos están cambiando". En Cuba el bloqueo se ha reducido dramáticamente, en Canadá la crisis de los refugiados ha reafirmado el frente nacional sobre la inclusividad global, y en los Estados Unidos somos testigos a las amenazas de los muros mexicanos y a las prohibiciones de viajar. Es decir que nos encontramos en una era de fronteras, algunas de las cuales están siendo desmanteladas y otras que están siendo construidas. Esta presentación tiene el objetivo de discutir el tema de fronteras según los teorias culturales de transculturación y transnacionalismo entre Cuba y Canadá.
El término 'transnacionalismo' interrumpe el concepto del nacionalismo cultural. El prefijo del t... more El término 'transnacionalismo' interrumpe el concepto del nacionalismo cultural. El prefijo del término 'trans-' salta sobre las cercas culturales y brinca sobre las fronteras nacionales. Por lo tanto, para identificarse de acuerdo a una nación singular o una cultura individual llega a ser un gran reto debido a la difusión de otras culturas y nacionalidades a través de las fronteras, las zonas, y los territorios no restringidos por los vastos lazos económicos y tecnológicos que participan en los esfuerzos de la globalización. Si en el siglo XX la poesía cubana, distinguida por los poetas vanguardistas y neobarrocos, tuviera el objetivo de alinear la literatura con la formación de las identidades nacionales, entonces la tarea del crítico literario hoy sería reorganizar las ideologías nacionalistas y cuestiones de la identidad cultural de acuerdo a las influencias modernas del transnacionalismo y la globalización. Un refinamiento se necesita que tiene en cuenta la inverosimilitud de promover un nacionalismo bajo las condiciones globalizadas y transnacionalistas.
The following presentation was given at the Afro-Cuban a Renaissance Conference at the University... more The following presentation was given at the Afro-Cuban a Renaissance Conference at the University of Columbia, Missouri in 2016.
Bilongo is an ancient word hailing from the Congo that refers to an assortment of fetish materials or medicinal combinations that were inserted into wood figures known as Nkisi Nkonda that were carved by Teke artists whose work originated sometime in the 15th century. The bilongo would be placed within the stomach or head cavities of the wooden figure who was thought to embody spiritual power. The bilongo would then be thought to activate this power into the physical world. The African meaning of bilongo has been passed down into traditions of Cuban Santaría where it now takes on a more general notion of bewitchment, a hex, or magical enchantment. To be under bilongo is to be under someone's spell. In his work The Havana Habit (2010), the author Gustavo Pérez Firmat gives bilongo a cultural connotation that refers to the magical atmosphere of a place or culture that 'bewitchingly' draws people to it. Along these lines, bilongo represents a cultural imaginary that is defined by its foreign appeal. Drawing on Pérez Firmat's notion of bilongo, this article evaluates how the Afro-Cuban woman (la afrocubana) has historically been identified according to prejudicial labels of exoticism and sexual appeal— an exotic bilongo that has been used to draw tourists to the island in search for an erotic and tropical experience. Racial and sexualized stereotypes can in this way be interpreted as the afrocubana's bilongo that problematizes the relationship between Afro-Cuban culture and the industry of tourism in Cuba. As such the darker skinned women in Cuba such as la negra or la mulata are often victims of greater prejudice that labels them as overly-sexual or erotic in nature. Such prejudice has boiled over into issues of jineterismo (illegal activities such as hustling and prostitution) that uses the body of the afrocubana as a corporeal advertisement for sex-tourism. Bilongo, once a literal insertion of African spirituality into a fetishized wooden body, has therefore shifted into a foreign assertion of exoticism labeled upon the afrocubana's now fetishized physical body. The following article details this transition of bilongo and the cultural consequences in Cuban society imposed by its assertion onto the afrocubana.
