The proposed topics 212 course will be “Foundational courses within a specific field of work”
with more analytical papers than a 100 level intro course.
Here is a sample of a course offered under the topics 312 number. Most of our 312
courses get their own number eventually; What these attached syllabi have in common
is that they are infrequent or experimental courses.
312 courses are usually:
i. Advanced thematic, more focused courses which require significant
coursework
ii. Discuss more in-depth boundaries of disciplinarity and debates in the field
iii. More intensive written work with research components
iv. Closer integration of monographs and specialized literature
Rutgers University-New Brunswick/Piscataway
Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies
Fall 2010
595: 312: 05
Tuesdays, 5-8 pm
LSH-B110
AFRICA IN THE SPANISH CARIBBEAN
Anne Eller
aee218@nyu.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays, 3:45-4:45
(LHCS, Lucy Stone Hall A-Wing, 2nd fl.)
SCOPE AND AIM OF THE COURSE:
This class explores the history of the African Diaspora in the Spanish Caribbean, from the beginning of
the slave trade to contemporary Caribbean society. The Spanish Caribbean is a somewhat unusual frame
for Diaspora studies: much of the history written on Spanish colonialism has tended to focus on major
questions of Conquest, economy, nation building, populism, and so on. Often, studies of Africadescended peoples and blackness have been erased or relegated to a minority within different national
narratives as a result. Conversely, studies of the African Diaspora itself have focused primarily on the
English-speaking Caribbean and the North Atlantic, often omitting the Spanish-speaking Caribbean
(among other geographical oversights). This class, therefore, attempts to explore the Diaspora frame
within the context of the histories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, from the colonial
period to the present.
In this course, we will explore the balance between the transnational aspects of Diaspora experience – the
commonalities of culture, colonialism, identity formation, and struggles across the three islands – and the
specificities of the lives of Africa-descended people on each, across time, region, and political
developments. Furthermore, we will read with a critical and comparative eye for commonalities and
divergences with literature from elsewhere in the Diaspora. Finally, as our reading enters the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century, Spanish Caribbean subjects encountered new definitions of
identity, a new system of racism, and expansions and limitations to “blackness” bound up in experiences
of colonialism by and migration to the United States. Throughout the course, we use primariy documents,
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historical texts, music, fiction, and film, in order to explore how the African Diaspora lives in the Spanish
Caribbean.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Reading
Almost all of the readings will be available online. There is one book that you are expected to
borrow/purchase:

