School reforms in the late 19th century, mirroring larger social, economic, and political changes in American society, account für the permanent lodging of science into the high school curriculum. Major changes in science courses, texts, and instruction occurred in these years. These changes then and since, however, were marked by ideological struggles among groups of reformers representing university academics, policy makers, and educators over why science knowledge and pedagogy reflected deeply embedded value conflicts in American democracy and over the purposes (...) of the high school in such a society. (shrink)

What happens now is that we (by which I mean the West) eradicate state sponsored terrorism. And we can achieve that only by replacing all political systems that perpetrate or collaborate with terrorism, by systems that respect human rights both domestically and internationally.

"The great value of the book lies in the manner in which May relates the expansionist urge to the "symbolic" differences emerging between the North and the South. The result is a balanced account that contributes to the efforts of historians to understand the causes of the Civil War."--Journal of American History "The most ambitious effort yet to relate the Caribbean question to the larger picture of southern economic and political anxieties, and to secession. The core of this superbly (...) documented book is a detailed description of expansionist ideology and activities during the 1850s."--Civil War History A path-breaking work when first published in 1973, The Southern Dream remains the standard work on attempts by the South to spread American slavery into the tropics--Cuba, Mexico, and Central America in particular--before the Civil War. Robert May shows that the South's expansionists had no more success than when they tried to extend slavery westward. As one after another of their plots failed, southern imperialists lost hope that their labor system might survive in the Union. Blaming northern Democrats and antislavery Republicans alike for their disappointed dreams, alienated southerners embraced secession as an alternative means to achieving the tropical slave empire that they craved. Had war not erupted at Fort Sumter, Confederates might have attempted to conquer the Caribbean basin. May's book serves as an important reminder that foreign policy cannot be divorced from the writing of American history, even in regard to seemingly domestic matters like the causes of the Civil War. Contending that America's Manifest Destiny became "sectionalized" in the 1850s, he explains why southerners considered Caribbean expansion so important and shows how southerners used their clout in Washington to initiate diplomatic schemes like the notorious Ostend Manifesto and presidential attempts to buy the slaveholding island of Cuba from Spain. He also describes southern filibustering plots against Latin American domains, such as the aborted designs on Mexico of the colorful Knights of the Golden Circle and the actual invasions of Central America by native Tennessean William Walker. Walker struck a major blow for the expansion of slavery when he legalized it during his occupation of Nicaragua. Most important, May relates how Caribbean plots affected American public opinion and ignited sectional friction in congressional debates. May argues that President-elect Abraham Lincoln might have saved the Union in the winter of 1860-61, had he agreed to last minute concessions facilitating slavery's future expansion towards the tropics. May's fascinating and often surprising account internationalized the causes of the Civil War. It should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the complex reasons why Americans came to blows with each other in 1861. This reprinting features a new preface by the author, which addresses the latest research on the Caribbean question. Robert E. May is professor of history at Purdue University. (shrink)

The Cuban Revolution in 1959 installed in the Caribbean island the ideology of the extreme left, the revolutionary government, the transition from populism to Marxism in broad sectors of Latin American intllectual youth. Such context produced the entry into the geopolitical and sociocultural scene of the boom era as a movement for the liberal emancipation of Latin America and postulated its protagonists as mobilizers and inspirers of the ideological conflict in the bosom of the Cold War. These are two (...) unpublished and critical realities due to their socio-historical particularity, because they produced the radical change in Marxist politics and the metamorphosis of the Latin writer. Under the Latin Americanist perspective and beyond regionalism, our analytical interpretation will focus on such a pragmatic duality, shedding more light on a hypothetical question: If the uprising in the South was the product of the Cuban Revolution or explicit opposition to the cultural project of Havana. (shrink)