The following presentation discusses the transnational shift in Hispanic-Canadian "literatures" a... more The following presentation discusses the transnational shift in Hispanic-Canadian "literatures" as supported by the recent emergence of Hispanic writings in Canada that reveals that Hispanic-Canada is a zone of cultural cross-talk that is not only being heard, but is being responded to in the conversation of Canadian writings.
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ARTICLES by Stephen A Cruikshank
PUBLISHED CONFERENCE ARTICLES by Stephen A Cruikshank
POETRY by Stephen A Cruikshank
PHOTOGRAPHY by Stephen A Cruikshank
The following image reveals the contradictions of Cuban society: the incredible architectural aesthetics, for example seen in the figure of the Havana Capital (el Capitolio) here and the deterioration and impoverishment of the capital city depicted in the dark garbage ridden streets. Light and darkness; aestheticism and degradation; ramshackle buildings and radiant people— these are the dialectics of modern day Cuba.
Such contradictions are also at play in the socio-economic conditions of Cuba. On one end exists a flourishing black market filled with the capitalist entrepreneurship of prostitution and illegal business while on the other exists a socialist system advocating for a past revolution's victory. My PhD research analyzes how the expressions of the black market—including the rise of sex-tourism—has been recently expressed in Cuban arts. Ever since this last trip in 2013, I have seen this photo as a great metaphor for my work on Cuban culture. It is a summary of the Cuban condition caught between the shadowy black markets of the streets and the luminescent optimism of the socialist government, between prostitutes and tourists, trashy streets and vibrant beaches, and the debris piled upon the ground and the baroque that reaches to the skies.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS by Stephen A Cruikshank
En este año el mundo ha sido testigo a la muerte del comandante Fidel Castro, a la presidencia de Trump, y al crisis global de refugiados desde el Oriente Medio. Sin duda, "los tiempos están cambiando". En Cuba el bloqueo se ha reducido dramáticamente, en Canadá la crisis de los refugiados ha reafirmado el frente nacional sobre la inclusividad global, y en los Estados Unidos somos testigos a las amenazas de los muros mexicanos y a las prohibiciones de viajar. Es decir que nos encontramos en una era de fronteras, algunas de las cuales están siendo desmanteladas y otras que están siendo construidas. Esta presentación tiene el objetivo de discutir el tema de fronteras según los teorias culturales de transculturación y transnacionalismo entre Cuba y Canadá.
Bilongo is an ancient word hailing from the Congo that refers to an assortment of fetish materials or medicinal combinations that were inserted into wood figures known as Nkisi Nkonda that were carved by Teke artists whose work originated sometime in the 15th century. The bilongo would be placed within the stomach or head cavities of the wooden figure who was thought to embody spiritual power. The bilongo would then be thought to activate this power into the physical world. The African meaning of bilongo has been passed down into traditions of Cuban Santaría where it now takes on a more general notion of bewitchment, a hex, or magical enchantment. To be under bilongo is to be under someone's spell. In his work The Havana Habit (2010), the author Gustavo Pérez Firmat gives bilongo a cultural connotation that refers to the magical atmosphere of a place or culture that 'bewitchingly' draws people to it. Along these lines, bilongo represents a cultural imaginary that is defined by its foreign appeal. Drawing on Pérez Firmat's notion of bilongo, this article evaluates how the Afro-Cuban woman (la afrocubana) has historically been identified according to prejudicial labels of exoticism and sexual appeal— an exotic bilongo that has been used to draw tourists to the island in search for an erotic and tropical experience. Racial and sexualized stereotypes can in this way be interpreted as the afrocubana's bilongo that problematizes the relationship between Afro-Cuban culture and the industry of tourism in Cuba. As such the darker skinned women in Cuba such as la negra or la mulata are often victims of greater prejudice that labels them as overly-sexual or erotic in nature. Such prejudice has boiled over into issues of jineterismo (illegal activities such as hustling and prostitution) that uses the body of the afrocubana as a corporeal advertisement for sex-tourism. Bilongo, once a literal insertion of African spirituality into a fetishized wooden body, has therefore shifted into a foreign assertion of exoticism labeled upon the afrocubana's now fetishized physical body. The following article details this transition of bilongo and the cultural consequences in Cuban society imposed by its assertion onto the afrocubana.
