Description:

The Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program welcomes Michelle Chase, Bloomfield College.

Talk Description:
This talk will recover the surge of women’s activism that too place in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban revolutionary triumph of 1959. These women activists hailed from different political backgrounds, including the revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro and Cuba’s pre-revolutionary Communist Party. While often at odds with one another over ideology and geopolitics, these activists collectively pushed women’s issues – including gender equity – onto the revolutionary leadership’s horizon for the first time. This talk will thus challenge standard assumptions about women’s liberation from above in the Cuban revolution, showing that women themselves pushed for inclusion and redress.

Bio: Michelle Chase is the author of Revolution within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in Cuba, 1952-1962, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2015. She is an assistant professor of history and Latin American and Caribbean studies at Bloomfield College. Her research interests include revolution and counter-revolution, the Cold War, and gender studies.

The Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program Event Series - Cuba in from the Cold? Co-sponsored by the Buffett Institute for Global Studies.