Founded In    2008
Published   semiannually
Language(s)   English, Spanish
     

Fields of Interest

 

interdisciplinary

     
ISSN   ISSN: 1867-1519
     
Affiliated Organization   American Studies section of the English Department at Bielefeld University, Germany; "International Association of Inter-American Studies" (http://www.interam ericanstudies.net)
     
Editorial Board

General Editor:
Prof. Wilfried Raussert, Bielefeld University, Germany

Assistant Editors:
Alethea R. Wait, Bielefeld University
Christina Seeliger, Bielefeld University

Editorial Board Members:
Prof. Mita Banerjee, University Siegen, Germany
Prof. William Boelhower, University of Padua, Italy
Prof. Maryemma Graham, University of Kansas, USA
Dr. Luz Angélica Kirschner, Bielefeld University, Germany
Prof. John Carlos Rowe, University of Southern California, USA
Prof. David Ryan, University College Cork, Ireland
jun. Prof. Sebastian Thies, Bielefeld University, Germany

Main contact editor: Matthias Oppermann [matthias.oppermann@uni-bielefeld.de]

Submission Guidelines and Editorial Policies

Before submitting an article to FIAR please send a one-page abstract to fiar [at] interamerica [dot] de
The editors invite the submission of articles, event-scenes, interviews and reviews, appropriate to FIAR. Generally, submissions should not exceed 7500 words. All papers and proposals should be send as e-mail attachments (in MS Word or similar format) to fiar [at] interamerica [dot] de with the word “submission” in the subject line.

Submission of a paper to FIAR will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work. Papers presented at conferences can, with appropriate changes, be considered for publication. All submissions will undergo a double-blind review process.
Further submission instructions can be found in the “Submission Guidelines” section on our website, http://interamerica.de

     
Mailing Address
     

Journal’s Contact Information:
E-mail: fiar [at] interamerica [dot] de
Phone: [+49] 521-106-3641 (European Standard Time)
Fax: [+49] 521-106-2996
Mail:
Forum for Inter-American Research
American Studies Program
Postfach 100131
D-33501 Bielefeld
Germany

FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research

The Forum for Inter-American Studies (FIAR) is the official electronic journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies. FIAR was established by the American Studies Program at Bielefeld University in 2008.

We foster a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Americas. FIAR is a peer-reviewed online journal. Articles in this journal undergo a double-blind review process and are published in English and Spanish. We do not charge readers or institutions for full text access. In addition to written work we also publish selected audiovisual material of conference presentations, keynotes, and video features. The editorial board consists of a broad range of international scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

 

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Tracing the Americas , Volume 3, Number 1

Salsa’s Puerto Rican Roots: The Diasporic Nexus of Santura


Video Recording of Shannon Dudley's Presentation at the International Conference "Cornbread and Cuchifritos": Ethnic Identity Politics, Transnationalization, and Transculturation in American Urban Popular Music," May 18 - 20, 2009, University of Bielefeld, Germany

The External Creation of Latino Others. Online Discussion Communities and Latino Cultural Citizenship in San Diego.


The present struggles for citizenship of the Latino Immigrants take place in a political and cultural environment, which in many ways is unlike the context of earlier manifestations. Even though only the Secure Fence act was signed into law, the HR 4437 bill is a clear indication of this unprecedented political environment (Henriksen 2007). This bill, titled 'the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Act', symbolizes the ideological marriage of two issues, which have traditionally been treated as separate: immigration and terrorism (Henriksen 2007).

'Post-Communism', Radicalism, and the Intellectual Left: a Comparative Approach


Abstract: This article investigates the consequences of the rupture of 1989 for the self-image of radical intellectuals and for their production of critical and emancipative theory. It focuses on North American and British perspectives. Hence it is not strictly speaking 'Inter-American' but it illuminates similarities, differences and interactions of American and European discourses and suggests a comparative approach to the history of political ideas. To this purpose, it analyses the relevant contributions in four periodicals which combine 'old-left' and 'new-left' elements. Two of these periodicals, New Left Review and Socialist Register, have their organisational bases - and, arguably, their implied readerships - in Britain and two, Dissent and Monthly Review, in the United States. Rather than looking into the reflections of individual theorists, this emphasis on journals aims at illuminating collective discussion processes with the aim of reformulating a radical intellectual perspective and politics. In particular, the focus is on the consequences for Marxism as a theory of social change and as a strategic project, on discussions about remaining systemic alternatives (whether called socialist or otherwise), and on how to organise and work for their realisation. The paper discusses two questions: did 1989 have different meanings for the intellectual left in Britain and the USA? In how far did these differences reflect distinct ideas of history, as well as specific interpretations of the character of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc and of their role in international politics?

