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News
| Jan (5) | Feb (3) | Mar (5) | Apr (1) | May (4) | Jun (3) | Jul (5) | Aug (4) | Sep (4) | Oct (2) | Nov (4) | Dec (1) |
January
Call for Applications | 2023 Díaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants
The Cuban Research Institute, the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, and the FIU Libraries are pleased to request applications from scholars and graduate students for the early summer of 2023. The Díaz-Ayala Library Travel Grants provide the opportunity to conduct research in the special collections and archives related to Cuba and Cuban Americans at the FIU Libraries.
The Social Impact of the Economic Crisis in Cuba
Based on official Cuban statistics, Dr. Carmelo Mesa-Lago evaluates the impact of the crisis on the main social indicators in 2020–2021, including employment, wages, pensions, social security, food shortages and prices, health, housing, poverty, and social assistance. Most of these indicators have deteriorated and, according to the author, will probably continue to deteriorate unless an urgent structural reform is undertaken in Cuba.
Cuba's Current Economic Crisis
In his latest analysis, Dr. Carmelo Mesa-Lago argues that Cuba is undergoing a "second Special Period"—in reference to the extended economic decline on the island after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The noted economist concludes that the economic measures taken by the Díaz-Canel government are insufficient to get Cuba out of the severe economic crisis it suffers and promote sustainable economic development in the future. Read the paper here.
CRI in the News | US Resumes Full Immigrant Visa Service in Havana
Jorge Duany, a Cuba specialist at Florida International University, pointed out that recent talks between Cuba and the US were "limited to migration issues" and did not indicate a general warming of ties. By resuming visa services, "Mr Biden is trying to recalibrate his policy towards Cuba, seeking a middle way between Trump’s 'maximum pressure' and Obama's 'rapprochement,'" said Duany. "But for the time being the changes in American policy towards the island have been minimal," he added.
CRI in the News | Cuban Exodus to U.S. the Largest in History amid Economic Crisis, Gov't Crackdowns
Border authorities recorded more than 227,000 Cubans attempting to enter into the United States illegally from 2021 to 2022, which represents the largest exodus in history, Agence France-Presse reported. The 227,000 is more than the two largest previous mass departures when 125,000 Cubans left for the United States in 1980 and when 34,000 people did in 1994, Florida International University’s Jorge Duany said.
February
SIPA News | Miami Conference on Global Democracy 2023
Join the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs to explore the phenomenon of contemporary democratic backsliding on a global scale. Guest speakers and expert panels will explore how waning public support for democracy, economic inequality and social tensions, populist politics, external pressures from great power competition, and the weakening of political institutions and processes have all contributed to a steady decline in democracy worldwide.
2023 "El Titán" Award Gala Dinner in New York
The Cuban Cultural Center of New York will recognize the multiple contributions of Emilio Cueto toward promoting and preserving Cuban cultural heritage. Cueto is a frequent collaborator of CRI and other cultural institutions.
Interview with Dr. Jorge Duany
CRI Director Dr. Jorge Duany discusses the current Cuban refugee crisis as well as his new coedited volume on Cuba and Puerto Rico, in conversation with Dr. Lillian Guerra.
March
Legalis: A New Tool to Access Cuban Legal Norms
The online Cuban journal "El Toque" has just launched a new digital tool that provides access to Cuban legislation and legal information in general. The service includes a search engine of legal norms published in Cuba's "Gaceta Oficial," as well as a glossary of legal terms, a FAQ section, and an assistance chat for consultations.
Call for Papers and Panel Proposals | Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE)
ASCE is issuing a call for papers and panel proposals to be presented at its 2023 Annual Conference, which will be held in Miami, at the Modesto Maidique Campus of Florida International University (FIU), August 4-6. 2023. While the focus will be on economic reforms, ASCE also welcomes Cuba-focused papers dealing with the political or social economy, economic history, lessons from other countries, international commercial relations, demography, labor market issues, and the diaspora.
Briefing on Cuba | Cuba's Electric Grid: Challenges and Opportunities
Energy industry expert Jorge R. Piñón documents the multiple challenges faced by Cuba's National Electric System (SEN), including an obsolete and collapsing infrastructure, as well as the lack of maintenance capital and the high contaminating effects of its current operation. During the summer of 2022, the power grid was on the threshold of total collapse. Piñón advocates a decentralized model of economic planning and decision making to rebuild Cuba's electrical system.
