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Doing Gender Lecture with Zaida Capote Cruz (Instituto de Literatura y Lingüística José Antonio Portuondo Valdor, La Habana) - in Spanish and English 

What have women done during the Cuban Revolution, and what has the Revolution done for Cuban women? This talk offers a historical overview of Cuban women’s struggle for their rights and the scope of their emancipation throughout the 20th century. Engaging with the work of several Cuban authors in film and literature, it explores key milestones achieved by Cuban feminists since the 1959 Revolution and traces the evolving place of women in Cuban society up to the present day, with all its ongoing uncertainties.

Zaida Capote Cruz (Havana, 1967) is a senior researcher at the José Antonio Portuondo Valdor Institute of Literature and Linguistics, where she coordinates the Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda Chair and leads a project on Cuban feminist journals between 1900 and 1958. She is also a member of the Cuban Academy of Language (Academia Cubana de la Lengua).

Her work focuses on Latin American narrative and essay writing, archival research and critical editions, as well as cultural analysis related to the history of feminism in Cuba and the representation of women.

She has published the books Vindictas. Cuentistas cubanas (2025), El ensayo y la crítica literarios de la diáspora cubana. Índice bibliográfico (2023), Estado crítico (2023), Tribulaciones de España en América. Tres episodios de historia y ficción (2021), Loynacianas (2017), La nación íntima (2007), Contra el silencio. Otra lectura de Dulce María Loynaz (2005), and Tres ensayos ajenos (1994).