Cuba in the Special Period Culture and Ideology in the 1990s [Paperback]

This collection examines Cuban cultural production during the Special Period of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Contributors address the cultural forms; and the associated ethics and practices of labour, leisure, and bureaucratic organization that arose in the transformation of the socialist cultural infrastructure.Writing the Special Period: An Introduction - Ariana Hernandez-Reguant PART I: FOREIGN COMMERCE Truths and Fictions: The Economics of Writing, 19941999 - Esther Whitfield Filmmaking with Foreigners - Cristina Venegas Spiritual Capital: Foreign Patronage and the Trafficking of Santer?a - Kevin M. Delgado PART II: PLURAL NATION Multicubanidad - Ariana Hernandez-Reguant Preemptive Nostalgia and La Batalla for Cuban Identity: Option Zero Theater - Laurie Frederik Meer Wandering in Russian - Jacqueline Loss The 'Letter of the Year' and the Prophetics of Revolution - Kenneth Routon PART III: TRANSNATIONAL PUBLICS El Rap Cubano: Can't Stop, Won't Stop the Movement! - Roberto Zurbano, Translated by Kate Levitt Audiovisual Remittances and Transnational Subjectivities - Lisa Maya Knauer Ending the Century with Memories . . . : Paper Money, Videos, and an X-Acto Knife for Cuban Art - Antonio Eligio Fern?ndez, 'Tonel,' Translated by Kate Levitt

The well-researched essays, covering topics as diverse as literature, art, Santeria, cinema, rap and issues of identity and ethnicity provide rich accounts of the key themes and contractions of the Special Period and how they affected specific groups of cultural producers and expressive communities. Linking them together is the question of how the combination of weakened state institutions, economic crisis and new access to transnational flows of capital and ideas fostered the conditions for new modes of expression and the rearticulation of identities. Each individual essay offers a detailed and . . . nuanced interpretation of the complex relationship between culture and ideology. - The Journalls