UA’s Alabama-Cuba Conference to Explore Ties Between Two Cultures

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – About 10 Cuban photographers, economists, writers, scientists, poets and other professionals are scheduled to visit The University of Alabama campus to join with Latin American experts from UA and across the nation for the Alabama-Cuba Conference Nov. 17-20.

“The conference will give substance and add momentum to the developing relationships between the American and Cuban peoples,” said Dr. Lawrence Clayton, professor and chair of the history department at UA and chair of UA’s Cuba Committee.

In areas ranging from baseball to the mambo, and from drinking water standards to economic conditions, conference participants will exchange ideas about differences and similarities between the two cultures.

The conference begins in UA’s Bryant Conference Center on Monday, Nov. 17 at 6 p.m. with baseball experts discussing the strong Cuban connection to the so-called American Game. The keynote event, from noon until 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19, also in the Center, is a presentation on the Cuban mambo, its sound, its look and its place in the world, featuring Dr. Robert Farris Thompson, professor of art history at Yale University.

Conference registration and check-in begins Nov. 18 at 8:30 a.m. and will be available again at 5 p.m. and continue each day of the conference. Registration and many of the programs will be held in the Bryant Conference Center on the UA campus. The registration fee for all or part of Cuba Week is $25 per person and is non-refundable. UA faculty, staff, and students may register free but are encouraged to go through the registration procedure.

Each of the three optional luncheons is $15 per person.

For details on each of the 23 sessions and for on-line registration information, see the web site www.cuba.ua.edu or contact Clayton, in the College of Arts and Sciences, at 205/348-7103 or e-mail lclayton@bama.ua.edu.

Sessions will focus on a wide range of subjects including: Improving drinking water standards; the art of bookmaking; Cuba’s economics and politics; poetry; photography; economic connections between Alabama and Cuba; links between Mobile and Cuba; archaeology of South-Central Cuba; aging populations; health care; religion; science fiction; mental health; water resources; and biodiversity.

A Cuban film festival will be offered each night throughout the conference at 7 p.m. at the Ferguson Center, a photography exhibit from Cuban government archives will open Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. at Smith Hall and an exhibition of the work of a Havana printmaker and painter will be on display on the fifth floor of the Gorgas Library from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. throughout the conference.

The University of Alabama has a longstanding presence in international activities and is striving to become a regional and national center for Cuba-related research and study. UA’s Latin American Studies program was founded in 1967, and numerous faculty members have been working with their Cuban counterparts for several years.

In 2002 the University received an academic travel license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury which permits travel to Cuba for the purpose of educational development. Groups of UA administrators, faculty and students have traveled to Cuba over the past two years to begin building academic partnerships with educators in that country.

The second Alabama-Cuba conference is scheduled for March 2005 in Havana. The conference is made possible, in part, by the Cooper Cuba Initiative, which is partially funded by a gift from a member of The University of Alabama Board of Trustees. The Initiative allowed some UA faculty, staff and students to study, teach and conduct research in Cuba. Trustee Angus Cooper and his brother, David Cooper, of Mobile, have given $50,000 to kick off the program.

Initiatives ongoing between UA and Cuba include a program where nursing and medical students, medical residents, and students in the Rural Medical Scholars program will work with the University of Havana Medical School to observe their health care system. A host of other projects include engineering efforts within the area of water and the environment and preparations for providing English language training to Cuban engineers through UA’s English Language Institute.