Program History and News
Welcome to the Program News page. If you are a program alumni we ask you to visit the link below to update your contact information. We want to hear from you . Let us know what you are up to these days! --Profe.
http://www.cas.buffalo.edu/alumni/forms/contact-info.php
1996-1997 Academic Year
The first UB group in Cuba traveled to the island nation June 1-29, 1997. The program was created with the full support and guidance of the Vice Provost of International Education, Prof. Stephen Dunnett, and put together by Prof. José Buscaglia and Sandra Flash, Director of Study Abroad Programs. The group was composed of five students. Pictured, from left to right, Karina Aguilar, Eduardo Fontaine, Prof. Dunnett, Bill Gates, Robin Lehrberger, Prof. Buscaglia, and Michael Diebold.
1997-1998 Academic Year
In 1998 there were two consecutive one-month summer study abroad programs in Cuba. Here, a group of students from the second session of the program meets for class in Havana with Prof. Buscaglia and guest speaker Eugenio Rodriguez, one of Cuba's most promising young poets. The photograph was taken in the main cloister of the old Convent of Saint Clair of Assisi, home of the Academic Residence Convento de Santa Clara where all students were lodged during the duration of UB group programs in Cuba, from 1997 to 2007. UB professors Jorge Guitart and Dorothy Rissel accompanied the group and taught a class in the July session.
Students from the first session of the program relax after climbing to the top of the observation tower at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana.
On July 23, 1998 the University at Buffalo and the University of Havana established the first Scholarly Exchange and Collaboration Agreement between a US and a Cuban university since 1959. The agreement contemplated the establishment of a "Caribbean Research and Teaching Program.” The signatories (first row in the picture) were Kerry S. Grant, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UB, and Yolanda Wood Pujols, dean of Arts and Letter at UH. Behind them at the moment of the signing are, from left to right, professor José Buscaglia, director of Cuban and Caribbean Programs (UB), José Ramón Meléndez, from the Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Republic of Cuba, professor Henry L. Taylor, Jr., director of the Center for Urban Studies (UB), and professor José Antonio Baujín, vice dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters (UH).
1998-1999 Academic Year
Since 1998 the Faculty of Arts and Letters has been the academic host and partner of all UB programs in Cuba. This school is one of the oldest, most prestigious, and historically autonomous of the University of Havana.
On February 26, 1999 the Chief of the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C., Ambassador Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, visited Buffalo at the invitation of the program. In the picture, from left to right: Timothy Rutenber, Associate Vice Provost for International Relations and one of the founding members of the Masters in Caribbean Studies Program; Kerry S. Grant, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Ambassador Remirez de Estenoz; William Greiner, President of UB; Dagoberto Rodriguez, First Deputy Minister of the Cuban Interest Section and future Chief of the Section.
Picture of the 1999 Summer Program group during a visit to the San Luis Valley in Trinidad, also known as the Valle de los Ingenios or the Valley of the Sugarmills. On the left corner of the group are pictured UB President Bill Greiner, Mrs. Greiner, Timothy Rutenber, UB's Associate Vice Provost for International Education, and Orestes Gil Núñez. Mr. Gil Núñez was an instrumental figure in the development of all UB study tours in Cuba, providing all sorts of logistical support. On the right are Prof. Jose Buscaglia and Prof. Henry L. Taylor Jr. Professor Taylor was co-director of the summer program every year from 1999 until 2004 when new directives were enforced by the Bush White House that resulted in the cancellation of all programs in Cuba by US universities lasting less than 10 weeks.
2000-2001 Academic Year
Professor Buscaglia with the "Cuba, Down on the Ground" Summer Study Abroad Program at the Quinta de los Monos in Havana. As jointly developed by professors Buscaglia and Taylor UB's was the only program of any US university in Cuba to take students through the entire country, from the Cape Corrientes on the Yucatan Channel to Baracoa, Cuba's easternmost city. In addition it was the only program in Cuba committed to a the rigor of total cultural immersion. Contrasting with the tourist landscapes favored by other outfits, our students spent the entire semester residing in the heart of the San Isidro neighborhood, the oldest working class, black and mulatto neighborhood in Havana.
