Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• McClennen, Sophia A.

Titel

Inter-American studies or Imperial American studies?

Ist Teil von

• Comparative American studies, 2005-11, Vol.3 (4), p.393-413

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Journals Auto-Holdings Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• As inter-American studies gain greater academic visibility, we are now in a position to ask whether the field constitutes an imperial threat to Latin American literary and cultural study, or whether it provides a valuable basis for cross-cultural comparison. Do inter-American studies represent the latest variation on the Monroe Doctrine of policing the region? What do we make of the fact that inter-American studies blossoms just as Latin Americanism becomes increasingly more powerful in the academy? This article argues that while questions of empire and appropriation must be considered as we assess this burgeoning field of inquiry, an inter-American perspective also affords possibilities for studying cultural production. These possibilities include comparative studies of works that have been largely marginalized by scholars of the Americas, such as Brazilian and indigenous literatures. In addition, the inter-American approach is able to put pressure on nationalist and cultural essentialist epistemes by focusing on the ways that culture often transgresses borders, both geographic and identitarian.