JUAN FLORES (Ph.D., German Studies, Yale University) is Professor of Latino Studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. For many years he has taught Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) and in the Sociology Program at CUNY Graduate Center. His interests include Puerto Rican and Latina/o culture, diaspora and transnational communities, and the sociology of popular culture. He is the author of Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity, Poetry in East Germany, The Insular Vision, La venganza de Cortijo, and From Bomba To Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity. He is the translator of Memoirs of Bernardo Vega and Cortijo's Wake by Edgardo Rodríguez Julià, and co-editor of On Edge: The Crisis of Latin American Culture. His current projects include: Companion to Latino Studies (co-edited with Renato Rosaldo), Boogaloo y otros guisos, and The Diaspora Strikes Back: Cultural Challenges of Transnational Communities.

SAMUEL FARBER was born and raised in Cuba and received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969. He has written numerous books and articles on Cuba including Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933-1960, and most recently, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2006. He is currently working on a book on Cuba since the 1959 Revolution for Haymarket Press. He is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY.)

READINGS