2001-2002 Academic Year
Seventeen UB professors traveled in a delegation headed by Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences, Charles Stinger, to meet their counterparts in Havana from January 12-18, 2002. Hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Letters and its dean, Rogelio Rodíguez Coronel, the event, known as the "Havana Workshop/Taller de La Habana," was structured around four major sessions intended to foster an in depth discussion on the human and symbolic geography of the Caribbean. The workshop laid the groundwork for the establishment of the first ever joint program between a US and a Cuban university: our own Masters in Caribbean Cultural Studies.
The Caribbean Studies program sponsored a retrospective exhibit of work by Cuban artist Elio Rodríguez at "El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera" in Buffalo, New York. The exhibit ran from May 3 to 31. Elio Rodríguez (left) poses next to the gallery's founder and director, professor Craig Centrie.
2002-2003 Academic Year
First group of Caribbean Studies masters students in their fall semester in Havana. This was the class known as "Los Pioneros" and here they are posing with renowned UH professor Ana Cairo Ballester, a key figure in the future academic success of the program. Pictured from left to right: Jacob Dyer-Spiegel, Nahún Lagos, Elizabeth Muñoz, Prof. Cairo Ballester, and Marisa López.
2003-2004 Academic Year
Participants in the 2004 Cuba summer program visiting a peasant family on the outskirts of Viñales, a town in Pinar del Río, Cuba's westernmost province. This was the last year of UB's summer study abroad program in Cuba. The summer program ran for eight consecutive years until new White House directives came to seriously curtail academic travel to Cuba and academic freedom in US institutions of higher education with programs in Cuba. Between 1997 and the summer of 2004 UB took 223 students to Cuba, a record number for a US university.
Members of the Class of 2005 of Caribbean Masters Students, known as "los bucaneros" (the Buccaneers) in the Caribbean Studies Seminar Room of the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Havana. From left to right: Miguel Torres Castro, Clorinda Andrade, Michelle Csonka, Marielle Mecca, Robin Smith, Rebecca Stevens, and Prof. Buscaglia.
Members of the Class of 2005 of Caribbean Masters Students in the Residencia Academica Convento de Santa Clara where all UB students stayed when in Havana.
Reception for the first class of graduating Caribbean Studies students. May 7, 2004
Class of 05 student, Michelle Csonka, reads a special message from Dr. Rogelio Rodríguez Coronel, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Havana. Dean Rodríguez Coronel was invited to Buffalo but denied an entry visa by the Bush Administration on the grounds of being an "agent" of the Cuban government. Next to her is Miguel Torres Castro, also a member of the Caribbean Studies class of 05, UB director of Study Abroad, Dr. Sandy Flash, and Charles Stinger, Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Prof. José Buscaglia hands out the Program Certificates to the graduating students. Next to him is Jacob Dyer-Spiegel, one of the four graduating students in the Class of 04.
2004-2005 Academic Year
Denisse Rondón-Gutiérrez, a member of the class of 2006, was the first Cuban national to participate in the program and the first and last Cuban student to be granted a visa to come spend the required semester of studies in Buffalo. At the time she was the curator of the Casa de las Americas art museum in Havana, Cuba, which houses the second largest art collection in Cuba and is one of the principal depositories of contemporary Latin American art in the world. Here she is shown enjoying a crisp February day in Buffalo.
Yaser Robles and Denisse Rondón Gutiérrez, members of the masters class of 2006, at the reception for 2005 graduates. On that occasion Denisse Rondón Gutiérrez read a special message from UH dean Rogelio Rodríguez Coronel who, for the second consecutive year was denied a visa to come to the graduation ceremony by the US Government.
Members of the masters class of 2005 receiving their program certificates from Prof. Buscaglia at the post graduation reception. From left to right: Miguel Torres Castro, Robin Smith, Clorinda Andrade, Marielle Mecca, and Rebecca Stevens.
2005-2006 Academic Year
Some of the masters and undergraduate students on the 12-day tour of Cuba at the beginning of the Fall semester of 2006. The picture was taken during a stop in La Farola highway which connects the cities of Guantanamo and Baracoa in Cuba's easternmost region. From left to right: Christopher Biondolillo, Kyle Mittlefehldt
(bottom row), Melissa Ventura, Denisse Rondón Gutiérrez, Reinier Pérez Hernández, and Sugey Palomares (top row). Both Denisse Rondon Gutierrez and Reinier Pérez Hernández are Cuban nationals participating in the masters program.
