Cuba in World History

4 credits · Undergraduate

This course surveys Cuban history, culture, and politics from the 15th century to the present. We will examine both the outsized role the island has played in world history and the dramatic ways world history has refracted through the island’s turbulent past. How has Cuban history and culture been shaped by its unique position in global geopolitics, at the crossroads of Europe, the Americas, and Africa? How have inhabitants of Cuba struggled against ongoing relationships of colonialism and dependency with foreign powers? How have inhabitants of Cuba defined what it means to be Cuban both because of and in spite of these global forces? We will draw on a wide array of texts from long before the famous Revolution of 1959 to well after.