草榴社区

VILLANOVA, Pa 鈥� The complex history and culture of Cuba鈥攊ncluding the nation鈥檚 relationship with the former Soviet Union鈥攊s often unfamiliar to those outside the region. In the 1990s, the visibility of Cuban women writers on the island began to change, coinciding with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. This political, economic and ideological crisis was accompanied in Cuba with new ways of conceiving social and emotional bonds to grapple with new social and political realities.

In her new book Cuba: emociones y ficciones pol铆ticas: culturas emocionales en clave literaria, femenina y sexol贸gica dentro del Per铆odo Especial, translated in English as Cuba: emotions and political fictions: emotional cultures in a literary, feminine and sexological key within the Special Period, Laura S谩ndez, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Spanish, explores a new approach to narratives produced by Cuban women during this time. The book considers the nation鈥檚 broad range of emotional and cultural expectations and anxieties through the lenses of intimacy, femininity and the body, revealing the emergence of unique emotional sociabilities during the Special Period in Times of Peace (1992-2002).

鈥淸Cuba: emotions and political fictions] expands the notion of the intimate...to emphasize the relevance of studying dysphoric emotions in works of autofiction. Emotional cultures are presented within the context of this book as a more fluid way of understanding politics and its economies of emotion,鈥� says Dr. S谩ndez in the book.

鈥淪谩ndez is right in merging literary discourse with journalistic, political and cultural discourse through the investigation of emotional expressions showing an effective tool that will help us understand another way of seeing and feeling,鈥� says reviewer Cristina Asencio Serrano, from the Universidad de Alicante.

Dr. S谩ndez earned a doctorate in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages from The Graduate Center, City University of New York; a Master of Arts in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University; a Bachelor of Liberal Arts with an orientation in Media and Teaching from The Evergreen State College, and a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. S谩ndez鈥檚 research explores how massively altered social expectations relate to a shift in emotional experience.

About 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: Since its founding in 1842, 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has cultivated knowledge, understanding and intellectual courage for a purposeful life in a challenging and changing world. With more than 40 majors across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, it is the oldest and largest of 草榴社区鈥檚 colleges, serving more than 4,500 undergraduate and graduate students each year. The College is committed to a teacher-scholar model, offering outstanding undergraduate and graduate research opportunities and a rigorous core curriculum that prepares students to become critical thinkers, strong communicators and ethical leaders with a truly global perspective.