Cuba and its futures

Fifty years after the triumph of the 1959 revolution, Cuba is at a crossroads. The future of the island has multiplied into a series of futures that while possible are also complicated. The debate around the models that the Cuban political elites might choose to escape the morass of an exhausted system - in both political and economic spheres - occupies academics from the most varied fields of specialisation and positions on the political spectrum.

The CCCB has brought together several eminent Cuban experts with a view to analysing the possibilities of political and economic transition, along with the subjects of change that would be most prominent therein, in the Cuba of the waning days of Castroism. Confronting the different socio-political models that could mark the future of the island is a risky exercise but it is also highly pertinent and, above all, a matter of urgency.

 

25 March

5.30 p.m.

Welcome and introduction by Josep Ramoneda, director of the CCCB, and Iván de la Nuez and Jorge Ferrer, directors of the debate.

6 p.m.

IS THERE A TRANSITION IN CUBA?

Participants:
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Professor of Economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Haroldo Dilla, urban sociologist and president of the "Cities and Borders" Multidisciplinary Studies Group, Dominican Republic.
Velia Cecilia Bobes, sociologist and lecturer in the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Mexico City.

Moderated by: Josep Ramoneda

7.30 p.m.

SUBJECTS OF CHANGE IN PRESENT-DAY CUBA

Participants:
Víctor Fowler, poet and essayist, resident in Havana and specialist in new audiovisual languages.
Alejandro de la Fuente, Associate Professor of History and Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Magaly Espinosa, expert in aesthetics, critic and curator of independent art shows in Havana.

Moderated by: Jorge Ferrer, writer of Cuban origins, now resident in Barcelona and author of the book Tristán de Jesús Medina. Retrato de apóstata con fondo canónico (Tristán de Jesús Medina. Portrait of an Apostate with Canonical Backdrop - Colibrí, Madrid, 2004).

26 March

6 p.m.

CUBA: TWO POSSIBLE FUTURES

Participants:
Julio César Guanche, essayist and lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Havana.
Rafael Rojas, essayist, lecturer and researcher at the Centre of Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City.

Moderated by: Iván de la Nuez, essayist of Cuban origins, resident in Barcelona and author of the book Fantasía roja (Red Fantasy - Ed. Debate, 2006).

7.30 p.m.

Final debate and conclusions
.