September 12, 2014 - 6:00 PM
Read discussant Mario A. González-Corzo’s comments on the film’s resonance of the Special Period
As part of the Bildner Center’s Cuban Film Series focusing on the Special Period, this event features the screening of Fernando Pérez’s Suite Habana (2003), followed by a panel discussion. Raúl Rubio (John Jay College, CUNY), Mario A. González-Corzo (Lehman College, CUNY), and Julie Skurski (Graduate Center, CUNY) will focus their discussion of the film in relation to the Special Period. This event is curated by Professor Jerry Carlson (City College and Graduate Center, CUNY).
The film portrays the lives of 10 ordinary Habaneros in one day during the Special Period. It offers a rich framework for interpretation and analysis. At the same time, the film is a work of art — a visual symphony. NYT critic Neil Genzlinger describes it as “an elusive but intermittently beautiful tone poem on film.”
DISCUSSANTS:
Raúl Rubio (Ph.D., Tulane University) is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at John Jay College, CUNY. His research is grounded in the emerging interdisciplinary field of material culture, which examines a wide-range of artifacts, from cultural commodities to the museum archive. His latest book La Habana: cartografías culturales was published in 2013 by Aduana Vieja press of Spain.
Julie Skurski (Ph.D., University of Chicago) was appointed Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY in 2009. She is now at work on Civilizing Barbarism: Nationhood, Masculinity, and Mestizaje in Early Twentieth-Century Venezuela. She is conducting research on the relationship between secular and esoteric formations of national and collective identity, focusing on Freemasonry and popular religiosity in Venezuela and Cuba.
Mario A. González-Corzo (Ph.D., Rutgers University) is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at Lehman College, CUNY. His research interests and areas of specialization include Cuba’s post-Soviet economic developments, the role of remittances in the Cuban economy, and Cuba’s banking and agricultural sectors.
