Democracy and Time in Cuban Thought

In this fascinating analysis of political discourse in Cuban culture, Mara de los ngeles Torres focuses on how the concept of time has been employed by different political projects. While the past and future are often evoked in rhetoric associated with authoritarianism, Torres argues, an emphasis on human actions in the present is important for a more democratic political culture, and she searches over a century of Cuban thought for this perspective. Delving into political texts and essays, literature, and art, Torres puts theories of temporalities in conversation with the Cuban experience. Torres closely examines the use of time and its political implications in Fidel Castros History Will Absolve Me speech, the writings of Jose Mart and Che Guevara, the poetry of Eliseo Diego and the Orgenes group, and paintings by Cuban exiles Nereida Garca Ferraz and Mara Martnez-Caas. Recent events in Cuba have placed the search for democracy and social justice center stage, and Torres also studies the temporalities underpinning these movements, asking whether these projects are providing alternatives to overused past and future tropes. She suggests ways of thinking for todays activists, encouraging them to remember history and imagine new possibilities while cultivating space for human agency now.