The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas

Focusing on the didactic nature of the work of Reinaldo Arenas, this book demonstrates the Cuban writer’s influence as a public pedagogue, mentor, and social activist whose teachings on resistance to normative ideologies resonate in societies past, present, and future. Through a multidisciplinary approach bridging educational, historiographic, and literary perspectives, this book illuminates how Arenas’s work remains a cutting-edge source of inspiration for today’s audiences, particularly LGBTQI readers. It shows how Arenas’s aesthetics contain powerful insights for exploring dissensus, whether in the context of Cuba, broader Pan-American and Latinx-U.S. queer movements of social justice, or transnational citizenship politics. Carefully dissecting Arenas’s themes against the backdrop of his political activity, this book presents the writer’s poetry, novels, and plays as a curriculum of dissidence that provides models for socially engaged intellectual activism.