A
da Ferrer. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution. 1868-1898. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1999.
8 response papers to reading
 (None for Intro/Midterm/Final; additionally, skip any 4 classes)
 Short (~ 1.5 - 2 pages, typed) reading response papers are due for any eight classes of your
choosing. They should be posted to SAKAI by 10 p.m. the Monday before class. Additionally, a
hard copy is due at the beginning of that class and no other time (i.e., plan well; you cannot turn
them in at the end of the semester).
The response papers should provide reasonable summaries of the work considered (please be
exceedingly careful to cite where appropriate), as well as your own analysis of the authors’
arguments, questions the reading has raised, quotations you think deserve class attention, areas
you think need further research, etc. (20%)
Proper MLA citation style can easily be found at this and other websites:
http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/hairston_awl/chapter4/custom1/deluxecontent.html
Midterm
There will be a midterm. The first part will ask for identifications, for which the student is to identify not
just the basic facts of the term presented but also its broader significance to themes of the course. There
will also be two long essays. (20%)
Final paper
Students will submit a fairly short final paper (8-10 pp) at the beginning of class on December 7. Papers
should tackle a subject of historical significance of the African Diaspora in the Spanish Caribbean by
evaluating, in depth, the works of at least three authors – and one primary source – on the subject.
Analysis of the authors’ arguments is key. You should develop your own thesis about the strengths and
weaknesses of the works you consider – based on your analysis of their arguments as well as from your
own perspectives stemming from the content of this course.
In our last class meeting, you will present a summary of your paper in class and be prepared to take
questions. Topics can answer the prompts provided in class (to be distributed October 26) or answer
another historical question entirely. A very brief (one paragraph and three sources) statement of topic is
expected in class on November 9. Late papers lose one full letter grade each day that they are late, and no
papers can be accepted after December 9. (20%)
Class Participation
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Please note attendance will be taken daily. Conversation and questions are a vital part of attending class.
Those who are particularly reluctant to speak up in class must also participate by emailing me a few
questions an hour or more prior to class time in order to receive attendance credit. (15%)
Final Exam
There will be a final exam. See midterm specifications. (25%)
Please take note of the LHCS grading policies: http://latcar.rutgers.edu/gradescale.html
All typed work should be submitted in 12 point Times or Times New Roman font; margins should be 1”
(left and right may be 1.25”). Please include page numbers, and please CITE all works you reference
(use MLA or Chicago format). When in doubt, cite again. (See University policy on plagiarism as well.)
***
*be aware there may be some small changes to the syllabus – they will be posted on SAKAI*
***
¡ Welcome!
PART I: ORIGINS OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC TO 1898
1. 9/7 Introduction and Theorizing the African Diaspora
 In-class reading/discussion:
o Ben Vinson. “African (Black) Diaspora History, Latin American History.” The Americas
63:1, The African Diaspora in the Colonial Andes (July 2006), 1-18.
o Faith Lois Smith. “Of Laughter and Kola Nuts; Or, What Does Africa have to do with the
African Diaspora?” In Judith A. Byfield et al., editors. Gendering the African Diaspora:
Women, Culture, and Historical Change in the Caribbean and the Nigerian Hinterland.
Bloomfield: Indiana U. Press, 2010, 21-37.
Further Reading
 Tiffany Ruby Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the
African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World,” African Studies Review, Vol. 43,
No. 1, (Apr., 2000), pp. 11-45.
2. 9/14 From West Africa to “Atlantic Creoles”
 “Africa,” in George Brandon, Santeria from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 9-31.
 “Connections to 1600” in Patrick Manning, The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture.
NY: Columbia University Press, 2009, 35-91.
 Ira Berlin. “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American
Society in Mainland North America.” WMQ53:2 (Apr. 1996), 251-288.
Further Reading
 Jane Landers. Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2010.
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




Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800. 2 ed.,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Joseph Eyitemi Inikori. "Slavery in Africa and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade," in Alusine Jalloh
and Stephen E. Maizlish (eds.), The African Diaspora (1996).
Akinwumi Ogundiran, Toyin Falola. Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora.
Bloomington: Indiana U., 2007.
Philip Morgan, “The Cultural Implications of the Atlantic Slave Trade: African regional origins,
American Destinations, & New World Developments,” Slavery & Abolition 1997 18(1):122-145.
Paul E. Lovejoy. “The Context of Enslavement in West Africa: Ahmad Baba and the Ethics of
Slavery.” In Jane Landers and Barry Robinson, eds. Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in
Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.
3. 9/21 Experiences of Slavery in the Spanish Caribbean
 David Wheat, “The Afro-Portuguese Maritime World and the Foundations of Spanish Caribbean
Society.” Ph.D. Diss.,Vanderbilt, 2009, pp. excerpts.
 Luz Mena. "What Isabel Did Not Say: Mistresses and Domestic Female Slaves in NineteenthCentury Havana." CLAHR 15:3 (Summer 2006), 283-309.
 María Elena Díaz, “To Live as a Pueblo: A Contentious Endeavor, El Cobre, Cuba, 1670s1790s,” and Leo J. Garofalo , “Afro-Iberian Subjects: Petitioning the Crown at Home, Serving the
Crown Abroad, 1590s-1630s.” In Kathryn Joy McKnight, Leo J. Garofalo, eds., Afro-Latino
voices: narratives from the early modern Ibero-Atlantic world, 1550-1812. Indianapolis: Hackett,
2009, 52-63 and 126-141.
Further Reading
 Stephanie Smallwood. Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora.
 David M. Stark, "A New Look at the African Slave Trade in Puerto Rico Through the Use of
Parish Registers: 1660-1815" Slavery and Abolition 30: 4 (Dec. 2009), 491-520.
 Stephanie Smallwood, Review of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, in William and Mary
Quarterly 58 (2001).
 Gwendolyn Midlo-Hall, Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links.
Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005.
 David M. Stark. “Rescued from their Invisibility: The Afro-Puerto Ricans of the Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century San Mateo de Cangrejos, Puerto Rico.” The Americas 63:4 (April 2007),
551-586.
4. 9/28 Afro-Caribbean Cultures and Art in the Atlantic World



