Eliana Rivero Research Scholarship

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Humberto Calzada, Years of Judgment, 1990

Deadline: March 15, 2024

FIU's Cuban Research Institute (CRI) is pleased to provide support for FIU faculty and graduate students to present papers at academic conferences related to Cuba and its diaspora. The Eliana Rivero Scholarship in Cuban Studies will help to cover up to $500 per person to offset the costs of airfare, lodging, and meals to participate in a professional meeting. Award recipients must complete their travel by June 30, 2024.

Application Materials

  • A completed application and budget form available here
  • A one-paragraph abstract of the proposed paper
  • A brief description of the academic conference and how it will contribute to the applicant's professional development
  • A copy of the applicant's curriculum vitae

All documents should be submitted to cri@fiu.edu.

Upon returning from their conference, recipients will submit a copy of their paper. Any publications resulting from this presentation should acknowledge the Eliana Rivero Research Scholarship in Cuban Studies and the Cuban Research Institute for their support.

Past Awards

  • Dr. Elaine Acosta González, CRI Visiting Scholar, "Forging Panethnic Allegiances: Hispanic Caribbean Communities in Three Gateway Cities—Miami, New York City, and Orlando" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2023)
  • Katie Coldiron, Digital Archivist & Project Manager at the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab and Ph.D. student in History, "Un nido de espías: A History of Cuban Research at Florida International University" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2023)
  • Richard Denis, Ph.D. student in History, "Confronting Authoritarianism: Cuban Print Media and the Politics of the Press, 1952–1958" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2023)
  • John Ermer, Ph.D. candidate in History, "The Cuban Mahjar: Law, Identity, and Belonging among Lebanese and Syrian Migrants to Cuba, 1880–1980" (CRI Cuban Studies Scholarship, 2019)
  • Leonardo Falcón, Ph.D. candidate in History, "Manufacturing Sin: Francisco Carranco and the Establishment of the Inquisition in Cuba and the Caribbean, 1595–1614" (CRI Cuban Studies Scholarship, 2018)
  • Maikel Fariñas Borrego, Ph.D. student in History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, "Envisioning Capitalist Alternatives: The Emergence of Urban Entrepreneurs and the Politics of Influence in Cuba, 1920–1958" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2016)
  • Jeniffer Fernández, Ph.D. candidate in Modern Languages, "Ritual and Magico-Religious Representations of Afro-Cuban Culture in 20th-Century Cuban Theater" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2019)
  • Michele Mileusnich, Ph.D. student in Modern Languages, "Food and Cuban National Identity" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2023)
  • Maite Morales, Ph.D. candidate in History, "Communal Desires: Cuban Consumption and Nostalgia, 1972–Present" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2018)
  • Dr. Daniel Pedreira, Adjunct Professor of Politics and International Relations, "Chinese Vases in Latin America: Former Presidents as Agents of Democracy" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2023)
  • Elisa Rómulo Borges, Ph.D. student in Global and Sociocultural Studies, "Forging Panethnic Allegiances: Hispanic Caribbean Communities in Three Gateway Cities—Miami, New York City, and Orlando" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2023)
  • Alberto Sosa Cabanas, Ph.D. candidate in of Modern Languages, "Racism, Celebration, and Otherness: Depictions of Blackness in Cuban Cultural Discourse (1790–1959)" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2017)
  • Jack Vertovec, Ph.D. candidate in Global and Sociocultural Studies, "Entrepreneurial Intersections: An Ethnographic Study of Structural Conditions and Economic Practices in Contemporary Cuba" (Eliana Rivero Scholarship, 2018)

About Eliana Rivero

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Eliana Suárez Rivero was born in Cuba and immigrated permanently to the U.S. in 1961. She received her Ph.D. with distinction and M.A. in Hispanic Language and Literatures and a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Miami. Her scholarly work and teaching have specialized in Latin American literatures, especially poetry and women's writings, for almost five decades.

Dr. Rivero is Professor Emerita in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she taught Latin American and U.S. Latino/Latina literatures and cultures. She was also adjunct Professor of Women's Studies and Latin American Studies at her institution. She has authored or coedited seven scholarly books, and has published over 100 articles, chapters in books, review essays, notes, bibliographies, and collection entries, on topics ranging from Caribbean authors to Mexican colonial nuns.

Dr. Rivero is coeditor of Telling To Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (2001), Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1995), and Siete poetas (1977). Her bilingual collection of essays, Discursos desde la diáspora, was published in 2005. Her latest book is Obra selecta (Selected Works, 2020), a compilation of her best essays on Cuban national identity, Latin Americans in the United States, and feminism through literature, especially through poetry. Her own poetry was published in Catedral sumergida: Poesía cubana contemporánea escrita por mujeres, edited by Ileana Álvarez and Maylén Domínguez (2013). Her video Melodías y memorias de Eliana Rivero, with her interpretations of traditional Cuban music and autobiographical commentary, was finished in January 2015.

Dr. Rivero lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she enjoys playing her grand piano every day.