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Journal: Review of International American Studies

(Un)Imagined Shores

Cyraina Johnson-Roullier

Language: EN | Published: 01-05-2015 | Abstract

The theme of the IASA 6th World Congress, ‘Oceans Apart: In Search of New Wor(l)ds’ was a fitting context in which to ask the question how did the Americas become America? And, inversely, how can America be turned inside out to reveal the Americas to which it is ineradicably, albeit perhaps surreptitiously—yet certainly historically—linked, and what might that meanfor our understanding of American Studies as a field? How does the ocean itself, and its boundaryless significance, figure in whatever understanding of America and/or the Americas comes to the fore.The essays included in this issue of the Review of International American Studies each consider this question in very different ways, from the exploration of the role of the ocean in American literature, to that of the power of the ocean’s imaginary reality itself to shape our understanding of that literature. Ever present within these questions is that of the long history of empire embedded in the idea of America and all things American, what exactly that history is to mean, and how it is to be understood, especially when contextualized by the cultural significance of the ocean. With the ocean in mind, in keeping with the Congress theme, the meaning of America seems to radically shift, as the reality of the Americas becomes more evident. As this stable meaning is troubled, as traditional boundaries begin to reform in new configurations, the possibility for new discoveries about the meaning of America comes into greater prominence. But this view from the ocean, with its new perspective on old understandings, doesn’t necessarily have to mean ‘out to sea’.

As Giorgio Mariani asserts, there is often a certain anxiety, even among those, like the members of the International American Studies Association, who adventurously leave their academic and intellectual points of origin to carve out new epistemological roadmaps, leading not infrequently beyond known disciplinary parameters, as these have been structured within the university. What is it about the unboundedness of uncontained knowledge, for which the sea is a striking metaphor, that can hide a subtle yet nonetheless yawning fear? There is the ever-present possibility of drowning, requiring the superhuman control necessary to calmly tread water until a familiar shore appears, rather than using every reserve of energy to flail uselessly about in panic, destroying all possibility of potentially adaptive measures. There is the desire to return to the power of what is known even in the midst of a willful voyage to the unknown, a siren’s song of familiarity slamming shut the door to the new visions that the amorphous reality of limitlessness can invite. But once the idea of treading water is accepted to the point of dictating action, once calm acceptance is allowed to set in, so too does the ocean begin to seem less of an enemy, the mind clears, solutions appear, and direction based on sharpness of thought and intrepid decision takes flight. Previously unthought avenues to understanding open up, and then, new shores. This, then, is the spirit in which the President’s Address and the three plenaries to follow are offered, couple with Paweł Jędrzejko’s fitting examination of Polish literature filtered through an oceanic American literary enounter. Taking America to sea, they are all a compass leading not to what is already known, but to what can be, if we but continue to calmly tread on.

Cyraina Johnson-Roullier
Editor-in-Chief, RIAS

2015-05-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Mailer, Doctorow, Roth. A Cross-Generational Reading of the American Berserk

John Matteson

Language: EN | Published: 16-08-2020 | Abstract | pp. 53-74

Of all American paradoxes, none is greater than this: that the typical American cherishes free speech but is almost mortally offended by public protest, which he regards as at best lacking in taste and at worst an outright crime. A nation founded on dissent, America is exquisitely uncomfortable with ill-mannered disagreement. More than freedom itself, an American is likely to value moral insularity and absolution: he wants to live his life free from ethical challenge. He seeks suburban anesthesia, a life of commercial abundance untroubled by the pain inflicted elsewhere to maintain it, whether through military aggression or the global exploitation of labor. The American hopes to be reminded that he is good and blameless — and quickly condemns his critics as envious or mad or driven by dark agendas. As by an unwritten law, he denounces protest as an offense against his amour propre. This condemnation, ipso facto, makes a figurative criminal of the protester, who, when her efforts are scorned, finds herself not trying to persuade, but acting in a spirit of resentment and self-vindication. She sees any act by her countryman that does not challenge the social system as intolerable evidence of complicity and collaboration. The spirit of compromise vanishes, and the protester risks falling into the attitude described by Philip Roth as “the American berserk.” My address examines this process of polarization through three indispensable American novels of protest: Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night; E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel; and Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.

