Spring–Summer 2016
Friday 26 August
The Economy of Small Arts Organisations in London
UKS, Oslo
Tuesday 12 July 7–8:30pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Organised by East Kent Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Whitstable Labour Club
Saturday 18 June 3–5pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
‘A City Without Artists’ Symposium, Spike Island, Bristol
Tuesday 17 May 6:15–7:45pm
Cultural Policy in the UK and Cuba
University of Kent, Chatham Historic Dockyards
Autumn 2015
Saturday 28 November
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Latin America 2015, Congress House, London
Wednesday 25 November, 5pm
Exploring the Relationship Between Arts Engagement and Health
Queens University Belfast
Sunday 21 November, 2pm
Bird and Becket in San Francisco, 653 Chenery St, San Francisco, CA 94131
Friday 20 November, 6pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution* public event
California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Thursday 19 November, 7pm
Marxist School of Sacramento, Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th Street, Garden Room, Sacramento, CA (between Castro Way and 4th Ave.)
Wednesday 18 November, 7:30pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704
Wednesday 18 November, 3pm – 5pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Andrej Grubacic’s Anthropology and Social Change class
California Institute of Integral Studies 1453 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Monday 16 November, 6pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Peace Institute of Chico State University Chico State University, Chico, CA
Sunday 15 November, from 5pm with music from 7pm
Free public reception with Valeriana Quevedo and her band playing Jazz and Latin standards
Specs, 12 William Saroyan Place in North Beach across from Vesuvio and City Lights Bookstore and just south from Columbus and Broadway.
Sunday 15 November, 1:45-2:45pm
Perspectives on Cuba with Catherine Murphy
Howard Zinn Bookfair at the City College of San Francisco, MIssion Campus, 1125 Valencia Street.
Friday 13 November, 7:30pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution* with Catherine Murphy (film-maker, Maestra)
Eric Quezada space, 518 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Saturday 7 November, 5:30–7pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow as part of the Havana–Glasgow Film Festival
Friday 30 October
Exploring the Relationship Between Arts Engagement and Health (keynote)
Everyone An Artist? De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea
Wednesday 28 October, 6:30–8pm
Q&A with artist Florence Peake
SPACE, Mare Street, London
Saturday 24 October 5–6pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Anarchist Book Fair, Black Lab, Central Saint Martins, London N1
Friday 23 October 7–9pm
Art and Struggle in Latin America*
MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London
Thursday 22 October 6pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Senate House, London, room G3 (ground floor)
Wednesday 21 October 5–7pm
The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution*
Goldsmiths University of London, Stuart Hall Building LG01
* Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt’s new book, To Defend the Revolution Is to Defend Culture: The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Revolution, considers the centrality of the arts to the Cuban Revolution. This previously untold story introduces all the main protagonists to the debate and follows the polemical twists and turns that ensued in the volatile atmosphere of the 1960s and ’70s. The picture that emerges is of a struggle for dominance between Soviet-derived approaches and a uniquely Cuban response to the arts under socialism, based on the principles of Marxist humanism. As the latter tendency eventually won out, this book foregrounds emancipatory understandings of culture.
To Defend the Revolution Is to Defend Culture takes its title from a slogan — devised by Cuban artists and writers at a meeting held in October 1960 and adopted by the First National Congress of Writers and Artists the following August — which harnessed the work of creative intellectuals to the pursuit of social justice that inspired the Revolution. Departing from popular top-down conceptions of Cuban policy-formation, this book explores the contribution of Cuba’s artists and writers to the policy and praxis of the Revolution.
As the capitalist world struggles to articulate the value of the arts in anything other than economic terms, To Defend the Revolution Is to Defend Culture provides us with an entirely different way of thinking about culture and the policies underlying it. Join author Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt as she discusses approaches to culture which explores the relationship between art and ideology, engagement and autonomy, form and content.
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El libro nuevo por Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, Defender la Revolución es Defender la Cultura: Las políticas culturales de la revolución cubana, analiza la importancia de las artes en la revolución cubana. Esta historia, anteriormente desconocida, nos presenta los principales protagonistas de este debate y persigue los giros polémicos que han marcado la atmósfera volátil de los años Sesenta y Setenta en Cuba. El cuadro que emerge nos cuenta de una lucha por el dominio entre un enfoque derivado del estilo soviético y una respuesta propiamente cubana a la función de las artes en el socialismo, anclada en los principios de un marxismo humanista. Siguiendo la emergente hegemonía de la segunda tendencia, el libro se centra en una lectura emancipadora de la cultura.
El titulo mismo de la obra, Defender la Revolución es Defender la Cultura, nace de un eslogan ideado por artistas y escritores cubanos durante un encuentro del Octubre del 1960 y adoptado por parte del primer Congreso Nacional de Artistas y Escritores del siguiente Agosto, y que ha guiado el trabajo de los intelectuales creativos en el intento de conseguir una justicia social inspirada en la revolución. Alejándose de la concepción vertical típica de la formación política cubana, la obra analiza la contribución de los artistas y los escritores a las políticas y las praxis de la revolución.
Mientras el mundo capitalista lucha para articular el valor de la artes sin otra forma que la económica, Defender la Revolución es Defender la Cultura nos permite una manera complemente distinta de pensar la cultura y las políticas. Aproveche la ocasión para encontrar la autora Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt en una discusión sobre la cultura a partir de cuestiones como la relación entre arte y ideología, la implicación y la autonomía, la forma y el contenido.
shifty paradigms 