fernando ortiz and the advent of afrocuban studies, 1906-1957

266 Pages·2016·1.55 MB·English

by  Jeremy Leeds Cass

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University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
2004
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Jeremy Leeds Cass
University of Kentucky, [email protected]
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Cass, Jeremy Leeds, "FASHIONING AFROCUBA: FERNANDO ORTIZ AND THE ADVENT OF AFROCUBAN
STUDIES, 1906-1957" (2004). University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations. 375.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/375
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at UKnowledge. It has been
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ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
Jeremy Leeds Cass
The Graduate School
University of Kentucky
2004
FASHIONING AFROCUBA:
FERNANDO ORTIZ AND THE ADVENT
OF AFROCUBAN STUDIES, 1906-1957
_________________________________________
ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
_________________________________________
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
College of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Kentucky
By
Jeremy Leeds Cass
Lexington, Kentucky
Director: Dr. Enrico Mario Santí, William T. Bryan Professor of Hispanic Studies
Lexington, Kentucky
2004
Copyright © Jeremy Leeds Cass 2004
ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
FASHIONING AFROCUBA:
FERNANDO ORTIZ AND THE ADVENT
OF AFROCUBAN STUDIES, 1906-1957
This study attempts to organize the conglomerate of writing on Africans within
Republican Cuba. Starting with an examination of the scientific stages of such writing, we
will trace the assorted work of Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969), whose anthropological study of
Afrocuba produced myriad readings of the heritage. The multiplicity of renderings of
Cuba s Africans from the scientific arena including condemning, racially charged treatises
and spiritual conceptualizations of the richness of Cuba s African heritage generated an air
of inconstancy. Indeed, the contradictions generated by the discipline s scientific course
were incredibly polarized, representative of an ambiguity that became emblematic of
Afrocuban Studies. Regardless of such blatant ideological opposition, tracing Ortiz s
anthropological reading of the place of Cuba s Africans among the nation provides a telling
insight into the racialized circumstances surrounding Republican nation-building. Whether
scientific research scorned Cuba s Africans or applauded their inclusion in the national
imaginary, Ortiz s writing and his invitations to Cuba s younger scholars to partake of folk
study outlines a succinct treatment of Cuban nation-building between 1902 and 1959.
If scientific research on Afrocuba promulgated studies that both cherished and
demonized Cuba s Africanness, so too did Afrocuba s artistic invocations bear
contradiction. After the vogue of the African swept the 1920s Parisian art scene,
Africanized artistic currents infiltrated Cuba and mingled with its scientific counterpart. The
ensuing readings of Afrocuba, contradictory and complex, spurred both research-art
overlaps and the rejection of scientific tenets for a so-called artistically authentic
rendering of Afrocuba that is, a reading from the inside, from within Afrocuba. It is along
these lines that fiction writers (including Alejo Carpentier, Lydia Cabrera, and Rómulo
Lachatañeré) posted renderings of Afrocuba that partook of various degrees of science,
research, and artistic vogue. The resultant narrative system portrayed three different sorts of
Afrocuban literature; none of the writers aligned succinctly in their portrayal. Afrocuba s
poetic front was even more varied in its evocation of the nation, the academy, and popular
art. In this way, Nicolás Guillén, Ramón Guirao, Juan Marinello, and Emilio Ballagas
encapsulated unique poetic visions on two fronts: through offerings to Afrocuban poetics
and through essays on the Afrocuban poetic mode. We shall examine such pieces in the
hopes of understanding the balanced interplay that academic research and artistic invocation
absorbed in the nation-building process, in the fashioning of Afrocuba.
KEYWORDS: Fernando Ortiz, Afrocuban Studies, Afrocuban Literature, Cuban Literature,
Los negros brujos
________________________________
________________________________
FASHIONING AFROCUBA:
FERNANDO ORTIZ AND THE ADVENT
OF AFROCUBAN STUDIES, 1906-1957
By
Jeremy Leeds Cass
________________________________
Director of Dissertation
________________________________
Director of Graduate Studies
________________________________
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Name Date
DISSERTATION
Jeremy Leeds Cass
The Graduate School
University of Kentucky
2004
FASHIONING AFROCUBA:
FERNANDO ORTIZ AND THE ADVENT
OF AFROCUBAN STUDIES, 1906-1957
_________________________________________
DISSERTATION
_________________________________________
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
College of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Kentucky
By
Jeremy Leeds Cass
Lexington, Kentucky
Director: Dr. Enrico Mario Santí, William T. Bryan Professor of Hispanic Studies
Lexington, Kentucky
2004
Copyright © Jeremy Leeds Cass 2004
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