2020-08-16



Journal: Review of International American Studies

The Quintessence of the Quintessential

Cyraina Johnson-Roullier

Language: EN | Published: 15-11-2016 | Abstract

The Quintessence of the Quintessential

Let us imagine, for a moment, that we have become characters in our own Robinsonade (in a time long before Daniel Defoe chronicled Robinson Crusoe’s epic journey).  Engaged in a half-magical, early Renaissance exploratory endeavor, like so many others before us, we set out full of hope into uncharted waters in a well-provisioned ship, certain that our quest will end in the success we seek, the discovery of heretofore unknown lands, full of untold riches that will be ours for the taking.  Fuelled by an uncommon mixture of hope, desire and determination, we rush headlong into the indiscernible future, filled with visions of the life of gods we will lead upon our successful return, heavily laden with the wealth of our exploits.  But it is, unfortunately, not to be: not long into our journey, we are beset by a raging storm, whose almost demoniac power shatters our ship—and our hopes—to bits, a situation from which we only just barely escape with our lives.  The intangible imagined life of gods that was ours just a few hours before is brutally and abruptly transformed, now finding objective reality in the shards of our ship washing up on the hated shore that we were in fact blessed to find, though tortured by the painful realization that it is nothing like the shore we had hoped, imagined or sought to find. The storm having dealt with our clothing in much the same way as it did our ship, thus presenting us with an unaccustomed physical reality of near nakedness, this new shore, previously unknown to our imaginations, greets us with an immediate inhospitability that finishes the job by also stripping us figuratively bare, leaving us completely naked to our own understanding as well.  We are shipwrecked—castaways—most definitely not gods, lacking now not only the force that imagined a potential god-like existence, but the hope it generated.  Of determination, however, we must put that to good use, and quickly.  Life now takes on a very different quality, one of a more stark contact with the laws of nature than ever we have felt before.  We are hot, we are hungry, we are cold, wet, exposed, and excoriated by the wind, whose fingers, gentle or sharp like claws, are a constant presence.  Life is now raw existence, and in that existence, we grasp only the enormity of the sea and its deep mystery, the enormity of the heavens, its broiling sun by day and its shimmering stars at night, and the thankful—or thankless—certainty of land underfoot.      

It is at this  juncture that we may most fruitfully encounter the essays contained in this issue of the Review of International American Studies, which highlights several works from the 7^th World Congress of the International American Studies Association, held in conjunction with the American Studies Association of Korea’s 50^th International Conference in Seoul, South Korea, August 17–19, 2015.  The conference theme, “Constellating Americas,” seeks a more complex international engagement in the field of American Studies, one that would foster a greater de-centering of the US within the field than even the inherently international approach of transnationalism has up to the present accomplished.  By borrowing Walter Benjamin’s notion of the constellation as a theoretical construct allowing for a different way of thinking about the interrelationships between the US and other instances of America within American Studies, the emphases of the conference bring about a radical shift in the field imaginary, pointing to both a horizontal and a vertical path toward greater interrelational understanding, the one reaching outward in space, the other in time.
[read more in the Ed/Note inside] 

2016-11-15



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Traces in the Ocean. On Melville, Wolanowski, and Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Paweł Jędrzejko

Language: EN | Published: 01-05-2015 | Abstract

The present article locates Lucjan Wolanowski’s prose in the space of reflection upon the magical dimension of writing traditionally classified as 'non-fiction' or 'literature of fact'. The magic of 'prose factography' is addressed here both in the perspective of the conditioning of its readerly reception and in the context of the writerly potential of the 'suspension of disbelief'. The argument presented in the article aims at bringing into light the mechanisms responsible for the fusion of the material reality and rhetoric into a faith-based 'magic reality'. The acknowledgment of the role of poetic imagination in the process of shaping the reader’s awareness of the world allows one to observe that the traditional concept of 'the factual' is largely based on a volitional pursuance of the mirage of objectivity and is a product of the craving for certainty. Illustrating the central phenomena of this text with examples of the everyday experience of a Polish reader of 1980s (whose 'factual' knowledge of the world largely depended on the extent of his or her reading in reportage and travel literature), as well as with reference to Herman Melville’s Typee (a novel, which gained wide recognition only after it has been sanctioned as 'non-fiction'), the author of the article seeks to demonstrate how Lucjan Wolanowski’s prose calls into existence a 'factual reality', i.e. a reality, in which one is prone to believe, which one is inclined to take for granted, and which becomes one’s frame of reference in the context of everyday choices. If truth is a function of faith, then fact and magic merge into one and thus inescapably rendering factual reality a 'magical reality'.

