Afro-Cuban scholar to deliver Global Awareness Lecture Nov. 12 at SJU

Afro-Cuban scholar Tomás Fernández Robaina will deliver the second Global Awareness Lecture of the fall semester at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in room 170 (Founders Room), Quadrangle Building, Saint John's University.

The topic of his lecture is "The Complexity of the Struggle of African Descendants in Cuba Today." The event is free and open to the public.

Robaina is a professor at the University of Havana and a researcher at la Biblioteca Nacional in Havana. He has authored a number of books since 1968, focusing mostly on Afro-Cuban issues.

Robaina is also a renowned speaker and lecturer who has traveled across many countries to educate citizens and students on Afro-Cuban issues. Additionally, he is active in many social justice organizations that seek to alleviate racial tensions, and has been an activist for such policies for over three decades.

"I am working on a new critical project concerning African religious studies and their bibliographies in Cuba. I finished a proposal for a course on journalism and the publications by African descendants in Cuba. I teach workshops comparing blacks in Cuba to those in the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and other countries," said Robaina on the website AfroCubaWeb.

He is currently on a fall speaking tour of American colleges and universities that includes the University of Texas-Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan State University, Vanderbilt University, Rutgers University and UCLA.

The event is part of the Global Awareness Lecture Series, which is a program that brings in guest speakers who present on international relations topics. This program covers and explores multiple regions of the world, and the guest speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds, including academics, political activism, journalism and consulting.

The first Global Awareness Lecture of the fall semester was given by Alfredo López on "Afro-Indigenous Hondurans in Resistance" Oct. 13 at SJU.