Visit Cuba with the IISC

Following successful tours in 2018 and 2019, the IISC  is once again planning a study visit to Cuba led by Dr Stephen Wilkinson, who lectures on Latin American and Cuban Politics at the University of Buckingham. Steve has been visiting Cuba since 1987, holds a PHD in Cuban Literature and has led more than twenty study tours to the island.

The flights and itinerary will be organised by the ATOL/ABTA protected Cuba Specialist Travel company Captivating Cuba.

The tour will deepen participants’ understanding of history, politics, economics and international relations as well as expand their knowledge of Cuba, its unique character and history. But it is not all study, there will also be plenty of time to relax, explore Havana and enjoy a couple of days at the beach!

The plan is to fly economy with Air Europa via Madrid departing from Gatwick on Saturday 13^th September and returning overnight on Saturday 23^rd  arriving in Heathrow on Sunday 24th. The group will stay at the Hotel Mystique in Havana.

Interested ion going? More informaiton here:  https://cubastudies.org/travel/university-of-bu…am-study-tour-23/ ‎

Reflections from Havana

Lessons from the Missile Crisis 60 Years On

In those years, we Cubans were not just used to be on the brink of a war with the US, actually, we were already at a war with the Americans. That war was part of our daily lives for 3 years. We had Bay of Pigs 18 months earlier. A civil war, with thousands of counterrevolutionary guerrillas, fueled and supplied by the US, had extended to the whole island. Teenagers teachers like me had been assassinated by those guerrillas.

Obituary

Radamés Giro

Radamés Giro, musician, author, editor, and self-taught researcher and musicologist was a central figure of Cuban music over the last 50 years.

Study for a PHD on Cuba at the University of Buckingham

The University of Buckingham offers PhDs in the study of Latin America and the Caribbean and the IISC is able to welcome applicants for PhDs in the study of Cuba within that framework. This programme can be accessed via supervision online from anywhere in the world.

This is a postgraduate qualification by research. You will be appointed a primary supervisor who will be a specialist in the field  of study (this can be in any discipline) and a second supervisor appointed from the University of Buckingham.

If you have a proposal for academic study in the region or on Cuba then please go to the University of Buckingham webpage. Click on the link below. Informal inquires can be made to the IISC Director Dr Stephen Wilkinson: stephen.wilkinson@buckingham.ac.uk

https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/humanities/phd-caribbean-and-latin-american-studies/

Reflections on a visit to the island February 1st-17th 2022

Cuba: Revolution in ruins or still being built?

At the risk of sounding facetious, if capitalism is renowned for the process of “creative destruction” then in an ironic sense one might have to concede that on the face of it, Cuban socialism is marked by a sense of “entropic decay.” At least that is the initial impression one gets walking through the streets of Vedado, Havana, as I made a point of doing on a recent visit for 17 days in February, seven months after the ‘social explosion’ of 11 July 2021, when people took to the streets in unprecedented scenes of protest. These protests were against the government’s handling of the economy, food scarcity and a perceived lack of Covid response that has produced a general anxiety about the future of this socialist revolution, now in its seventh decade with no utopian end anywhere in sight.

What are Cubans currently saying about 15N?

“I do not think that it will succeed. Last July was a surprise, not now, the government is prepared.”

Cubans speak for themselves on 15N