Trip to Cuba

Emily Sessions, PhD Candidate, History of Art

CLAIS kindly supported my trip to Cuba from December 17 - 23, 2017. While in Havana, I was able to spend four full days at the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí, researching my dissertation chapter on Ramón de la Sagra’s Historia Física, Política y Natural de la Isla de Cuba as well as related, contemporaneous publications such as Rafael Rodriguez’s Atlas Cubano. I discovered a number of useful sources on these documents that will be of great use in my dissertation chapter.

I was also able to attend and present at the conference Natualistas europeos del siglo XIX en Cuba: La Ilustración Cientifica enlazando Arte y Ciencia, held at Funcación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y al Hombre on December 21, 2017. I presented on how the illustrations in Sagra’s Historia related to other botanical illustrations across the mid-nineteenth century Caribbean. It was a pleasure to be able to present my work to a fascinating group of fellow scholars, and the feedback I received on my presentation was extremely helpful in refining my thoughts. The other presenters at the conference have also significantly helped to shape the way that I am thinking about my dissertation chapter.