Cuba, The Elusive Nation Interpretations Of A National Identity [Hardcover]

New readings by major exile scholars on the unsettling but weighty question of defining who the Cubans are, what constitutes their national identity, and how they might define themselves as Cubans with respect to their distant island culture. The perspectives presented cover the fields of history, political science, sociology, art, music, literature, anthropology, religion, and gender studies. --Ivan A. Schulman, University of Illinois

This anthology brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines who look at one main question: What constitutes Cuban identity? Encouraged to go beyond received ideas and time-worn methodologies, they offer revisionist perspectives that argue for a Cubanness marked more by tension and diversity than by harmony and similarity, more impure than pure, more elastic than static. By examining issues often misrepresented or simply ignored in the past, sources and voices contribute to a fluidity that resonates with the collection's title.

Contents
Interpretations of National Identity, by Dami?n? J. Fern?ndez? and Madeline C?mara? Betancourt
I. The Nation as Historical Narration
1. Reconstructing Cubanness: Changing Discourses of National Identity on the Island and in the Diaspora during the Twentieth Century, by Jorge Duany
2. Rethinking Tradition and Identity: The Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, by Mar?a Elena D?az
3. Rethinking Race and Nation in Cuba, by Ada Ferrer
II. The Nation as Incomplete Desire
4. Cuba and Lo Cubano, or the Story of Desire and Disenchantment, by Dami?n J. Fern?ndez
5. Between Myth and Stereotype: The Image of the Mulatta in Cuban Culture in the Nineteenth Century, a Truncated Symbol of Nationality, by Madeline C?mara Betancourt
6. Boleros, Divas, and Identity Models, by Jos? Quiroga
7. Post-Utopia: The Erotics of Power and Cuba's Revolutionary Children, by Ruth Behar
8. Cuban CondemNation of Queer Bodies, by Emilio Bejel
III. The Nation as MetapholC#