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Finding Guantánamo: Freedom, Paradox, and Poetry

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Guantánamo and American Empire

Part of the book series: New Caribbean Studies ((NCARS))

Abstract

This introduction to Guantánamo and American Empire: The Humanities Respond underscores the power and possibilities of the humanities as tools for creating new narratives and cultivating political dialogue and awareness. Layering new historical research, readings of cultural texts, and ethnographic observations, it addresses multiple incarnations of Guantánamo: the prison, the U.S. naval base, the Cuban province, and broader configurations that replicate dynamics associated with the bay and the base. The authors bring together U.S. and Cuban perspectives, recalling their experiences in Guantánamo City, on the international border separating Cuba and the base, and inside its maximum-security detention facilities. They reveal the imprisonment of Muslim detainees as contiguous with a much longer history of imperialism in the region. Engaging artistic representations of social and political struggle as resources for the forging of new social meaning, the chapter makes connections between poetry’s ability to undermine the logic of empire and visions of freedom that cluster around Guantánamo Bay.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Don E. Walicek & Jessica Adams

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  1. Don E. Walicek
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  2. Jessica Adams
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Correspondence to Don E. Walicek .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Don E. Walicek

  2. University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Jessica Adams

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Walicek, D.E., Adams, J. (2017). Finding Guantánamo: Freedom, Paradox, and Poetry. In: Walicek, D.E., Adams, J. (eds) Guantánamo and American Empire. New Caribbean Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62268-2_1

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