2015-05-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

A Note from the New Book Review Editor

Manlio Della Marca

Language: EN | Published: 08-09-2019 | Abstract | pp. 129-130

Starting with this issue, our journal will include a completely redesigned Book Review Section, featuring three to five high-quality reviews by leading and emerging scholars from around the world. As for the selection of the books to be reviewed, even though I am a literary scholar, it is my intention as Review Editor to consider books that engage with the U.S. and the Americas as a hemispheric and global phenomenon from a wide range of perspectives and disciplines, including anthropology, art history, and media studies.

2019-09-08



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Luciano Curreri and Michel Delville, Il grande ‘Incubo che mi son scelto.’ Prove di avvicinamento a Profondo Rosso (1975-2015)

Daniele Pomilio

Language: EN | Published: 30-11-2017 | Abstract

Daniele Pomilio
University of Udine
Italy

Luciano Curreri e Michel Delville, Il grande ‘Incubo che mi son scelto.’ Prove di avvicinamento a Profondo Rosso (1975-2015), Piombino, Edizioni Il Foglio, 2015

The text offers a review of Il grande “Incubo che mi son scelto” - a collection of essays written in three different languages by a group of international scholars to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Profondo Rosso, the cult movie by Dario Argento. The book contributes to the canonization of an Italian classic long neglected by those critics who still consider horror movies a low-rated subgenre comparable to B-movies.

2017-11-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

America Unbound: Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies by Antonio Barrenechea (A Book Review)

Juliana Nalerio

Language: EN | Published: 30-06-2018 | Abstract

Juliana Nalerio's review of America Unbound: Encyclopedic Literature and Hemispheric Studies by Antonio Barrenechea (U of New Mexico P, 2016), 247 pages. 
ISBN-10: 082635758X
ISBN-13: 978-0826357588

2018-06-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Resistance in the Deceleration Lane. Velocentrism, Slow Culture and Everyday Practice by Marzena Kubisz

Paweł Jędrzejko

Language: EN | Published: 01-05-2015 | Abstract

Paweł Jędrzejko's review article on Marzena Kubisz's Resistance in the Deceleration Lane. Velocentrism, Slow Culture and Everyday Practice, Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag 2014)

2015-05-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Traveling Bodies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Traveling as an Embodied Practice, edited by Nicole Maruo-Schröder, Sarah Schäfer-Althaus, and Uta Schaffers (A Book Review)

Julia Szołtysek

Language: EN | Published: 01-05-2024 | Abstract | pp. 241-244

The present review looks at the recent contribution to the Routledge Research in Travel Writing series—Traveling Bodies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Traveling as an Embodied Practice, edited by Nicole Maruo-Schröder, Sarah Schäfer-Althaus, and Uta Schaffers. The review discusses the contents of the volume, the concept and methodology employed in the work, as well as the major aspects pertaining to its position within the broad field of travel writing. It offers an evaluation of the originality of the collection and assesses the quality of the contributions included in the volume, highlighting how the gathered articles enrich the ongoing academic debate on travel, travel writing and the embodied experience of mobility and movement. The present review looks at the recent contribution to the Routledge Research in Travel Writing series—Traveling Bodies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Traveling as an Embodied Practice, edited by Nicole Maruo-Schröder, Sarah Schäfer-Althaus, and Uta Schaffers. The review discusses the contents of the volume, the concept and methodology employed in the work, as well as the major aspects pertaining to its position within the broad field of travel writing. It offers an evaluation of the originality of the collection and assesses the quality of the contributions included in the volume, highlighting how the gathered articles enrich the ongoing academic debate on travel, travel writing and the embodied experience of mobility and movement.

2024-05-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

The Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An Overview

Stefano Luconi

Language: EN | Published: 30-11-2017 | Abstract

Stefano Luconi
University of Naples L’Orientale
Italy

The Troubled Presence of the United States in Italy’s Political Culture: An Overview

This brief article examines the impact of US values on Italy’s political system since the end of World War II. It argues that, during the Cold War, the allegiance of the sizeable Communist Party to the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the Catholics’ distrust of Americanism, on the other, prevented US principles from shaping the nation’s republican institutions and playing a significant influence on Italian political culture, notwithstanding Washington’s efforts to spread its own philosophy in the country. It also suggests that, after the end of the West-versus-East ideological conflict, the two major party coalitions paid only lip service to US values and referred to them mainly out of expediency while jockeying for position in their struggle for political power.

