Cultural Thought and Arts’ Theory in Cuba Crossing Paths for Good Old Cultural Studies

Abstract

Although History of Art studies within academia, began in the late thirties of the Twentieth Century in Cuba, regretfully Arts’ Theory has been an underdeveloped discipline. For this paper, we use the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge in its historical perspective, as a tool for analyzing Jorge Mañach’s cultural thought. This was one of the most important Cuban intellectuals of his time, who wrote some of the most notorious essays of Cuban Literature. We analyze his cultural essays, and also, the cultural institutions, intellectual initiatives and networks that supported his theoretical ideas. Essentially, the early Cuban 20th century reproduced some of the colonial matrix of power but, surprisingly, the Mañach’s theories featured relative epistemic autonomy and, therefore, decolonial thinking features yet to be studied. Hence, we place the focus on the social conditions and cultural structures that might have enhanced Jorge Mañach’s cultural thought in order to prove its epistemic status within Cultural Studies.