As Louisiana and Cuba emerged from slavery in the late nineteenth century, each faced the question of what rights former slaves could claim. Degrees of Freedom compares and contrasts these two societies in which slavery was destroyed by war, and citizenship was redefined through social and political upheaval. Both Louisiana and Cuba were rich in sugar plantations that depended on an enslaved labor force. After abolition, on both sides of the Gulf of Mexico, ordinary people-cane cutters and cigar workers, (...) laundresses and labor organizers-forged alliances to protect and expand the freedoms they had won. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, Louisiana and Cuba diverged sharply in the meanings attributed to race and color in public life, and in the boundaries placed on citizenship. Louisiana had taken the path of disenfranchisement and state-mandated racial segregation; Cuba had enacted universal manhood suffrage and had seen the emergence of a transracial conception of the nation. What might explain these differences? Moving through the cane fields, small farms, and cities of Louisiana and Cuba, Rebecca Scott skillfully observes the people, places, legislation, and leadership that shaped how these societies adjusted to the abolition of slavery. The two distinctive worlds also come together, as Cuban exiles take refuge in New Orleans in the 1880s, and black soldiers from Louisiana garrison small towns in eastern Cuba during the 1899 U.S. military occupation. Crafting her narrative from the words and deeds of the actors themselves, Scott brings to life the historical drama of race and citizenship in postemancipation societies. (shrink)

Vida Guerra is a Cuban model from northern New Jersey. She made her name in hiphop videos and in "gentlemen's magazines" but quickly became in intermediate supermodel, with her own calendars, making-of-the-calendar DVDs, official website, fan websites, television show, and controversy over a "leaked" nude photo. . . . Vida's popularity has caused one writer to suggest "You may now move over J-Lo, and make way for Vida;" in short, tiene culo, to borrow the Spanish slang that adorns one (...) of her virally distributed Internet images. . . .this information about Guerra's body explains her popularity by raising additional questions. If the shape of her body makes her popular, what makes that shape popular? Specifically, what accounts for the shift in body fashions that raises the stock of female cults--"rumps with bumps"--at the expense of "stick figures"? And what further shift requires J-Lo to "make way for Vida"? These are questions specifically about the conditions that make Vida Guerra a public figure and that constitute her body as beautiful. (shrink)

This special issue of _boundary 2_ revisits the 1960s through a global and multidisciplinary lens. It treats the decade as a global historical event, comprising decolonization, liberation, revolution, and movements against various establishments. Engaging questions of history and temporality, this issue illustrates that continued exploration and consideration of the 1960s around the world are crucial to a critical engagement with the present. Contributors to this issue represent a wide range of disciplines, from Latin American studies and sociology to political theory (...) and literary criticism. They bring a global perspective to the social and political legacy of the 1960s, touching on the Caribbean, Latin America, the former USSR, China, and France, as well as the United States. One contributor presents a reexamination of Latin American armed struggles in the 1960s that foregrounds the relatively positive influence of these struggles on present-day Latin American society and politics. Another contributor translates a seminal essay on José Martí written by one of Cuba’s foremost intellectuals in the mid-1960s, when the course of the Cuban revolution was still uncertain. Yet another contributor considers the forces that have sought to neutralize the struggles and negate the gains of the African American liberation movement in the 1960s American South. _Contributors_. John Beverley, Anthony Bogues, Christopher Connery, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Wlad Godzich, Boris Kagarlitsky, Nina Power, Hortense Spillers, Silvia D. Spitta, Alberto Toscano. (shrink)

Dentro de la variedad de miradas que se han establecido en torno del 98 cubano desde la historiografía, se considera de suma importancia realizar un cuestionamiento histórico-filosófico sobre el conflicto, pero partiendo de la idea de la "guerra" como concepto complejo. En este escrito se busca teorizar sobre la guerra, con el fin de dar a conocer los postulados de José Martí al respecto, en relación con los debates suscitados en el marco de los neocolonialismos y el desarrollo del proceso (...) independentista de Cuba. Among the many views that has been established around Cuban 98 from the historiography, we consider of extreme importance to make a historical-philosophical questioning about the conflict, but starting from the idea of war as a complex concept. In this paper we theorize about war to show Jose Martí's postulates in this respect, particularly in relation to the debates raised around neocolonialism and Cuban independence process development. (shrink)

