SPAN3034: Cinema & Society in Revolutionary Cuba

In this Honors seminar, we will examine the complex interaction between film and contemporary Cuban society from 1959 to the present. Using narrative and documentary films, new media, archival footage, newspaper articles, and academic essays, we will discuss how these cultural products depict postcolonial and neocolonial dynamics, economic dependency, migration, racial relations, gender and sexual inequalities, religious syncretism, politics, and cultural hybridity in revolutionary Cuba.

The primary goal of this course, then, is threefold: (a) provide students with contextual information to analyze film and media portrayals of historical, social, economic, political, and cultural matters in contemporary Cuba; (b) introduce the language of film, cinematic styles, narrative forms, and other critical tools that will be used to interpret these issues in Cuban film and media; (c) discuss cultural policy and cultural politics in the revolutionary period.

This seminar will encourage students to examine the intersections of race, gender, social exclusion, poverty, religion, national identity, and political power in Cuba and in connection to their local realities and global phenomena.

This learning experience will allow them to foster cross-cultural communication skills, aptitudes to adapt to new circumstances and deal with differences, teamwork, as well as the capacity to broaden global understanding.