Día dos de Dante Cerano: sexo, parentesco y video


La drástica reducción en el costo de los medios digitales y su consecuente accesibilidad han hecho de la imagen en movimiento una herramienta poderosamente expresiva y de proporciones inesperadas en las comunidades rurales indígenas de México que, si bien han sido radicalmente alteradas por la migración y las imponentes fuerzas de la globalización, todavía están inmersas en su propia cultura local. Las videocámaras de bajo costo, ligeras y fáciles de usar, han promovido un proceso de transformación en cuanto a la producción mediática indígena en México. En este ensayo me gustaría delinear brevemente los principios generales de este cuerpo emergente de obras y, luego, revisar con mayor detalle Día dos, un documental reciente de Dante Cerano, uno de los artistas mediáticos indígenas más destacados de México.

La exposición "Mapuche: Semillas de Chile" como embajada cultural": Aspectos de un discurso político-cultural chileno.


El punto de partida de este texto es la muestra "Mapuche: Semillas de Chile" que se realizó el año 2008 en el Museo Capital de Beijin, República Popular China. Esa muestra forma parte de una política cultural gubernamental de Chile dirigida hacia el exterior, inscrita como parte del programa "embajadas culturales". [1] Se inserta, a la vez, como componente del sistema de relaciones que se mantienen con China, las cuales, se articulan con un núcleo temático propio en el tratado de libre comercio. Las preguntas que acá se plantearán parten de esas nociones, o sea, considerando esta muestra como una acción gubernamental y del diálogo entre la cultura y estos ámbitos que están más allá de lo cultural. De ahí que se pretende saber qué se busca representar por parte del Estado chileno al enviar esa muestra a China. Se enfocarán "los sistemas de intermediación (brokering) en las políticas culturales" (García Canclini 1999, s.p.) con tal de dar cuenta de cómo surge cierta "imagen país" [2] que se crea a través de dicha muestra. ¿En qué sentido "Mapuche: Semillas de Chile" es "embajada cultural"? Se verá también qué tanto y de qué forma la muestra dialoga a nivel cultural con el tratado de libre comercio (comp. Yúdice 2008, p.261-337). Mientras se trabaja esas preguntas en el discurso que se encuentra en documentos de prensa y entrevistas, se tratará, a la vez, entender en qué consiste el tratado de libre comercio entre estos dos países y qué importancia, desde la perspectiva chilena, tiene. Con la idea de mostrar un fragmento de la ubicación de las preguntas, se resumirán brevemente algunas nociones de las políticas estatales dirigidas hacia el patrimonio.

Remembering the Future: Ethnic Memory in Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides


In my analysis of the narrative memory construction in Middlesex I will pay special attention to the ambivalence between a poststructuralist understanding of identity and an effort to embrace several generations of the Stephanides family by common (even if at times dissonant) memories. In a comparison of fictional strategies with the actual process of Greek assimilation in the American society, I will explore the dialectics of ethnic memory construction. By evolving around remembering and forgetting, contemporary novels re-evaluate the legacy of immigrant assimilationist practices, since forgetting "is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation" (Renan, 11). The degree of assimilation of various ethnic groups is not solely, but nevertheless considerably influenced precisely by the readiness of this particular group to forget certain parts of its cultural heritage. Partly, this can be said to be the result of the particular kind of American rhetoric, which understands the American state as an "identity in progress, not so much defined by the past as directed toward the future" (Bercovitch, 81). The American promise, the immigrants' the guiding light, valorizes the future at the cost of the past, thereby in a way bribing the individuals by the idea that past sorrows and mistakes can be healed. However, as Halbwachs argues, memory not only reconstructs the past. It also structures the present and the future, as every social idea reflects some element of the past (Halbwachs qtd. in Assmann, 42). Having arrived in the Promised Land, the immigrant groups, confronted with different paradigms of thought compared to those of their homeland, start renegotiating their own identity in order to find their own place in the new society. The reevaluation of the past which takes place in the process of identity narration is then influenced by the rhetoric of the new homeland.

Other Issues

Indigenous America - America Indígena, Volume 4, Number 2
, Volume 4, Number 1
Cine y Frontera - Cinema and the Border, Volume 3, Number 2
Ethnic Identity Politics, Transnationalization, and Transculturation in American Urban Popular Music, Volume 2, Number 2
Remembering and Forgetting: Memory in Images and Texts, 2
Identity Politics in the Americas and Beyond, 1