Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar

2005-05-06 History

Author : Lydia Chavez
Release : 2005-05-06
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 488/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar by : Lydia Chavez

Download or read book Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar written by Lydia Chavez. This book was released on 2005-05-06. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Soviet Union dissolved, so did the easy credit, cheap oil, and subsidies it had provided to Cuba. The bottom fell out of the Cuban economy, and many expected that Castro’s revolution—the one that had inspired the Left throughout Latin America and elsewhere—would soon be gone as well. More than a decade later, the revolution lives on, albeit in a modified form. Following the collapse of Soviet communism, Castro legalized the dollar, opened the island to tourism, and allowed foreign investment, small-scale private enterprise, and remittances from exiles in Miami. Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar describes what the changes implemented since the early 1990s have meant for ordinary Cubans: hotel workers, teachers, priests, factory workers, rap artists, writers, homemakers, and others. Based on reporting by journalists, writers, and documentary filmmakers since 2001, each of the essays collected here covers a particular dimension of contemporary Cuban society, revealing what it is like to have lived, for more than a decade, suspended between communism and capitalism. There are pieces on hip hop musicians, fiction writing and censorship, the state of ballet and the performing arts, and the role of computers and the Internet. Other essays address the shrinking yet still sizeable numbers of true believers in the promise of socialist revolution, the legendary cigar industry, the changing state of religion, the significance of the recent influx of money and people from Spain, and the tensions between recent Cuban emigrants and previous generations of exiles. Including more than seventy striking documentary photographs of Cuba’s people, countryside, and city streets, this richly illustrated collection offers keen, even-handed insights into the abundant ironies of life in Cuba today. Contributors. Juliana Barbassa, Ana Campoy, Mimi Chakarova, Lydia Chávez, John Coté, Julian Foley, Angel González, Megan Lardner, Ezequiel Minaya, Daniela Mohor, Archana Pyati, Alicia Roca, Olga R. Rodríguez, Bret Sigler, Annelise Wunderlich

Mulata Nation

2018-08-24 History

Author : Alison Fraunhar
Release : 2018-08-24
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 444/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Mulata Nation by : Alison Fraunhar

Download or read book Mulata Nation written by Alison Fraunhar. This book was released on 2018-08-24. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Repeatedly and powerfully throughout Cuban history, the mulata, a woman of mixed racial identity, features prominently in Cuban visual and performative culture. Tracing the figure, Alison Fraunhar looks at the representation and performance in both elite and popular culture. She also tracks how characteristics associated with these women have accrued across the Atlantic world. Widely understood to embody the bridge between European subject and African other, the mulata contains the sensuality attributed to Africans in a body more closely resembling the European ideal of beauty. This symbol bears far-reaching implications, with shifting, contradictory cultural meanings in Cuba. Fraunhar explores these complex paradigms, how, why, and for whom the image was useful, and how it was both subverted and asserted from the colonial period to the present. From the early seventeenth century through Cuban independence in 1899 up to the late revolutionary era, Fraunhar illustrates the ambiguous figure's role in nationhood, citizenship, and commercialism. She analyzes images including key examples of nineteenth-century graphic arts, avant-garde painting and magazine covers of the Republican era, cabaret and film performance, and contemporary iterations of gender. Fraunhar's study stands out for attending to the phenomenon of mulataje not only in elite production such as painting, but also in popular forms: popular theater, print culture, later films, and other media where stereotypes take hold. Indeed, in contemporary Cuba, mulataje remains a popular theme with Cubans as well as foreigners in drag shows, reflecting queerness in visual culture.

Fiesta de diez pesos: Music and Gay Identity in Special Period Cuba

2016-04-15 Music

Author : Moshe Morad
Release : 2016-04-15
Genre : Music
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 423/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Fiesta de diez pesos: Music and Gay Identity in Special Period Cuba by : Moshe Morad

Download or read book Fiesta de diez pesos: Music and Gay Identity in Special Period Cuba written by Moshe Morad. This book was released on 2016-04-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ‘Special Period’ in Cuba was an extended era of economic depression starting in the early 1990s, characterized by the collapse of revolutionary values and social norms, and a way of life conducted by improvised solutions for survival, including hustling and sex-work. During this time there developed a thriving, though constantly harassed and destabilized, clandestine gay scene (known as the ‘ambiente’). In the course of eight visits between 1995 and 2007, the last dozen years of Fidel Castro’s reign, Moshe Morad became absorbed in Havana’s gay scene, where he created a wide social network, attended numerous secret gatherings-from clandestine parties to religious rituals-and observed patterns of behavior and communication. He discovered the role of music in this scene as a marker of identity, a source of queer codifications and identifications, a medium of interaction, an outlet for emotion and a way to escape from a reality of scarcity, oppression and despair. Morad identified and conducted his research in different types of ‘musical space,’ from illegal clandestine parties held in changing locations, to ballet halls, drag-show bars, private living-rooms and kitchens and santería religious ceremonies. In this important study, the first on the subject, he argues that music plays a central role in providing the physical, emotional, and conceptual spaces which constitute this scene and in the formation of a new hybrid ‘gay identity’ in Special-Period Cuba.

The Blogging Revolution

2015-04-08 Political Science

Author : Antony Loewenstein
Release : 2015-04-08
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 864/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Blogging Revolution by : Antony Loewenstein

Download or read book The Blogging Revolution written by Antony Loewenstein. This book was released on 2015-04-08. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blogging Revolution is a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes – many of them risking their lives in doing so. Antony Loewenstein’s travels take him to private parties in Iran and Egypt, internet cafes in Saudi Arabia and Damascus, to the homes of Cuban dissidents and into newspaper offices in Beijing, where he discovers the ways in which the internet is threatening the rule of governments. Through first-hand investigations, he reveals the complicity of Western multinationals in the restriction of information in these countries and how bloggers are leading the charge for change. The book also reveals some of the key players of the Arab Spring and how years of organising, web dissent and bravery led to momentous changes in US-backed dictatorships across the Middle East in 2010 and 2011. The Blogging Revolution is a superb examination of the nature of repression in the twenty-first century and the power of brave individuals to overcome it.

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Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar

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The Blogging Revolution

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