Democracy and Time in Cuban Thought

How the temporalities of past, future, andpresent have been used in Cuban political rhetoric and expressed in Cuban cultureIn this fascinatinganalysis of political discourse in Cuban culture, Mara de los ngeles Torresfocuses on how the concept of time has been employed by different politicalprojects. While the past and future are often evoked in rhetoric associatedwith authoritarianism, Torres argues, an emphasis on human actions in thepresent is important for a more democratic political culture, and she searchesover a century of Cuban thought for this perspective. Delving into political texts andessays, literature, and art, Torres puts theories of temporalities inconversation with the Cuban experience. Torres closely examines the use of timeand its political implications in Fidel CastrosHistory Will Absolve Me speech, the writings of Jose Mart and Che Guevara,the poetry of Eliseo Diego and the Orgenes group, and paintings andperformance art by Cuban exiles Nereida Garca Ferraz, Mara Martnez-Caas,and Tania Bruguera. Recent events in Cubahave placed the search for democracy and social justice center stage, andTorres also studies the temporalities underpinning thesemovements, asking whether these projects are providing alternatives to overusedpast and future tropes. She suggests ways of thinking for todays activists,encouraging them to remember history and imagine new possibilities whilecultivating space for human agency now.Publicationof this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the AmericanRescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.