The following image reveals the contradictions of Cuban society: the incredible architectural aesthetics, for example seen in the figure of the Havana Capital (el Capitolio) here and the deterioration and impoverishment of the capital city depicted in the dark garbage ridden streets. Light and darkness; aestheticism and degradation; ramshackle buildings and radiant people— these are the dialectics of modern day Cuba.
Such contradictions are also at play in the socio-economic conditions of Cuba. On one end exists a flourishing black market filled with the capitalist entrepreneurship of prostitution and illegal business while on the other exists a socialist system advocating for a past revolution's victory. My PhD research analyzes how the expressions of the black market—including the rise of sex-tourism—has been recently expressed in Cuban arts. Ever since this last trip in 2013, I have seen this photo as a great metaphor for my work on Cuban culture. It is a summary of the Cuban condition caught between the shadowy black markets of the streets and the luminescent optimism of the socialist government, between prostitutes and tourists, trashy streets and vibrant beaches, and the debris piled upon the ground and the baroque that reaches to the skies.
En este año el mundo ha sido testigo a la muerte del comandante Fidel Castro, a la presidencia de Trump, y al crisis global de refugiados desde el Oriente Medio. Sin duda, "los tiempos están cambiando". En Cuba el bloqueo se ha reducido dramáticamente, en Canadá la crisis de los refugiados ha reafirmado el frente nacional sobre la inclusividad global, y en los Estados Unidos somos testigos a las amenazas de los muros mexicanos y a las prohibiciones de viajar. Es decir que nos encontramos en una era de fronteras, algunas de las cuales están siendo desmanteladas y otras que están siendo construidas. Esta presentación tiene el objetivo de discutir el tema de fronteras según los teorias culturales de transculturación y transnacionalismo entre Cuba y Canadá.
Bilongo is an ancient word hailing from the Congo that refers to an assortment of fetish materials or medicinal combinations that were inserted into wood figures known as Nkisi Nkonda that were carved by Teke artists whose work originated sometime in the 15th century. The bilongo would be placed within the stomach or head cavities of the wooden figure who was thought to embody spiritual power. The bilongo would then be thought to activate this power into the physical world. The African meaning of bilongo has been passed down into traditions of Cuban Santaría where it now takes on a more general notion of bewitchment, a hex, or magical enchantment. To be under bilongo is to be under someone's spell. In his work The Havana Habit (2010), the author Gustavo Pérez Firmat gives bilongo a cultural connotation that refers to the magical atmosphere of a place or culture that 'bewitchingly' draws people to it. Along these lines, bilongo represents a cultural imaginary that is defined by its foreign appeal. Drawing on Pérez Firmat's notion of bilongo, this article evaluates how the Afro-Cuban woman (la afrocubana) has historically been identified according to prejudicial labels of exoticism and sexual appeal— an exotic bilongo that has been used to draw tourists to the island in search for an erotic and tropical experience. Racial and sexualized stereotypes can in this way be interpreted as the afrocubana's bilongo that problematizes the relationship between Afro-Cuban culture and the industry of tourism in Cuba. As such the darker skinned women in Cuba such as la negra or la mulata are often victims of greater prejudice that labels them as overly-sexual or erotic in nature. Such prejudice has boiled over into issues of jineterismo (illegal activities such as hustling and prostitution) that uses the body of the afrocubana as a corporeal advertisement for sex-tourism. Bilongo, once a literal insertion of African spirituality into a fetishized wooden body, has therefore shifted into a foreign assertion of exoticism labeled upon the afrocubana's now fetishized physical body. The following article details this transition of bilongo and the cultural consequences in Cuban society imposed by its assertion onto the afrocubana.