California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Cuba/U.S.—Cross-cultural Analysis CLS 482
Summer 2002 Dr.
Jose M. Vadi
This course examines varied aspects of Cuban culture with the aim of understanding the ways in which Cuban culture both resembles and differs from that of the United States. The cultural aspects include Santeria religion and its role in politics and society, music, gender, beisbol, art, and literature.
Students will be required to review the following literature and to write an integrative essay that will answer the following questions:
-Summarize each of the readings assigned.
-What did you learn about Cuban culture from each assigned reading?
-How does Cuban culture differ from and how does it resemble U.S. culture?
-What questions do you have about Cuban culture that were not answered in the reading?
-Using your trip to Cuba as a textbook, how does your experience in Cuba either confirm or invalidate what you have read in the following assignments?
-Then write your own essay on aspects of Cuban culture as you experienced them in Cuba.
Antonio
Benitez- Rojo, “The Role of Music in the Emergence of Afro Cuban Culture”
Lowery
Stokes Sims, “Individuality and Tradition: A Conversation With Tree
Contemporary Artists”
Tom
Miller, “Cuba’s All-Stars” (baseball)
Mae
Henderson, “Cuba’s Intellectual Blockade: U.S. Embargo or Cuban Censorship”
Bill
Shoemaker, “Made in Cuba” (Cuban music)
Bob
Shacochis, “The Other Tempest” (economic change and Cuban culture)
Nelson Valdés, “Santeria and the Politics of Charisma”
Margot Alavarria, “Rap and Revolution: Hip-Hop Comes to Cuba,” NACLA Report on the Americas, May/June 2002.
Alejandro de la Fuente, “The Resurgence of Racism in Cuba,” NACLA Report on the Americas, May/June 2001
G. Derrick Hodge, “Colonization of the Cuban Body: The
Growth of Male Sex Work in Havana,” NACLA Report on the
Americas, March/ April 2001
Nehanda Abiodun, “Havana’s Jineteras,” NACLA Report on the Americas, March/April 2001
Haroldo Dilla, “The Virtues and Misfortunes of Civil Society, ”NACLA Report on the Americas,” March/April 1999
Guillermo Millán, “Inequality and Anomie,” NACLA Report on the Americas, March/April 1999