Michael Gomez. “African Identity and Slavery in the Americas.” Radical History Review. 75
(1999), pp. 111-120.
Roberto Nodal and Miguel ‘Willie’ Ramos. “Let the Power Flow: Ebó as a Healing Mechanism
in Lukumí Orisha Worship.” In Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, ed., Fragments of Bone: Neo-African
Religions in a New World. University of Illinois, 2005, 167-186.
“Black Saints Go Marching In,” Robert Farris Thomson. Flash of the Spirit. 1984.
Further Reading
 Michael Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1998.
 William Bascom. Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from Africa to the New World.
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










Miguel Barnet. “La Regla de Ocha: The Religious System of Santería.” In Margarite FernándezOlmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santería, Obeah, and the
Caribbean. New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1997, 79-100.
Ennis B. Edmonds and Michelle A. Gonzalez. Caribbean Religious History: An Introduction.
Abakuá: Ivor Miller Voice of the Leopard ; David Brown The Light Inside
Stephan Palmié
Warner-Lewis, Maureen. Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures.
Kingston: University of West Indies Press, 2003.
Robert Farris Thomson. The four moments of the sun: Kongo art in two worlds.
Falola, Toyin and Childs, Matt D., eds. The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004,
Sharla Fett, Working Cures: Healing Health and Power on Southern Slave Plantations.
Judith Carney. In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World.
Berkeley: UCAL, 2009.
John Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” American Historical Review, 96
(1991): 1101-1113.
Nathanial Samuel Murrell. Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to Their Historical,
Cultural, and Sacred Traditions. Philadelphia: Temple, 2010.
5. 10/5 The Caribbean life of the Haitian Revolution
 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event,” in
Silencing the Past, pp. 70-107.
 Matt Childs, “A Black French General Arrived to Conquer the Island.” In David Geggus, ed. The
Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2001, pp. 135151.
 Laurent Dubois, “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Rethinking the Intellectual History of the French
Atlantic.” Social History 31:1 (2006), 1-14.
Further reading
 Johnson, Paul C. "Vodou Purchase: The Louisiana Purchase in a Caribbean Perspective." In
Richard Callahan, ed., New Territories, New Perspectives: The Religious Impact of the
Louisiana Purchase, U. of Missouri Press, 2008, 146-167.
 Doris L. Gallaway, ed. Tree of Liberty: Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the
Atlantic World. UVA, 2008.
 Laurent Dubois. Avengers of the New World. Cambridge: Belknap, 2005.
 Laurent Dubois. Colony of Citizens. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006.
 Carolyn Fick The Making of Haiti. Knoxville: U. of Tennessee Press, 1990.
 José Morales, The Hispaniola Diaspora, 1791-1850. PhD Diss. U of Connecticut, 1986.
 Matt Childs. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery.
Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006.
 …and so on.
6. 10/12 Emancipation Struggles in the Spanish Caribbean

A
da Ferrer. Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution. 1868-1898. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1999. [Most of book – prepare accordingly. Chapters TBA.]
Further Reading
5