2017-11-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

International American Studies and the question of World literature. An Introduction

Giorgio Mariani

Language: EN | Published: 30-06-2017 | Abstract

Since its inception, International American Studies (IAS) had to define itself against the larger backdrop of global or world studies. However, as Paul Giles notes in his contribution to this special issue of RIAS marking the 10th anniversary of the journal and devoted to “International American Studies and the Question of World literature,” “World Literature in its current institutional manifestation is a much more recent phenomenon” than IAS, and may have “accumulated academic prestige more rapidly and securely than International American Studies has so far managed.”  Whatever their different temporal and institutional trajectories, however, both IAS and World literature may be seen as efforts to come to terms with the momentous historical, political, social, and technological changes of the past few decades. Put simply, both can be considered attempts to fashion new epistemological tools better suited to making sense of a globalized world, so that, no matter how (relatively?) different their objects of study might be, a set of theoretical concerns would appear to be shared by both fields. Both students of IAS and World Literature, for example, need to venture beyond the traditional categories of the nation and of national cultures, by coming to terms with the social, historical, and linguistic complexities that such a move entails. Both have to do so in a way that “opens” one’s field and yet preserves its raison d’être, especially at a time when the humanities are under attack and the defense of academic positions and credentials—all calls for “interdisciplinarity” notwithstanding—is of paramount importance. Both need to rethink the parameters of their disciplinary specializations, that is, without pulling the institutional rugs from under their feet—a precarious balancing act which, in the age of the corporate university, with its rage for classifying, evaluating, and ranking, is far from easy to perform.

2017-06-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Subsuming “America” to the “Global.” A Response to Markha Valenta’s “Abandoning America the Better to Save America”

Giorgio Mariani

Language: EN | Published: 30-06-2017 | Abstract

Giorgio Mariani
Dipartimento di Studi Europei, Americani e Interculturali
Università "Sapienza" di Roma

Subsuming “America” to the “Global.” A Response to Markha Valenta’s “Abandoning America the Better to Save America”

A Response to Markha Valenta’s “Abandoning America the Better to Save America.” (In the present issue of RIAS).

Keywords: transnational turn, American Studies, democracy, internationalization of American Studies, refocusing American studies, globalization

 

2017-06-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Innocence to Experience (and Back Again?): Uncertain Passages through the Intercontinental Looking-Glass

John Matteson

Language: EN | Published: 01-05-2015 | Abstract

John Matteson revisits the transatlantic conversation between the New World and the Old, by drawing on the archive of nineteenth century US writers about Europe. He is not so much interested in highlighting what these more or less celebrated figures had to say about Europe, its history, and its people, as in reflecting on how, through what he calls ‘the intercontinental looking glass’, Americans had to come to terms with the often unsettling stare of the foreigner. Though he knows his use of Du Bois’ famous concept of ‘double-consciousness’ might appear misconceived, Matteson insists that ‘the doubly conscious state that Du Bois ascribed to African Americans differed from other experiences of dual awareness not chiefly in terms of quality, but mostly of degree, though the degree is assuredly vast’. Matteson argues passionately, eloquently and, in his references to his own personal experience, quite amusingly, for the need to safeguard this tradition of cross-cultural comparison, though he ends by confessing his fears that contemporary Americans might be tempted ‘to turn away from the transatlantic looking-glass entirely’.

2015-05-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

BOOK REVIEW: Landscapes of Writing in Chicano Literature

Ewa Wylężek

Language: EN | Published: 01-03-2013 | Abstract

Ewa Wylężek's review of Landscapes of Writing in Chicano Literature, edited by Imelda MartÍn-Junquera Palgrave Macmillan 2013

2013-03-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

The Gift of Languages. Paradigm Shift in US Foreign Language Education by Fabrice Jaumont and Kathleen Stein-Smith (A Book Review)

Monika Grotek

Language: EN | Published: 29-12-2023 | Abstract | pp. 205-223

The article offers a critical review of The Gift of Languages. Paradigm Shift in U.S. Foreign Language Education by Fabrice Jaumont & Kathleen Stein-Smith, published by TBR Books in 2019. The book, fitting in the general category of instruction manuals and motivational materials, has been written in support of the cause of the advocates of the paradigm shift in foreign language learning in the United States. Focusing on the need to expand the L2 skills among US elementary, high school, and college students by means of the systematic implementation of two-way Dual-Language Immersion programs in K-12 and secondary public education, the monograph contributes to the mission of the Center for the Advancement of Language, Education and Communities. The CALEC, a non-profit organization with international membership and worldwide reach, focuses on promoting multilingualism and cross-cultural understanding by supporting language communities in creating programs of education in languages and cultures. The present article offers a review of this important, albeit popular, publication as a document testifying to the transformations of the American culture in the Age of Globalization.

