Corporeal Readings of Cuban Literature and Art

Tracing corporeality and materiality

across Cuban texts and images of the twentieth century

This

volume looks at Cuban literature and art that challenge traditional

assumptions about the body. Examining how writers and artists have depicted racial,

gender, and species differences throughout the past century, Christina Garc?a

identifies historical continuities in the way they have emphasized the shared

materiality of bodies. Garc?a

shows how these works interact with ecologies of the human and nonhuman across

diverse media, time periods, and ideologies.

Garc?a

examines corporeality in a variety of works, including the poetry of Nicol?s

Guill?n and experimental writings of Severo Sarduy; transspecies drawings,

paintings, and sculptures by Roberto Fabelo; Tom?s Guti?rrez Alea's popular

queer film Fresa y chocolate; and contemporary narrative fictions by

Ena Luc?a

Portela, Antonio Jos? Ponte, and Ahmel Echevarr?a. Using the lenses of new

materialism, critical race studies, critical animal studies, queer studies, and

poststructuralism, Garc?a engages with Cuban cultural production at the

intersection of diverse social issues.

In

this book, Garc?a explores how certain artistic practices focus on portraying

ecological relationships instead of recognizable subjects or shared identity.

Corporeal Readings of Cuban Literature and Art demonstrates that through

their attention to the connections that different kinds of bodies share, Cuban creators

have long undermined rules of classification and unification, reimagining

community as shared vulnerability and difference.



Publication of this work made possible by a

Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the

National Endowment for the Humanities.