This course examines some of the cultural narratives that have attempted to explain and develop ecological conservation in the nation of Cuba. A main objective of our cultural explorations is to understand how these narratives (in nonfiction essay writing, literature, and documentaries) are analogous to Cuban environmental conservation. One significant fact about Cuban history is this nation’s resilience on how the idea of conservationism has become a main objective of its own cultural politics. We will approach how foreign ecocultural dialogues (in Western scientific scholarship) have contributed to Cuba’s own cultural stance regarding the development of narratives about conservationism, under this dialogical “gaze of the other”. Also, in this course we will examine how scientific, local, and cultural enterprises have met on the grounds of cooperation outside disciplinary boundaries. The students will comprehend that cultural conservation is an absorbed communal process that emerges from the participation of different factors and diverse peoples that are not necessarily divorced.
- Profesor: Axel Presas