Odalys Márquez was in Guantánamo in 1994. She and her family had left Matanzas on August 23, about an hour before midnight, and after testing the boat for a couple of hours and making sure it worked. They left from the Versailles bridge, and as they...
To mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, which officially took place on July 20, 2015, Cuba Counterpoints asked U.S. academics, involved in academic and cultural...
My argument here will be controversial: Cuban resorts offer superior conditions for the cultivation of intimacy. Over a short stay, tourists who remain within the resort enclave are likely to develop relationships with those who serve them 24 hours...
German Cubanist scholar Katja Schatte reflects on the European refugee crisis and the representation of former Communist populations as "bad Europeans," or less European, for their alleged lack of solidarity with those who have now taken their place...
In this journalism business where I have worked for over twenty-five years, I have a couple of friends with whom I usually share, on the telephone, any interesting news that might be happening in Cuba. As you can imagine, ever since Pope Francis arrived...
In the exhibit “Detrás del muro: En el medio de la nada” (Behind the Wall: in the Middle of Nothing), included in the 12th Biennale of Havana, one of the most popular installations was without a doubt the work “Resaca” (Undertow/Hangover), Arlés...
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Recently, I walked into a local Barnes & Noble. I was keen on finding a book for my daughters. One special book, the experience of which would carry them into adulthood. I wandered through the stacks, hoping to find what I was looking for, but it was nowhere...
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Summer is upon us, along with a heat wave that is knocking down much of the Northern Hemisphere, from Miami to Matanzas to Madrid to Münich. Cuba Counterpoins is barely one-and-a-half months-old and many of us are about to hit the beach or, alternatively,...
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Intellectuals have played a key role in processes of change in all times and places. This was true throughout Cuba’s revolutionary processes and remains the case today. I have mixed feelings about the current situation. I think that part of Cuba’s...
I am surprised that your question presupposes that my work (or that of your other interviewees) is not currently relevant to society – or not relevant yet. Excuse me, but I want to believe that it is and that it has been in the past. Leaving aside,...
If we accept that there is such a thing as a public intellectual, then we have to presume that there also exist private intellectuals. Public intellectuals would always be in touch with social reality. In contrast with the private ones, their academic,...
Our third interviewee in our "Public Intellectual Future" series is Gustavo Arcos Fernández-Britto, a film studies professor at the Arts University (formerly known as Instituto Superior de Arte or I.S.A.), in Havana. To the question of where he sees...
I must say that I’m surprised to have been invited to address this issue. Those who work in the medical field, whether in clinical service or in academia, are not generally considered intellectuals in Cuba. (more…)
In this opening edition of Counterpoint, we asked selected Cuban scholars from different disciplines the following questions: Where do you see the role of the public intellectual in Cuba’s present and future? How may your academic or intellectual...
What other city in Cuba -or elsewhere- can boast of having a “cinema street,” la calle de los cines? (more…)
