Temporalities of <em>cubanía</em> in the Special Period. Review of José Quiroga's <em>Cuban Palimpsests</em> (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.)

Authors

  • Tania Triana University of Oregon

Keywords:

Cuba, Special Period, cubanía, Soviet bloc, collapse

Abstract

Written accounts of travel to Cuba during the Special Period—the period marked by the collapse of the Soviet bloc and ensuing economic transformations on the island—are replete with references to the island as exhibiting a particular sense of time: out of time, stuck in time, timeless, on its own time. These descriptions are typically accompanied by the requisite photos of 1950s Chevys against the backdrop of Havana’s colonial buildings or decaying billboards of Revolutionary heroes. Undoubtedly the idea of Time itself, along with its compadre History, is imbued with ideology. The notion of Cuban time at a standstill, for instance, is especially notable in recent U.S. newspaper and magazine articles that feature Cuba as a travel destination or potential capitalist investment opportunity.

Author Biography

Tania Triana, University of Oregon

Tania Triana es profesora asistente en el Departamento de Lenguas Romances en la University of Oregon. Se doctoró de la University of California—San Diego en el 2004, con una disertación que se titula, "Narrating Race, Gender, and Nation(s) in Cuba”. Su investigación se enfoca en teorías y representaciones del mestizaje en el Caribe y en la literatura latina (en Estados Unidos). Actualmente escribe un libro que se titula provisionalmente, “Blackness Unmoored: Narratives of Reracialization in the Americas”.

Published

2006-04-10

How to Cite

Triana, T. (2006). Temporalities of <em>cubanía</em> in the Special Period. Review of José Quiroga’s <em>Cuban Palimpsests</em> (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.). A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 3(3), 73–76. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/213

Issue

Section

Reviews / Reseñas