About Alejandra Bronfman

Alejandra Bronfman is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Latin American, Caribbean & U.S. Latino Studies at SUNY, Albany.

Alejandra's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Alejandra:

Carolyn Birdsall, "Radiophilia" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

December 31, 2023

Radiophilia

Carolyn Birdsall

A century ago, the emergence of radio, along with organized systems of broadcasting, sparked a global fascination with the 'wonder' of sound transmiss…

Elena Schneider, "The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade and Slavery in the Atlantic World" (UNC Press, 2018)

December 27, 2023

The Occupation of Havana

Elena Schneider

Histories of the British occupation of Havana in 1762 have focused on imperial rivalries and the actions and decisions of European planters, colonial …

Marixa Lasso, "Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal" (Harvard UP, 2019)

December 26, 2023

Erased

Marixa Lasso

Many of our presumptions about the Panama Canal Zone are wrong; it was not carved out of uninhabited jungle, the creation of Lake Gatún did not flood …

Philip Nanton, "Riff: The Shake Keane Story" (Papillote Press, 2022)

December 14, 2022

Riff

Philip Nanton

Philip Nanton's new book Riff: The Shake Keane Story (Papillote Press, 2022) follows the life and work of Shake Keane, the peripatetic and creative po…

Diana McCaulay, "Daylight Come" (Peepal Tree Press, 2020)

May 24, 2022

Daylight Come

Diana McCaulay

It is 2084. Climate change has made life on the Caribbean island of Bajacu a gruelling trial. The sun is so hot that people must sleep in the day and …

Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, "The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico" (Duke UP, 2021)

April 27, 2022

The Lettered Barriada

Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo

In The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico (Duke UP, 2021), Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo tells the …

Yveline Alexis, "Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

April 11, 2022

Haiti Fights Back

Yveline Alexis

Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte (Rutgers University Press, 2021), by Yveline Alexis is the first US study of the politic…

Alison Donnell, "Creolized Sexualities: Undoing Heteronormativity in the Literary Imagination of the Anglo-Caribbean" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

March 30, 2022

Creolized Sexualities

Alison Donnell

By showing how a wide, and surprising, range of Caribbean writers have contributed to the crafting of a supple and inclusive erotic repertoire across …

Vincent Joos, "Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships: Housing, Memory, and Daily Life in Haiti" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

February 4, 2022

Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships

Vincent Joos

Vincent Joos' book Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships: Housing, Memory, and Daily Life in Haiti (Rutgers UP, 2021) explores the failed internationa…

Nicole C. Bourbonnais, "Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930–1970" (Cambridge UP, 2016)

November 19, 2021

Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean

Nicole C. Bourbonnais

Over the course of the twentieth century, campaigns to increase access to modern birth control methods spread across the globe and fundamentally alter…

Chelsea Stieber, "Haiti's Paper War: Post-Independence Writing, Civil War, and the Making of the Republic, 1804-1954" (NYU Press, 2020)

March 26, 2021

Haiti's Paper War

Chelsea Stieber

Picking up where most historians conclude, Chelsea Stieber explores the critical internal challenge to Haiti’s post-independence sovereignty: a civil …

Daniel B. Rood, "The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean" (Oxford UP, 2020)

February 16, 2021

The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery

Daniel B. Rood

The period of the "second slavery" was marked by geographic expansion of zones of slavery into the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil and chronological …

Daniel A. Rodriguez, "The Right to Live in Health: Medical Politics in Postindependence Havana" (UNC Press, 2020)

February 11, 2021

The Right to Live in Health

Daniel A. Rodríguez

Daniel A. Rodriguez's history of a newly independent Cuba shaking off the U.S. occupation, The Right to Live in Health: Medical Politics in Postindepe…

Laurie R. Lambert, "Comrade Sister: Caribbean Feminist Revisions of the Grenada Revolution" (U Virginia Press, 2020)

January 6, 2021

Comrade Sister

Laurie R. Lambert

My conversation with Laurie Lambert, author of Comrade Sister: Caribbean Feminist Revisions of the Grenada Revolution (University of Virginia Press, 2…

Sujatha Fernandes, "Cuban Hustle: Culture, Politics, Everyday Life" (Duke, UP 2020)

November 18, 2020

The Cuban Hustle

Sujatha Fernandes

Cuban resourcefulness is on full display in Cuban Hustle: Culture, Politics, Everyday Life (Duke UP, 2020), as sociologist Sujatha Fernandes presents …

Dylon Robbins, "Audible Geographies in Latin America: Sounds of Race and Place" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

October 14, 2020

Audible Geographies in Latin America

Dylon Robbins

What is the relationship between race, technology and sound? How can we access the ways that Latin Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries thou…

Brad Walters, "The Greening of Saint Lucia: Economic Development and Environmental Change in the West Indies" (UWI Press, 2019)

September 2, 2020

The Greening of Saint Lucia

Brad Walters

Saint Lucia’s rural landscape is more forested today than at any time in at least seventy-five years (probably much longer). This change is profoundly…

Aliyah Khan, "Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

July 13, 2020

Far From Mecca

Aliyah Khan

Muslims have lived in the Caribbean for centuries. Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean (Rutgers University Press, 2020) examines the arch…

Aaron Kamugisha, "Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition" (Indiana UP, 2019)

June 16, 2020

Beyond Coloniality

Aaron Kamugisha

Aaron Kamugisha reads CLR James and Sylvia Wynter to glean from them ways to navigate the “beyond” of coloniality. In his new book Beyond Coloniality:…

Manuel Barcia, "The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the 19th-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade" (Yale UP, 2020)

May 27, 2020

The Yellow Demon of Fever

Manuel Barcia

As we now know, epidemics and pandemics are not new phenomena. In her new book The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the 19th-Century Transat…

Roberto Strongman, "Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou" (Duke UP, 2019)

February 4, 2020

Queering Black Atlantic Religions

Roberto Strongman

In Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou (Duke University Press, 2019), Roberto Strongman reveals the…

Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, "Aerial Imagination in Cuba: Stories from Above the Rooftops" (Routledge, 2019)

January 9, 2020

Aerial Imagination in Cuba

Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier

In her new book Aerial Imagination in Cuba: Stories from Above the Rooftops (Routledge, 2019), Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier looks up at the sky, an…

Lennox Honychurch, "In the Forests of Freedom: The Fighting Maroons of Dominica" (UP of Mississippi, 2017)

December 12, 2019

In the Forests of Freedom

Lennox Honychurch

Maroons—enslaved Africans who escaped and formed autonomous communities—dominated Dominica’s hilly interior for centuries. Dominica’s unusual history …

Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres, "Black British Migrants in Cuba" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

October 9, 2019

Black British Migrants in Cuba

Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres

Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres' new book Black British Migrants in Cuba: Race, Labor, and Empire in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean, 1898–1948 (Cambridge…