User:Stephen.m.fay

I am completing my PhD in Cuban cultural history at the University of Nottingham, UK. I study Cuba's two twentieth-century revolutions as 'rites of passage', arguing that articulations of national identity in both periods demonstrate traits that anthropologists ascribes to neophytes undergoing transcendental transitions in societies ruled by ritual. In this context, I trace the ideological contest between ambiguous, unsettled or 'liminal' interpretations of identity and alternative articulations that seek to overcome all liminal flux with a teleological pursuit of resolute and conclusive identity.

I have had links with Cuba since travelling there in 1993 to teach English at the Universidad Central de Las Villas. The early 1990s were 'special' times for Cuba, and made a lasting impression on a guileless 18-year old. I have returned many times since, working as an interpreter, translator and radio presenter.

As is to be expected, Wikipedia's Cuba pages are often sites of intense encyclopaedic affray. I hope to contribute with rigorously-researched and referenced objective information that nevertheless offers insight into the multiple interpretations of the contemporary Cuban condition.