Beyond the Map: Transatlantic Ties Between Cuba and the Canary Islands

October 14, 2010 - 4:00 pm

Germán Santana Pérez, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

María Hernández-Ojeda, Hunter College, CUNY

The cartographic map is no longer a visual paradigm used to describe national cultures, as Graham Huggan states. If we could reorganize the mapamundi, Cuba and the Canary Islands would stand next to each other due to their close cultural connections. The historical ties between the Canaries and Cuba began at the time of the conquest of the Americas. Indeed, Cuba represents the main locus of residence for the ‘isleños’ outside the Canary Islands during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this lecture, Professors Germán Santana Pérez and María Hernández-Ojeda will discuss the history of migrations, the socio-cultural relations and literary production created in the transatlantic space between Cuba and the Canary Islands. The lecture will be in Spanish.

About the Speakers:

Germán Santana-Pérez is an Associate Professor of Early Modern History at Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. His research area includes Canarian history, African history, and comparative history between Atlantic Islands, including Macaronesia, the Caribbean, and the African archipelagos. He is the author of El comercio exterior de las Canarias Orientales durante el reinado de Felipe IV (2002),La puerta afortunada. Canarias en las relaciones hispano-africanas de los siglos XVII y XVIII (2002) and Las representaciones de la Historia Moderna en el cine (2007). Professor Santana-Pérez is currently working on the relationship between Cuba and the Canaries and contacts between Spain and Africa.

Maria Hernández-Ojeda is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Hunter College-CUNY. Her research area includes the literary and cultural relationship between the Canary Islands and Latin America. She is the author of Insularidad narrativa en la obra de Nivaria Tejera (2009) and her edited book Canarias, Cuba, Francia y Canarias: Los exilios literarios de Nivaria Tejera is forthcoming. Professor Hernandez-Ojeda is currently working on a book project that investigates the concept of nation in women writers from the Canary Islands who produced their scholarship in a transatlantic context.