Essays on Transculturation and Catalan-Cuban Intellectual History

This book examines the cultural production of Catalan intellectuals in Cuba through a reading of texts and journeys that show the contrapuntal relationship between transcultural identities and narratives of nationhood. Both the concept of transculturation and its instrumentalization to tame conflict within nationalist projects are problematic. By uncovering and examining the contradictions between the fluid character of identities in the Cuban context of the first half of the twentieth century and nationalist discourses, within both the Catalanist community of Havana and Cuban society, this book joins wider debates about identities. 

CONTENTS

1.      Chapter 1/Introduction The counterpoints of transculturation

2.1  Chapter 2 The nucleus of Catalanism in the Americas

2.2  Chapter 2 The first decades of La Nova Catalunya (1908–1932)

2.3  Chapter 2 The confluence of old and new Catalan-Cubans in the revival of La Nova Catalunya (1942–1959)

3.      Chapter 3 Josep Conangla’s Americanist Catalanism

3.1 Chapter 3 An Americanist Catalanism

3.2 Chapter 3 Els altres sentits, a Caribbean version

4.      Chapter 4 Regino Boti’s poetics and the construction of identities in Guantanamo

4.1 Chapter 4 Guantanamero poetics

4.2 Chapter 4 Guantanamero politics

5.      Chapter 5 A rereading of Fernando Ortiz’s counterpoints.

5.1 Chapter 5 Ortiz, the Catalan-Cuban intellectual

5.2 Chapter 5 Transculturation and nationalism, ties and tensions

Yairen Jerez Columbié investigates cultural exchange, postcolonial identities and ecologies, and the sociohistorical dimensions of environmental challenges. She is an Assistant Professor in Latin American Studies and Intercultural Communication at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.