Jorge Luis Chinea. Race and Labor in the Hispanic Caribbean: The West Indian Worker
Experience in Puerto Rico, 1800-1850 (2005)
Michele Reid – “Protesting Service: Free Black Reponses to Cuba’s Reestablished Militia of
color, 1854-1865.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 5:2 (2004).
Rebecca J. Scott, "Reclaiming Gregoria's Mule: The Meanings of Freedom in the Arimao and
Caunao Valleys, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1880–1899," Past and Present 170 (February 2001): 181–
217.
Luis A. Figueroa. Sugar, Slavery and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico. Chapel Hill:
UNC Press, 2005.
John L. Tone. War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-8. Chapel Hill: UNC, 2006.
7. 10/19 Liberalism, Scientific Racism, and Afro-Caribbean identities in the construction of the
Modern State
 “Introduction,” Aline Helg, Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 18861912. Chapel Hill: UNC, 1995, pp. 1-21.
 “Respectable Ponce,” Eileen Findlay, Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in
Puerto Rico, 1870-1920. Durham: Duke U. Press, 1999, pp. 18-51.
 Alejandra Bronfman. “En Plena Libertad y Democracia: Negros Brujos and the Social Question,
1904-1919.” Hispanic American Historical Review, 82: 3, Slavery and Race in Latin America
(Aug., 2002), pp. 549-587.
Further Reading
 Ada Ferrer, “Rustic Men, Civilized Nation: Race, Culture, and Contention on the Eve of Cuban
Independence,” HAHR 78(4)(Nov. 1998).
 Miller, Marilyn Grace. Rise and Fall of the Cosmic Race: The Cult of Mestizaje in Latin America.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
 Chasteen, John C. and Castro-Klarén, Sara, eds. Beyond Imagined Communities: Reading and
Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-century Latin America. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson
Center Press, 2003.
 Richard Graham, ed. The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940. Austin: U. of Texas, 1990.
 Fraginals et al. Between Slavery and Free Labor. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1985.
 Ajejandra Bronfman, Measures of Equality: Social Science, Citizenship, and Race in Cuba, 19021940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
 Teresita Martínez-Vergne, Nation and Citizen in the Dominican Republic, 1880-1916. Chapel
Hill: UNC, 2005.
8. 10/26 MIDTERM
*Paper prompts to be distributed*
PART II: 1898 TO PRESENT
9. 11/2 From Havana (and Santurce) to Harlem
(Film – Chano Pozo)


Luis Palés Matos, “Tun tun de pasa y griferia” (1937), selections
Robin Moore, Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 19201940. Pittsburgh: U. of Pittsburgh Press, 1997, 13-61.
6

Frank Andre Guridy. Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World of
Empire and Jim Crow. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2010, pp. 107-194.
Further reading
 Laura Briggs. Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico.
Berkeley: UCAL, 2002.

Lisa
Brock and Digna Castañeda Fuertes, eds., Between Race And Empire : African-Americans And
Cubans Before The Cuban Revolution. Philadelphia: Temple, 1998.
 Paul Austerlitz. “The Jazz Tinge in Dominican Music: A Black Atlantic Perspective.” Black
Music Research Journal 18:1/2(1998), 1-19.

Mary
Lou Emery. Modernism, the visual, and Caribbean literature. Cambridge, 2007.
 Jessica Adams, Michael P. Bibler, and Cécile Accilien (Eds.), Just Below South: Intercultural
Performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. South. Charlottesville: UVA Press, 2007.
10. 11/9 Trujillo, antihaitianismo, and the crisis of modernity
*Final Paper topics due*


“San Zenón and the Making of Ciudad Trujillo” and “Black Men in Uniform,” in Robin Derby,
The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination of the Era of Trujillo. Durham:
Duke U. Press, 2009, 66-108, 194-203.
Richard Lee Turits, “A World Destroyed, A Nation Imposed: The 1937 Haitian Massacre in the
Dominican Republic.” Hispanic American Historical Review 82:3 (2002), 589-635.
Further reading
 Edwidge Danticat The Farming of the Bones. New York: Penguin, 1999.
 Lauren Derby. “Haitians, Magic, and Money: Raza and Society in the Haitian-Dominican
Borderlands, 1900-1937,” Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 36:3: 488-526.
11. 11/16 The Cuban Revolution and Performing Afrocubanidad, 1959-1980s
GUEST SPEAKER: DANIS PEREZ