Map showing the major cities and sites covered in the study tour.
Clorinda Andrade '05 and Michelle Csonka '05 hold up one of many awards received by the documentary film "Entre Luz y Sol" written, narrated, produced and co-directed by Andrade as her final masters project. This was one of many awards received by this documentary that explores the social effects of tourism in the last years of Fidel Castro's reign over Cuba.
From left to right: Miguel Torres-Castro '05, Michelle Csonka '05, Melissa Ventura '07, Clorinda Andrade '05, and Prof. Buscaglia celebrate the awards given to Clorinda Andrade's film (and final masters project) "Entre Luz y Sol." The documentary film wan two major awards in the important Chicaluna Film Festival in New York City in July of 2006: Best Female Director and Best Documentary Film.
2006-2007 Academic Year
Participants in the Masters and in the undergraduate programs of the University at Buffalo in Cuba included 18 US and 2 Cuban students. This picture was taken in the Valle de Viñales, in the Province of Pinar del Río, during the 12-day tour of Cuba. Appearing with the studetns are Program Director Prof. José Buscaglia, and Cuban professors Dr. Margarita Mateo Palmer, Dr. Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Architect Zoila Cuadras Sola, and program coordinator in Cuba Magaly Hernández Valdivia. Also appearing in the picture are the travel coordinators for the Cubamar agency Orestes Gil Nuñez and Lázaro Díaz.
Group picture taken at the "Granjita Siboney" on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba where a group of young revolutionaries under the command of Fidel Castro Ruz gathered to receive their orders and sing the Cuban national anthem before launching an attach on the army barrack of the Cuartel Moncada in Santiago on July 25, 1953.
Three Caribbean Studies graduates were enrolled in doctoral programs during the academic year 06-07: Jacob Dyer-Spiegel '04 (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Marielle Mecca '05 (University at Buffalo), and Yaser Robles '06 (University of Albany). Jacob Dyer-Spiegel has also set up a website for discussions on language, literature, and culture in the English, Portuguese, and Spanish-speaking world. Visit it at: http://www.lenguamente.com
Class of 05 graduates Clorinda Andrade and Miguel Torres Castro are both teaching US and Puerto Rican history at Boricua College in Upper Manhattan. In the picture are Miguel Torres Castro and his fiancé Yesenia Zumba during a recent visit to Buffalo.
César A. Salgado, Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the The University of Texas at Austin was a guest of the program on Wednesday October 4, 2006. His lecture was entitled: Havana Joyce: Translating "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" into Revolutionary Cuba (1964).
On October 11 the program was honored to receive Prof. Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones, Emory L. Ford Chair of Spanish in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures in Princeton University. His lecture was entitled: Antonio Benítez Rojo: Exile and Shipwreck in "The Repeating Island." In the photograph Prof. Díaz-Quiñones is flanked by professors Jorge Guitart and José Buscaglia.
In December a UB delegation visited Havana to renew the longstanding agreements between the University at Buffalo and the University of Havana. Pictured from left to right: José Antonio Baujín, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (UH), Rogelio Rodríguez Coronel, former dean, and co-chair of the Joint Masters Studies Committee (UH); Cristina Díaz López, Vice Rector for International Relations (UH); John Wood, Associate Vice Provost for International Education (UB); Shaun Irlam, Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature; and David Johnson, Director of Graduate Studies in Comparative Literature. In the front row, from left to right: Milagros Martínez and Carmen Castillo, assistants to the Vice Rector for International Relations (UH); and José Buscaglia, co-chair of the Joint Masters Studies Committee (UB).
Silvia Alvarez Curbelo, Professor of Communications at the Universidad de Puerto Rico was a guest of the program in April. Her talk was entitled "The Seige as Metaphor: Urban and Cultural Cartographies of San Juan de Puerto Rico (1508-2008).