Apparently, Latinos are “taking over.” 1 With news that Latinos have become the largest minority group in the United States, the public airwaves are filled with concerned voices about the impact that a non-English dominant, Catholic, non-white, largely poor population will have on “American” identity. Aside from the hysteria, Latino identity poses some authentically new questions for the standard way in which minority identities are conceptualized. Are Latinos a race, an ethnicity, or some combination? What does it mean to have (...) hybridity as the foundation of an identity, as is the case for mestizos and most Latinos? The term “Latino” signifies people from an entire continent, sub-continent, and several large islands, with diverse racial, national, ethnic, religious, and linguistic aspects to their identity. Given all this internal diversity, is “Latino” a meaningful identity at all? Latino identity is, with few exceptions, a visible identity, for all its variability, and I will argue that unless we pay close attention to the way in which Latino identity operates as a visible identity in public, social spaces, our analyses of its social meanings and political effects will be compromised. In the following three chapters, I will address three issues that Latino identity raises, issues that have political ramifications but that also require us to think about the philosophical assumptions at work behind common ideas about race and ethnicity. First, what is the relationship between Latino identity and racial categories? Second, how do Latinos fit into, and challenge, the black/white binary thinking about race that has long dominated public discourse in the U.S.? And third, what does it mean to have a mixed identity, for Latinos or for other mixed race groups? Throughout, we will have to pay close attention to the especially significant heterogeneity of this particular population. Does such diversity threaten identity or does it reveal that identity has never presumed uniformity? Only recently has the concept of pan-Latino, or generic Hispanic, identity overtaken the older identity monikers of “Cuban,” “Mexican,” “Puerto Rican,” etc. in significant national discourses across the United States.. (shrink)

A co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, its newspaper, and hospitality houses, the writer Dorothy Day promoted public peace nationally and internationally as a journalist, an organizer of public protests, and a builder of associational communities. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s conceptions of the role of speech and action in creating the public realm, this paper focuses on several of Day’s most controversial public positions: her leadership of non-cooperation against Civil Defense drills intended to prepare New York City residents to survive (...) a nuclear war; her urging of Catholics to find common cause with the Cuban revolutionary government; and her support for interracial farming communities in the Southern United States. As Arendt asserts about Rahel Varnhagen’s salon in Berlin, by being public meeting spaces hosted in private houses, Catholic Worker communities fostered egalitarian rather than “agonal” politics. Like Gandhi’s newspapers and ashrams as well as “Occupy” communities such as Zuccotti Park, Day’s newspaper was a center for incubating and implementing social reform. The Catholic Worker provided a place where writers could question the official rhetoric of such conflicts as World War II and the Cold War, put forward different interpretations of unfolding events, and chart possible alternatives to establishment agendas. (shrink)

En el actual clima de acechantes cuestionamientos sobre la identidad regional, suelen tener recepción versiones cuando no ahistóricas o esencialistas, deterministas o simplistas que lo que hacen es reducir la noción arrinconándola en categorías que poco o nada aportan a la autocomprensión de nuestros pueblos. De modo que resulta pertinente volver sobre una mirada en que la identidad debe ser concebida como un fenómeno social complejo, conflictuado y relacional en constante reconstrucción. Nuestra América, en este sentido, sigue siendo un texto (...) fundamental porque no solo permite comprender la idea de nación moderna que propone el cubano, sino también el modo de construirla. Un proyecto sociocultural inconcluso y que lo será solo si acepta la diferencia como constructo base de nuestra heterogénea realidad. In the current climate of pressing questions about regional identity, there tends to be, if not ahistorical or essentialist versions, at least determinist or simplistic ones that only reduce the notion cornering it into categories that contribute little or nothing to the understanding of our peoples. Therefore, it is pertinent to turn our eyes toward a vision of identity that should be conceived as a complex, conflictive, and relational social phenomena in constant reconstruction. “Nuestra América”, in this sense, continues to be a fundamental text since it not only permits us to understand the idea of the modern nation proposed by the Cuban, but also the way in which it must be build. This is an inconclusive sociocultural project which will only be finished if difference is accepted as a basic building block of our heterogenous reality. (shrink)

This article provides a survey of Walker Percy's criticism of what Pope Benedict XVI calls “scientificity,” which entails a constriction of the dynamic interaction of faith and reason. The process can result in the diminishment of ethical considerations raised by science's impact on public policy. Beginning in the 1950s, Percy begins speculating about the negative influence of scientificity. The threat of a political regime using weapons of mass destruction is only one of several menacing developments. The desacrilization of human life (...) from cradle to grave leads Percy to assert that modern science's impact is often radically incoherent. In The Moviegoer, Percy finds his existential and theistic voice that would enable him to advance his critique of science. (shrink)

Jose Marti contributed greatly to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain with words as well as revolutionary action. Although he died before the formation of an independent republic, he has since been hailed as a heroic martyr inspiring Cuban republican traditions.

