This collection examines Cuban cultural production during the Special Period of the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Contributors address the cultural forms; and the associated ethics and practices of labour, leisure, and bureaucratic organization that arose in the transformation of the socialist cultural infrastructure.

ARIANA HERNANDEZ-REGUANT is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

Writing the Special Period: An Introduction - Ariana Hernandez-Reguant PART I: FOREIGN COMMERCE Truths and Fictions: The Economics of Writing, 1994-1999 - Esther Whitfield Filmmaking with Foreigners - Cristina Venegas Spiritual Capital: Foreign Patronage and the Trafficking of Santería - Kevin M. Delgado PART II: PLURAL NATION Multicubanidad - Ariana Hernandez-Reguant Preemptive Nostalgia and La Batalla for Cuban Identity: Option Zero Theater - Laurie Frederik Meer Wandering in Russian - Jacqueline Loss The 'Letter of the Year' and the Prophetics of Revolution - Kenneth Routon PART III: TRANSNATIONAL PUBLICS El Rap Cubano: Can't Stop, Won't Stop the Movement! - Roberto Zurbano, Translated by Kate Levitt Audiovisual Remittances and Transnational Subjectivities - Lisa Maya Knauer Ending the Century with Memories . . . : Paper Money, Videos, and an X-Acto Knife for Cuban Art - Antonio Eligio Fernández, 'Tonel,' Translated by Kate Levitt