CRI in the News | As Holidaying Canadians Return to Cuba, Cubans Are Fleeing in Record Numbers
According to CBC/Radio-Canada, Canadians accounted for about 52 per cent of all foreign arrivals in Cuba in January. Cubans themselves, meanwhile, are fleeing the island nation in record numbers in response to unprecedented levels of poverty and political repression. More than 220,000 Cubans—amounting to 2 per cent of the island's entire population—were taken into custody after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border last year.
Webinar | Publishing and the Humanities
The University Press of Florida will hold a two-part webinar on getting published. The first session will provide information to scholars interested in publishing with a university press, from the perspective of both authors and editors. The second session will focus on career paths at the intersection of the humanities, public engagement, and scholarly publishing.
April
National Portrait Gallery Presents Major Exhibit on 1898
The first major Smithsonian exhibition to examine the U.S. intervention in Cuba and U.S. expansion into Guam, Hawaiʻi, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines will open on April 28, 2023. Through the lens of portraiture and visual culture, this exhibition of more than 90 objects presents the perspectives of those who advocated for overseas expansion, those who opposed it, and those who tried to have agency over their political futures after the War of 1898.
May
CRI in the News | How Important Is the Hispanic Vote?
Experts like Sebastián Arcos with the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University explain that, in 2014, only 53% of Cuban Americans were registered Republicans. It was the lowest majority ever seen, but things have changed.
CRI in the News | Cubans Win Mellon Fellowships from FIU for Threatened Artists and Academics
The four winners were poet Katherine Bisquet, anthropologist Marialina García Ramos, art historian Omara Ruiz Urquiola, and artist Lía Villares. Each will be able to pursue their individual projects while in residence at FIU during the academic year 2023–24.
CRI Spring 2023 Newsletter
During the spring semester, the Cuban Research Institute sponsored or cosponsored twenty-nine public events, including panel discussions, lectures, book presentations, film screenings, and an art exhibition. We're planning many upcoming events to advance Cuban and Cuban American studies.
Announcing the Recipients of the Mellon Fellowships for Threatened Cuban Scholars
CRI's fellowship program will help artists, artists, academics, and journalists displaced from the island to continue their work at FIU. It will substantially broaden and deepen current discussions about intellectual freedom—including freedom of thought and expression—in Cuba, the United States, and worldwide.
June
CRI in the News | Cuban Research Institute Panel Outlines Community’s Historic Impact on Miami
PantherNOW reviews our recent webinar, cosponsored by the Center for International Business Education and Research and the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, featuring speakers Alejandro Portes and Sergio Díaz-Briquets discussing how the entrepreneurship of Cuban migrants fundamentally shaped the economic, social, and cultural outlook of Miami.
CRI in the News | "The Eternal Night" Premiered in Miami
Film critic Alejandro Ríos reviews the film directed by Coco Fusco and dramatizing the personal experiences of poet Néstor Díaz de Villegas and actor José Manuel (Chema) Castiñeira as political prisoners in Cuba.
CRI in the News | Linguists Have Identified a New English Dialect That's Emerging in South Florida
CRI Faculty Affiliate Phillip M. Carter writes about a language variety that came about through sustained contact between Spanish and English speakers, particularly when speakers translated directly from Spanish. This form of language contact involving Spanish and English has been going on in Miami since the end of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
July
Final Program | ASCE Conference
View the last version of the program for the conference on "Cuba's Economic Crisis: Domestic, External, and Social Policy Challenges," organized by the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy and cosponsored by the Cuban Research Institute. The three-day meeting will take place at the FIU College of Law on August 4–6, 2023.
Symposium | 1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions
The National Portrait Gallery will hold a symposium on September 8–9, convening over forty scholars and artists from the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawai‘i, Cuba, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. The symposium accompanies a major exhibition on the War of 1898 (the Spanish-Cuban-American-Filipino War), the Joint Congressional Resolution to annex Hawai‘i, and the Philippine-American War.
Two Years after J11, the Search for Another Cuba Continues
A new art exhibition titled "We're Searching for Another Cuba" opened in a Wynwood gallery in Miami, including videos and photographs by Anyelo Troya. The exhibition commemorates the massive protests against the government in Cuba on July 11 and 12, 2021.
Preliminary Program | 2023 Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy
ASCE's Annual Conference will be held on August 4-6 at the FIU College of Law, cosponsored by CRI. The preliminary program features sessions on the current economic situation and prospects; external debt; other external issues; currency markets; agriculture; food availability and cost of living; immigration; governance and legal issues; social vulnerability; and Cuba-Venezuela relations, among others.
CRI in the News | Why Is Cuba Now Applying Migratory Measures Long Awaited by the Diaspora?