Many epistemologists endorse true-belief monism, the thesis that only true beliefs are of fundamental epistemic value. However, this view faces formidable counterexamples. In response to these challenges, we alter the letter, but not the spirit, of true-belief monism. We dub the resulting view “inquisitive truth monism”, which holds that only true answers to relevant questions are of fundamental epistemic value. Which questions are relevant is a function of an inquirer’s perspective, which is characterized by his/her interests, social role, and background (...) assumptions. Using examples of several different scientific practices, we argue that inquisitive truth monism outperforms true-belief monism. (shrink)

The sweeping changes that have taken place in the Eastern European countries and the former Soviet Union have detrimentally impacted an already weak Cuban economy. The establishment of the Special Period (1990-) embodies increasing austerity, especially in the inputs market. Recent economic liberalization policies in Cuba may lead to a more market-oriented economy, the lifting of the U. S. embargo, and commercial relations between the two countries. There is concern on the potential impact that resumption of trade may have (...) on the U. S. and Florida's agricultural economy. This study implies potential costs for the citrus, sugar, horticultural, and seafood industries in Florida, while potential Florida exports unveil trade opportunities of a large magnitude. Further research is needed to quantify potential benefits and costs. Of special importance is the fate of Cuba's recent program on low-input sustainable agriculture once large amounts of inputs become available. (shrink)

A review of Susan E. Babbit's book: Jose Marti, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Global Development Ethics: The Battle for Ideas.

In light of the problem of logical omniscience, some scholars have argued that belief is question-sensitive: agents don't simply believe propositions but rather believe answers to questions. Hoek (2022) has recently developed a version of this approach on which a belief state is a "web" of questions and answers. Here, we present several challenges to Hoek's question-sensitive account of belief. First, Hoek's account is prone to very similar logical omniscience problems as those he claims to address. Second, the (...) link between belief and action he proposes is too rigid. We close by sketching a generalization of the account that can meet these challenges. (shrink)

Se expone el resultado de una investigación sobre algunos aspectos de la vida y obra del médico y patriota cubano Diego Tamayo Figueredo, con el objetivo de revelar hechos trascendentales que definen su vocación médica, humanista e independentista. Para su elaboración se realizó una revisión documental sobre esta personalidad histórica. Results about some aspects of Diego Tamayo Figueredo's life and work, Cuban physician and patriot, were exposed; with the objective of revealing transcendental facts that define his medical, humanist and (...) independentist vocation. To elaborate this work a documental review about this historical personality was made. (shrink)

Las primeras imágenes cinematográficas rodadas por los estadounidenses en Cuba se remontan a la Guerra Hispano cubana norteamericana, anterior al surgimiento de Hollywood y su consolidación como industria del espectáculo. Los filmes producidos en esta etapa constituyen el preámbulo del denominado cine de propaganda política que, según el historiador Román Gubern, ha llegado hasta la actualidad y, sobre todo, develan el carácter manipulador que desde sus inicios ha tenido el lenguaje cinematográfico. Entre las décadas del `30 y `40 los filmes (...) realizados por Hollywood en la isla han proyectado una imagen exótica y estereotipada sobre la identidad cubana. No solo se ha desvirtuado nuestra memoria histórica, sino también nuestros valores identitarios, imagen que se ha extendido hasta el contexto actual.En la extensa historia del cine hollywoodense no son pocas las cintas que han abordado aspectos de nuestra historia. Independientemente de la calidad de la gran mayoría de estos filmes, no se puede minimizar su importancia en el obsesivo intento por construir una imagen creíble y veraz sobre Cuba. Aunque la gran mayoría de las cintas realizadas por cineastas estadounidenses sobre la isla se encuentran limitadas por el hecho de haberse rodado en espacios y locaciones de otras naciones con semejanzas geográficas y culturales con Cuba, dicha limitación no es sinónimo de pobreza artística. El objetivo fundamental de este ensayo radica en el análisis de la representación de la imagen e identidad de Cuba en la industria de Hollywood, a partir del estallido de la Guerra Hispano-cubana-norteamericana el 15 de febrero de 1898 hasta la administración del presidente Barack Obama, período histórico conocido como el Deshielo, porque ambas naciones decidieron restablecer relaciones diplomáticas interrumpidas en plena Guerra Fría, específicamente en 1961. (shrink)

Carlos Luna: Cuban Artist at the Crossroads is an essay appearing in the exhibition catalogue Pablo Picasso Ceramics, Carlos Luna Paintings for the exhibit of the same title installed at the Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale from October 2, 2008 through February 23, 2009.

