El Monte's New Itineraries | An Evening with Alberto Sosa-Cabanas

Co-presented with the Institute for Cuban Studies at Florida International University and the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries. Furthermore, Martin Tsang and Beatriz Rivera-Barnes—both distinguished scholars and contributors to this edited volume—will be present at the event.

🎟 This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event! An RSVP grants general entry, but seating is not guaranteed, so please try and show up early. Please RSVP only if you intend to join us. Can't make the event?

El Monte's New Itineraries provides for the first time a book-length opportunity to reflect on the relationships between El Monte (1954), Lydia Cabrera´s magnum opus, and the complexities and potent dynamics of Afro-Caribbean agency. From a multidisciplinary lens, chapters from leading scholars in the academic field aim to elucidate the nuanced ways in which Cabrera's text is perceived today while carefully analyzing the varied voices and significant silences found within its pages.

El Monte's New Itineraries is the first book fully devoted to the study of Cuban author and ethnographer Lydia Cabrera’s El Monte (1954), one of the most influential books in Caribbean cultural history. Highly referenced, if understudied, El Monte is a comprehensive work that intertwines ethnobotany, popular orality, and Afro-Cuban traditions. Its pages have enjoyed a transnational influence, enriching domains such as ethnography, politics, theater, and even science fiction literature in the Caribbean, and the knowledge contained in it lies at the heart of Afrodiasporic spirituality and ethnomedicinal practices across Hispanic Caribbean cultures and beyond.

ALBERTO SOSA-CABANAS is an assistant professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages at Hampton University. His academic work on the intersections between racism and cultural production has received numerous awards and recognitions, including fellowship support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ), the Tinker Foundation, and the Cuban Research Institute (FIU). His essays can be found in the journals Revista Iberoamericana, Cuban Studies, and Decimonónica. He is the editor of the volume Reading Cuba, Discurso Literario y Geografía Transcultural (Valencia, Aduana Vieja, 2018).

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