Of Souls, Skins, and Leopard Prints: Queer and Animal Creations of Cubanbeings

Abstract:In this article, organized as a tryptic, I trace the figure of the Human Cuban and its disarticulations across three canonical works from the island: Che Guevara's Hombre Nuevo, the "conversion" of Severo Sarduy's transgender protagonist in his 1973 novel Cobra, and Belkis Ayón's feminist recasting of Abakuá's mythic Sikán in her 1990 prints. In doing so, I bring a Latin American aesthetics into conversation with post-humanist theories. Notwithstanding Guevara's appeals to dialectical materialism, I underscore a metaphysics of soul and body in his articulation of a revolutionary subject and its organicist, naturalizing effects. However, I also attend to a latent artistry in his essay "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba." Guevara not only deploys literary figures, but also refers to "ropaje," "arcilla," and "una nueva técnica." Sarduy's novel and Ayón's prints allow us to further explore the creative potential of material artifice. As orfebre dérmicos, those who paint, cut, and engrave skin, Sarduy and Ayón produce bodies that transform and vibrate at the surface. As such, I explore how their aesthetic strategies defy dominant subject models. Guevara's allusions to techne, Sarduy's tattooed baroque figures, and Ayón's leopard pattern and fish scale prints invite us to imagine non-heteronormative and non-anthropocentric creations.