Se exponen las prácticas docentes de las educadoras de párvulos, que cumplen una función reproductora del nacionalismo que es internalizado en las niñas y niños como la ciudadanía chilena. Para ello, configuran un escenario lúdico que ritualiza la conducta cívica y patriótica, por medio de conmemoraciones cívicas fundadas en el belicismo de la guerra del Pacífico, sin considerar la realidad cosmopolita y de diversidad cultural presente en las aulas nortinas. A partir de esto, proponemos una nueva perspectiva respecto de la (...) realización de actos cívicos en la educación parvularia, para hacerlos más inclusivos y acordes a la realidad cultural de la región de Tarapacá, la más multicultural de Chile. This paper describes the teaching practices of pre-school teachers who play a reproductive role of nationalism internalized in children as Chilean citizenships. This happens as the result of a ludic scenario that ritualizes civic and patriotic conduct, through civic commemorations based on the Pacific war, regardless both the cosmopolitan reality and cultural diversity present in classrooms in the Northern part of Chile. Considering this, we propose a new perspective on conducting civic events in early childhood education, to make them more inclusive and consistent with the cultural reality of the region of Tarapacá, Chile's most multicultural region. (shrink)

There are many different views on what role language plays in ethnic identification. This article is focused on the given issue based on the sample of the Cuban minority living in Slovakia. The topic is analyzed on a sample of Cubans living in the territory of Slovakia in a time frame ranging from 1 to 37 years as well as their descendants who come from mixed Slovak-Cuban families. In this article I am dealing with the impact of the (...) Spanish, Slovak, Hungarian, and English language. (shrink)

Walton's book is a study of several fallacies in informal logic. Focusing on question-answer dialogues, and committed to a pragmatic rather than a semantic approach, he attempts to generate criteria for evaluating good and bad questions and answers. The book contains a discussion of such well-recognized fallacies as many questions, black-or-white questions, loaded questions, circular arguments, question-begging assertions and epithets, ad hominem and tu quoque arguments, ignoratio elenchi, and replying to a question with a question. In (...) addition, Walton develops several artificial dialogue games and has an excellent discussion of burden of proof in nonlegal contexts. The discussion is for the most part nontechnical and does not presuppose any training in formal logic. It is illustrated with many (sometimes overlong) examples of fallacies drawn from real life--mostly debates in the Canadian House of Commons. . . . Walton's book breaks new ground on a number of issues. Choice This first full-length study of logical fallacies, errors, faults, illicit attacks, blunders, and other critical deficiencies in interrogation and reply has been written in the tradition of informal fallacies in logic. It is especially valuable, readable, and interesting because of the 139 case studies it presents, many of these case studies come from political debates and some from interviews, legal cross-examinations, and other sources. Walton uses these challenging examples of tricky, aggressive, argumentative, or fallacious questions to develop coherent and pragmatic guidelines for criticizing questionable questions (and in some cases their replies) on logical grounds. Among the types of problematic questions analyzed are: the traditional so-called fallacy of many questions, illustrated by the famous Have you stopped beating your wife?; black and white questions; terminologically loaded questions; and questions containing personal attacks. These and other types of problematic questions as well as evasive replies and replying to a question with a question are studied. Critical errors of reasoning are identified and analyzed by developing context-based, normative models of reasonable dialogue in which a questioner must have freedom to ask informative and probing questions, and the respondent must be constrained to give reasonably direct, not overly evasive answers. In this era of negative and evasive political campaigning, with candidates employing skillful tactics of manipulating public opinion to assure election rather than taking clear stands and seriously debating issues in an informed and sincere manner, Question-Reply Argumentation is especially relevant reading for those who take democracy seriously. The methods used reflect a significant shift from earlier semantically based theories to current pragmatic, dialogue-based models, and will be of interest to logicians and linguists. The volume's conclusions should challenge some current preconceptions. Recommended reading for courses in logic, speech communications, linguistics, philosophy of language, areas of political science relating to political discourse and debate, courses on questioning in cognitive psychology, and courses on critical thinking in education. (shrink)