The launching this July 1st of long-awaited immigration measures by the Cuban diaspora, including the reduction in the price of passports and the end of expensive extensions, is a "desperate" response from the Cuban government to the deep crisis that the country is experiencing, experts say.
August
Call for Panels and Papers | 14th Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies
The Cuban Research Institute continues its tradition of convening scholars and other persons interested in the study of Cuba and Cuban Americans. The main theme of the 2024 conference will be "The Latinization of Florida: Economic, Political, and Cultural Repercussions."
Congratulations to dLOC's New Outreach Program Manager!
We're happy to share the announcement that Katie Coldiron, a CRI Faculty Affiliate and Ph.D. student in History, has been named the new Outreach Program Manager for the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). In her new capacity, Katie will provide leadership in outreach and engagement with Digital Library of the Caribbean collections, programming, and scholarly use of collection, including material related to Cuba and its diaspora.
Podcast | Cuba and Puerto Rico: Transdisciplinary Approaches
In addition to sharing a similar early history, the cultures of Cuba and Puerto Rico are closely intertwined, including their linguistic, literary, food, musical, and religious practices. In a podcast for New Book Networks, Professor Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera interviews Drs. Carmen Haydée Rivera and Jorge Duany about their recently edited volume on Cuba and Puerto Rico.
German Visiting Scholar to Study Cuban Transnationalism in Miami
The Cuban Research Institute has appointed Myriell Fusser as a Visiting Scholar during the fall and spring semesters of 2023–24. Myriell is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Sociology of Philipps University-Marburg in Germany. She is currently working on transnational migration and memory in the case of the Cuban diaspora.
September
CRI Conference Will Be Dedicated to Dr. Uva de Aragón
We're pleased to announce that the Fourteenth Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies, to be held in Miami on February 15–16, 2022, will be dedicated to Dr. Uva de Aragón, in recognition of her literary and cultural contributions to Cuban and Cuban American studies.
The Cuban Exodus since 1959
The Miami-Dade Public Library System, Aventura branch, will sponsor a public lecture by Dr. Jorge Duany about the growing diversity and complexity of the Cuban diaspora and the continued arrivals from the island, who have shaped and transformed the demographic and cultural landscape of Miami over the last six decades. This event is part of the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.
CRI Welcomes New Expert on Cuban History
We're happy to announce that Dr. Guadalupe García has accepted a position as Associate Professor in the Department of History at Florida International University. Dr. García specializes in the history of cities and colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on free and enslaved blacks in 19th-century Havana.
CRI in the News | Jetblue, Delta, and United Will Cut Down Flights to Cuba
"It's possible that current economic conditions on the island and in the United States, as well as the increase in Cuban emigration over the past two years, are reducing travel by Cuban Americans to the island, but it's difficult to verify the impact of those factors on the current and future flow of visitors from the United States to Cuba," said Jorge Duany, a migration expert and director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
October
Book Launching | 1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific
Drs. Taína Caragol and Kate Clarke Lemay will present their new book on the War of 1898 at the Coral Gables Museum. The book is based on an ongoing exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery documenting U.S.expansionism and its impact on Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii.
CRI in the News | Biden's Measures to Promote Small and Medium-Sized Businesses in Cuba
"El Estornudo," an independent Cuban digital journal, reports on the imminent announcement of a series of measures designed to support the private sector on the island.
November
Preliminary Program | 14th Conference on Cuban and Cuban American Studies
More than 110 scholars and graduate students will present papers in our next interdisciplinary and international meeting on Cuba and its diaspora.
New Course on Cuban Literature and Culture
Dr. Delia García, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages, will be teaching "Cuban Voices: Exploring Contemporary Literature and Cinema" (SPW 4930-U01). The course covers a wide range of topics, including the works of renowned Cuban authors, the historical context of Cuba, and the influence of Cuban culture on the global stage.
Announcing the Plenary Session Speakers for the 2024 CRI Conference
We're excited to announce the names of the four distinguished participants in the plenary session on the central theme of "The Latinization of Florida: Economic, Political, and Cultural Repercussions."
CRI in the News | The Family Code in Cuba: A Year Later
Dr. Elaine Acosta González, a Visiting Scholar at CRI, highlighted that the legislation generated one of the largest citizens' mobilizations in Cuba and the emergence of new social actors in recent decades.
December
Call for Applications | Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative
We invite applications from pre-candidacy doctoral students at FIU for the in-person Summer Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a one-week intensive training on comparative Latino Humanities Studies research methodologies and theoretical frameworks to be held on July 7–13, 2024. This is an all-expense-paid program with the possibility of a one-year pre-doctoral research fellowship as an extra year of funding to any existing assistantship/fellowship funding commitment.