On July 15 the class of 2007 Masters students was honored at the graduation ceremony in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana. The graduating class was composed of one Cuban and three US students. Present in the ceremony were the rector of UH, Rubén Zardoya Loureda, and the president of UB John B. Simpson. This was a momentous occasion marking the first time in history where this hallowed hall, that has played such an important role in the history of the University of Havana and of the Republic of Cuba, was opened for a ceremony involving students, faculty, and functionaries of a US university. Pictured from left to right on the main stage of the Aula Magna: Sugey Palomares '07, Meghan Hern '07, Reinier Pérez Hernández '07, Prof. Jorge Guitart (UB), Prof. José Buscaglia (UB Director of Caribbean Studies), Prof. Stephen C. Dunnett (UB Viceprovost for International Education), Prof. José Antonio Baujín (UH Dean of Arts and Letters), Prof. Shaun Irlam (UB), Mrs. Simpson, Prof. John B. Simpson (UB President), Kyle Mittlefehldt '07, and Prof. Rogelio Rodríguez Coronel (UH Director of Caribbean Studies). Given US governmenty restrictions the Cuban student, Reinier Pérez Hernández, graduated from the program without being allowed to spend the required semester in Buffalo.
2007-2008 Academic Year
The group of graduate and undergraduate, Cuban and US students and professors who participated in the two-week study tour of Cuba in August of 2007 are pictured atop of San Juan Hill on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba, site of one of the major battles between the US and Cuban forces against the Spanish in the War of 1898. Pictured in the front center is Prof. Margarita Mateo Palmer, a member of the Masters Study Committee and a person who was instrumental in the founding and development of the program.
Members of three different classes of the Masters in Caribbean Cultural Studies Program pose together atop the northern wall of the Castle of San Pedro de la Roca del Morro overlooking the bay of Santiago the Cuba. From left to right are: Ariel Camejo '09, Reinier Pérez Hernández '07, Haydée Arango '08, Lilian Lombera '09, José Power (UB PhD student), and Megan Wallowak '09. Just like previous Cuban students and professors Haydée Arango was denied a visa to enter the United States for the required semester at UB.
Past and present members of the Caribbean Studies masters Committee (UB section) on the occasion of celebrating the 2007 Award for Outstanding Contributions to International Education given to professors José Buscaglia and Shaun Irlam. Buffalo, October 4, 2007. Pictured from left to right, David Johnson, Jorge Guitart, Wolfgang Wölck, José Buscaglia and Shaun Irlam.
Antonio Lopez, professor of English at George Washington University, was a guest of the program in November. His lecture was entitled "Cosa de blancos: Cuban American Whiteness and the Afro-Cuban Occupied House."
In March, the program hosted Carlos Bojorquez Urzaiz, Professor of Anthropology at the Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan. His lecture was entitled "Interculturalidades caribeñas de Cuba y Yucatan: Enfoque binacional de las historias."
2008-2009 Academic Year
The program is redesigned and relaunched to include a second semester in Merida and a third semester in Seville.
In November, Andrea Woods, a second year masters student spending her semester in Merida presented her work at the International Congress of Roots and Routes of the Afro-Caribbean Peoples. Her paper was entitled "Los palenques: la herencia histórica de la resistencia y sus manifestaciones a través de las artes afrocubanas (siglos XVIII-XXI)." (The Runaway Slave Settlements: The Historical Legacy of Resistance and Its Expression in Afro Cuban Arts from the 17th to the 21st centuries).
Prof. Henry L. Taylor Jr., who was co-director of the summer program in Cuba every year from 1999 until 2004, publishes Inside El Barrio a groundbreaking volume that charts the legacy of Fidel Castro through the unique lens of Cuban household life during El Período Especial (the Special Period). Taylor traverses the neighborhoods and residential developments of Havana between 1989 and 2006, the final and most complex period in the "Age of Castro’s Cuba" to uncover the hidden vibrancy of Cuba’s streets and citizens. In doing so, he acquires a deeper understanding of Cuban society by exploring what it means to live in a people-centered nation and the importance of neighborhoods in shaping everyday life and culture.
2009-2010 Academic Year
In the Fall semester of 2009 Dalia Antonia Muller (History Department) joins the program as Associate Director. She obtained her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California (Berkeley) in 2007. Her scholarly interests center on the Caribbean/circum-Caribbean region, with a special focus on Mexico and Cuba. She has done research in Mexico, Cuba, Spain and the United States. Prof. Muller will be teaching the Caribbean History and Culture course.