“Tengo,” Nicholas Guillen
Excerpt- Oscar Lewis, Four Women: Living the Revolution: An Oral History of Contemporary
Cuba.
Robin Moore Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. Berkeley: U. of
California Press, 2006, pp. 7-134.
Rogelio Martínez Furé. “An imaginary dialogue on folklore.” In Pedro Pérez Sarduy and Jean
Stubbs, eds, AfroCuba. New York: Ocean Press, 1993, 109-116.
Further reading
 Deidre Brill. “Escuela cubana: Dance Education and Performance in Revolutionary Cuba.” Ph.D.
Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2007.
 David F. Garcia. Arsenio Rodriguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music.
Philadelphia: Temple, 2006.
12. 11/23 Caribbean [E]migration and Diaspora
7
(“Dame la Mano,” 2004)


Ginetta Candelario, Black Behind the Ears. Durham: Duke, 2007, excerpts.
Cristina Sánchez Carretero. “Santos y Misterios as Channels of Communication in the Diaspora:
Dominican Religious Practices Abroad.” Journal of American Folklore 118:469 (2005), 308326.
Further reading
 Richard M. Shain. "The Re(public) of Salsa: Afro-Cuban Music in Fin-De-Siècle Dakar." Africa:
The Journal of the International African Institute, Volume 79, Number 2, 2009, pp. 186-206.
 Berta Jottar. “The Acoustic Body: Rumba Guarapachanguera and Abakuá Sociality in Central
Park.” Spring/Summer 2009, 30:1 Latin American Music Review.
 Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, A Tale of Two Cities. Princeton 2010.
 Achy Obejas. Memory Mambo. San Francisco: Cleis, 1996.
 Piri Thomas. Down These Mean Streets.
 Lisa Maya Knauer. The Politics of Afrocuban Cultural Expression in New York City.
13. 11/30 Racism, Blackness, and Social Justice in the Contemporary Spanish Caribbean
GUEST SPEAKER: YESENIA FERNANDEZ-SELIER



“The Special Period,” in Alejandro de la Fuente, A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics
in Twentieth Century Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001, 317-334.
Raquel Z. Rivera, “Policing Morality, Mano Dura Style” and Deborah Pacini Hernández,
“Dominicans in the Mix,” in Rivera et al., eds., Reggaetón. Durham: Duke U. Press, 2009, 111164. (Optional: Geoff Baker, “The Politics of Dancing,”165-199.)
Professor Nascimiento’s Open Letter to Raúl Castro, 10/30/2009.
Further reading/viewing
 Samuel Fure Davis. “Reggae in Cuba and the Hispanic Caribbean: fluctuations and
representations of identities” Black Music Research Journal, Spring 2009.
 Marc Perry. “Los raperos: Rap, Race, and Social Transformation in Contemporary Cuba” PhD
Diss., UT Austin, 2004.
 Vincenzo Perna. Timba: The Sound of Cuban Crisis. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishers, 2005.
 Samuel Martínez. “Not a Cockfight: Rethinking Haitian-Dominican Relations.” Latin American
Perspectives 30.3 (2003), 80-101.
 Human Rights Watch Report: “Illegal People: Haitians and Dominico-Haitians in the Dominican
Republic” (2002).
 “The Price of Sugar” (Paul Newman) 2008 (no DVD release date yet; in litigation)
14. 12/7 Conclusion and Paper Presentations
*Final papers due at the beginning of class**No response papers accepted after this date**Presentation of
your paper is an important part of your grade*
READING (optional):
 Silvio Torres-Saillant. “The Tribulations of Blackness: Stages in Dominican Racial
Identity” Latin American Perspectives 25:3 (May 1998), 126-146.
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Selected Web Resources:
http://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/
http://www.vocero.com/
www.dominicantoday.com
www.repeatingislands.com
http://afrocubaweb.com/
http://oyuoro-afrocuban.com/
http://homepage.mac.com/drmaryann/AfroCuban.html
http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/ecclesiasticalsources/home
http://www.slavevoyages.org/
Journals
Databases: JSTOR, Project Muse
Slavery and Abolition http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/0144039x.asp
Radical History 103 (Special Edition, “Reconceptualizations of the African Diaspora,” 2009)
9