Cuban Economist and Historian to Speak at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Salvador Larrúa, a Cuban historian and economist, will speak on the anticipated transition in Cuba in the post-Fidel Castro period and recapturing the historical memory in Cuba, as a guest of The University of Alabama department of history, its Program in Latin American and Hispanic Studies and the Emeritus Committee on International Strategic Studies.

The talk will be in the Summersell Room (251) in ten Hoor Hall on the UA campus at 2 p.m., Friday, Feb. 3.

Larrúa worked as an economist for the Cuban government Central Planning Committee until he resigned in 1988. He joined the faculty of the Catholic Church Conference, where under its protection he wrote history and analysis with a distinctly critical voice. He is now living in Miami and recently was granted political asylum.

“Dr. Larrúa brings some special witness, since he was an economist for many years inside the Castro government,” said Dr. Lawrence Clayton, history department chair and interim director of the Program in Latin American and Hispanic Studies. “He is one of the foremost historians of religion in Cuba and continues an active scholarly agenda.”

UA and Cuba started building a relationship after the University received an academic travel license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2002, which permitted travel to Cuba for the purpose of educational development. An interdisciplinary group of UA deans, faculty and staff spent a week at the University of Havana in 2003 exploring opportunities to build educational partnerships with their counterparts there.

Larrúa will speak in Spanish with Clayton translating. The talk is free and open to the public.

The UA history department and Program in Latin American and Hispanic Studies are part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state. Students from the college have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the “USA Today” Academic All American Team.