The University of Miami has long been an important center for the study of Cuba in the United States. Ties to the island date to the early period of the university’s history, researchers from far and wide flock to the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries, and we are strategically situated in the heart of the Cuban American community. Today, the university is home to wide-ranging faculty expertise on Cuba and its global diaspora across several departments, colleges, and schools.
As the only Cuban Studies program in a U.S. university to offer an academic degree—an undergraduate minor—our goal is to provide students an unparalleled opportunity to study Cuba in interdisciplinary perspective. Rather than promoting one point of view or approach, our courses are grounded in the core values of intellectual diversity, openness, and academic exchange. We empower students with the content knowledge, critical skills, and disciplinary tools to formulate their own research questions and evidence-based arguments about the island's past, present, and future. Our engagement with the history and contemporary life of the global Cuban diaspora—which constitutes an integral part of the Cuban nation—is equally important. And while Cuba is indeed an island (or archipelago, to be more exact), it has never been disconnected from the rest of the world. In this spirit, the structure of the academic minor requires students to situate their study of Cuba within wider comparative, transnational, regional, and/or thematic perspectives.
If you are interested in learning more about the Cuban Studies Program, please review the requirements of the undergraduate minor, available courses, and the list of faculty affiliates. You can also contact me at m.bustamante@miami.edu. Please also familiarize yourself with the Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC), a one-of-a-kind teaching and research resource at the University of Miami Libraries. Our undergraduate minor, in fact, offers students the possibility to complete an internship at the CHC for credit. Finally, if you are interested in associated program events (often in collaboration with the CHC), check out our events page or please sign up for our list-serv, Cuban Studies News and Events, at listserv.miami.edu.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Saludos,
Michael J. Bustamante, Ph.D.
Program Director
Associate Professor of History
Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies
