The Cultures of the Hispanic Caribbean

"A splendid volume that develops coherently and interconnects in many different ways. . . . The editors have attracted the leading scholars in Latin American cultural studies. . . . Sensitive both to history and to current debates in literature and culture."—John King, University of Warwick

While difficult to define—and sometimes even to locate—the Hispanic Caribbean is fraught with tension. The region includes nations that have common histories yet very different contemporary political characteristics. This collection maps out the reasons behind the tensions and looks specifically at the distinctive causes and founding concepts of the area.

Contents

1. Fernando Ortiz and Allan Kardec: Transmigration and Transculturation, by Arcadio Díaz Quiñones

2. Puerto Rico Afloat, by Doris Sommer

3. The Nomadic Subject in the Poetry of Julia de Burgos, by Juan G. Gelpí

4. Women, Life-writing, and National Identity in Cuba:

Excilia Saldaña’s <i>Mi nombre: Antielegía familiar</i>, by Conrad James

5. The Nation from <i>De donde son los cantantes</i> to <i>Pájaros de la playa</i>, by Roberto González Echevarría

6. <i>Tuntún de pasa y grifería</i>: A Cultural Project, by Carmen Vázquez Arce

7. Discovering Nicolás Guillén through Afrocentric Literary

Analysis, by Ian Isidore Smart

8. Nancy Morejón: Nation, Negritude, and Marginality, by Efraín Barradas

9. Notes on the History of Blacks in Cuba . . . and May Elegguá Be with Me, by Manuel Granados

10. Transculturation and Integration of the Afro-Venezuelan World in the Contemporary Venezuelan Novel, by Jorge Marbán

11. Dominican Writers at the Crossroads: Reflections on a Conversation in Progress, by Daisy Cocco de Filippis

12. The Role of Science in Cuban Culture: Some Observations, by Keith Ellis

13. Traumas of Modernity in the Caribbean: Virgilio Piñera and Hector Rojas Herazo, by Giberto Gómez Ocampo

14. Little Stories of Caribbean History and Nationhood: Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá and Luis Rafael Sánchez, by John D. Perivolaris

15. Some Critical Observations on the Cult of María Lionza in Contemporary Venezuelan Narrative, by Lancelot Cowie

16. Cultural Ethnocentricity in Commercial Cinema: Representation and Self-Identity, by Rodolfo B. Popelnik

17. Breaking the Spell of Our Hallucinated Lucidity: Surveying the Caribbean Self within Hollywood Cinema, by Diane Accaria-Zavala

Conrad James is a lecturer in Hispanic studies at the University of Birmingham, England. John Perivolaris is a lecturer in Spanish American and Caribbean literatures and cultures at the University of Manchester, England.