2023-12-29



Journal: Review of International American Studies

“All-Electric” Narratives: Time-Saving Appliances and Domesticity in American Literature, 1945–2020 by Rachele Dini (A Book Review)

Mena Mitrano

Language: EN | Published: 15-06-2022 | Abstract | pp. 143-148

Filomena Mitrano's review of  Rachele Dini's book “All-Electric” Narratives: Time-Saving Appliances and Domesticity in American Literature, 1945–2020, Bloomsbury, 2022.

2022-06-15



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Democracy and Truth: A Short History by Sophia Rosenfeld (A Book Review)

Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier

Language: EN | Published: 31-12-2020 | Abstract | pp. 209-214

Rosenfeld, Sophia. Democracy and Truth: A Short History, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.  ISBN13: 9780812250848 -- a book review by Sakina Shakil Gröppmaier

2020-12-31



Journal: Review of International American Studies

How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr (A Book Review)

Elena Furlanetto

Language: EN | Published: 31-12-2020 | Abstract | pp. 215-220

Immerwahr, Daniel. How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. ISBN13: 9780374172145 -- a book review by Elena Furlanetto

2020-12-31



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Dos narizones no se pueden besar. Trayectorias, usos y prácticas de la tradición Orisha en Yucatán by Nahayelli Beatriz Juárez Huet (A Book Review)

Gabriela Vargas-Cetina

Language: EN | Published: 16-08-2020 | Abstract | pp. 285-290

Juárez Huet, Nahayelli Beatriz. Dos narizones no se pueden besar. Trayectorias, usos y prácticas de la tradición Orisha en Yucatán, Publicaciones ciesas, 2019. -- a book review by Gabriela Vargas-Cetina 

2020-08-16



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Emerson in Iran: The American Appropriation of Persian Poetry by Roger Sedarat (A Book Review)

Sara Khalili Jahromi

Language: EN | Published: 16-08-2020 | Abstract | pp. 279-284

Sederat, Roger. Emerson in Iran: The American Appropriation of Persian Poetry, SUNY Press, 2019. ISBN13: 978-1-4384-7485-4 -- a book review by Sara Khalili Jahromi

2020-08-16



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Hugo Pratt and Milo Manara’s Indian Summer: An Italian “Source” for The Scarlet Letter

Giorgio Mariani

Language: EN | Published: 30-11-2017 | Abstract

Giorgio Mariani
Università “Sapienza” di Roma
Italy

Hugo Pratt’s and Milo Manara’s Indian Summer:
An Italian “Source” for The Scarlet Letter

This paper examines the allusions of Milo Manara’s and Hugo Pratt’s graphic novel, Tutto ricominciò con un’estate indiana (Indian Summer), to Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlett Letter in a variety of ways. In particular, this paper argues that not only some of Pratt and Manara’s characters are very liberal, creative reinventions of Hawthorne’s figures—they might be seen as “spin-offs” of Hawthorne’s narrative—but in many ways Indian Summer is also thematically close to The Scarlet Letter.

2017-11-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Fence Walls: From the Iron Curtain to the US and Hungarian Border Barriers and the Emergence of Global Walls

Éva Eszter Szabó

Language: EN | Published: 30-06-2018 | Abstract

Éva Eszter Szabó
School of English and American Studies
Department of American Studies
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

Fence Walls: From the Iron Curtain
to the US and Hungarian Border Barriers
and the Emergence of Global Walls

Abstract: This paper considers the resurgence of the Iron Curtain metaphor and its appropriateness in relation to the current border barriers in the US and the EU. It addresses the impact of the Iron Curtain both on Eastern Europe and on Western Europe, and it explores the legacy of this nearly hermetically sealed off borderland in the different border security and migration control approaches within the EU in the current era of emerging global walls. In my view, while the Iron Curtain metaphor is mistakenly applied to the current border barriers in the US and the EU alike, its legacy does contribute to the marked difference between Eastern and Western European attitudes and policies to the massive influx of migrants. From the Iron Curtain to the Hungarian border fence, the fence walls of the spatially identical border sections reflect not only the changing concepts of walls, but also the distinct historical experiences with migration. The current border barriers in Hungary and the EU, however, draw on the US–Mexican border barrier that aims to stop unauthorized entry while keeping the gates open in both directions for legal cross-border movement in contrast with the prison walls of the Iron Curtain. 

