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Submission of a paper to FIAR will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work.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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Identity Politics in the Americas and Beyond, 1

Inaugural Issue

A Borderland Consciousness: Una conciencia de mujer in Borderlands/La frontera

By ANA CRUZ GARCÍA

The Link and the Chain: The Individual and Communal Self in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee

By STEPHEN JOYCE
Over the past 15 years, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee has gone from relative obscurity to become one of the most discussed works in Asian American literature. Published in 1982, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's only full-length book utilises a wide variety of experimental techniques in order to break down traditional narrative models and liberate the individual subject from oppressive master narratives. In this paper, I would like to examine how Dictee undermines metanarratives that clump disparate individuals together into a "nation," and then address the use of Dictee itself in the service of Asian American cultural politics. Because of the complexity of the work, I will first offer a short summary of it and then my own interpretation, which stems from reading Dictee as a work heavily influenced by visual art and thus more amenable to a visual arts approach than traditional literary criticism. One of the difficulties with understanding Dictee is its anti-narrative organisation, which I hope to illustrate by analysing important cultural nationalist readings of Dictee to show how its experimental techniques work in practice to frustrate narrative desires.

Unsettling New York Settlement from the Inside: Maeve Brennan, the Long-Winded Lady, and the Urban Dream of the New Yorker

By MADELEINE LYES

The Monstrous-Masculine: Adolescence, Abjection, and the Screen Male in Denys Arcand's Les Invasions barbares (2003) and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores perros (2000)

By SARAH-MAY O'SULLIVAN
In her 1993 book, The Monstrous Feminine - Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis, Barbara Creed heavily relies on Julia Kristeva's theories of abjection in her detailed study of femininity and the female body in horror cinema (Creed 1993, Kristeva 1982). The term "monstrous-masculine" is one that is therefore derived from Creed's thorough analysis of the "Monstrous-Feminine" (Creed 1993), but refers to the opposite, that is the interpretation of masculinity and the screened male body. The monstrous-masculine then forms the background for an investigation into the connections between monstrosity and masculinity as is traceable in contemporary cinema. This article will discuss the physical, psychological, and behavioural metamorphoses of the heterosexual adolescent male in particular as he is shown in cinema outside the horror genre. The focused study and textual analysis of film texts allow for necessary discussion on important issues that are sometimes absent or under-represented in other areas of political culture. With the primary understanding that cinema as a visual and aural medium both presents and represents significant commentary on culture, politics, gender and sexuality, the comparative examination that follows should highlight for the reader how connections between adolescent masculinity and monstrosity occur on the cinema screen. Specifically, the following article concentrates on representations of French-Canadian and Mexican adolescent masculinity as portrayed on screen in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores perros (2000), and Denys Arcand's Les Invasions barbares (2003)

Turning the Test Beds: Performance Art and Genetic Engineering

By PIA WIEGMINK
In Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium Donna Haraway writes, "[t]he chip, seed, or gene is simultaneously literal and figurative, we inhabit and are inhabited by such figures that map universes of knowledge, practice and power" (11). Thus, according to Haraway, these "tropic figures" (11) - chip, seed, gene - are in themselves not neutral, empty objects but must always be considered in the context of the social practices in which they occur. Following Haraway's observation, this paper seeks to approach the field of biotechnology, asking how contemporary scientific achievements concerning such figures like the chip, the gene, or the seed - although at first sight appearing to be concealed in scientific neutrality - foster, serve and are dependent on political and economic demands. More precisely, this paper investigates the work of the American performance collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) who critically engage questions concerning the genetic market economy, new communication technologies and biotechnology.

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
Tracing the Americas , Volume 3, Number 1
Ethnic Identity Politics, Transnationalization, and Transculturation in American Urban Popular Music, Volume 2, Number 2
Remembering and Forgetting: Memory in Images and Texts, 2