Keywords: US-Mexican border barrier, Hungarian border fence, unauthorized migration, Eastern Europe, Cold War, Iron Curtain, border walls

2018-06-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Walls that Bridge; or, What We Can Learn from the Roman Walls

Giorgio Mariani

Language: EN | Published: 30-06-2018 | Abstract

Giorgio Mariani
University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Italy

Walls that Bridge;
or, What We Can Learn from the Roman Walls

Abstract: When, during the latest US electoral campaign, Pope Francis criticized Trump’s idea of building a wall between Mexico and the US, reiterating his favorite  point that “we do not need to build walls, but bridges,” the Trump camp retorted that the Pope lives in a city state surrounded by walls, in a city itself surrounded by other walls dating back to ancient Roman times. Why wasn't he concerned with those walls? As one can see, even though Roman walls have completely lost their original function and survive mainly as tourist sites, they also remain powerful political and cultural symbols. The scope of this essay is to offer, from the perspective of an Americanist who was born and raised in Rome, some comparative reflections on  what we can learn today from the history of Roman walls, as well as from their symbolic afterlives.

Keywords: Roman walls, walls as rhetoric, US literature, walls as bridges, walls as dividers

2018-06-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Departures: An Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies by the Critical Refugee Studies Collective (A Book Review)

Giacomo Traina

Language: EN | Published: 31-12-2022 | Abstract | pp. 251-257

Departures is the introductory volume to the interdisciplinary field of Critical Refugee Studies, written by the Critical Refugee Studies Collective and published by the University of California Press. The book works on many levels and can be read in as many ways. Partly a guide, partly a manifesto, the book dutifully performs its pre-set task of introducing the general reader to the field of Critical Refugee Studies, all the while engaging with larger issues and challenges. Its manifold nature is made explicit by the title itself, intended both as an allusion to the action of leaving and to that of deviating from a regular path. Highly readable and sharp-edged, tailor-made for an audience that includes (and transcends) colleges and universities, this text will likely find its way into many class syllabi and reading lists. Located at the crossroads of theory and resistance, advocacy and academia, Departures oozes rage, energy, and optimism, and is unapologetically political.

The field of Critical Refugee Studies, the authors state in the “Introduction,” is “a way to seize control of image and narrative, by and for refugees, centered in refugee epistemologies and experiences." As a community-engaged critical field, it postulates the necessity of moving past pre-existing humanitarian narratives and frameworks, exposing the underlying threads that tie militarism and migration, power and memory, empire and race. Channeling Somali British and Palestinian poetry, Syrian visual art, and Vietnamese American independent cinematography, the seven contributors call for new methodologies and approaches, as well as for new stories that go beyond the simple “formula of … escape, despair, and rescue” embedded in mainstream refugee narratives. The book's aim is to break that mold, underscoring the “invisible relations of power that broker how we see and consume the refugee subject”; that is to say, to radically twist the ways in which the latter is defined by the law, by the arts, and by the collective conscious. Bold and provocative, Departures will not fail to spark conversations in the coming years.

2022-12-31



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Narrative Change Management in American Studies: A Pragmatic Reading by Silke Schmidt (A Book Review)

Daniel Rees

Language: EN | Published: 31-12-2022 | Abstract | pp. 241-249

Daniel Rees's review of Narrative Change Management in American Studies by Silke Schmidt.

2022-12-31



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder (A Book Review)

Natalia Pająk

Language: EN | Published: 15-11-2021 | Abstract | pp. 165-173

Natalia Pająk's review of Jessica Bruder's Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

2021-11-15



Journal: Review of International American Studies

America's Encounters with Southeast Asia, 1800–1900: Before the Pivot by Farish A. Noor (A Book Review)

R. Michael Feener

Language: EN | Published: 08-09-2019 | Abstract | pp. 131-136

R. Michael Feener's review of America's Encounters with Southeast Asia, 1800–1900: Before the Pivot by Farish A. Noor. 

2019-09-08



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Seeing Silence by Mark C. Taylor (A Book Review)

Howard Robert Coase

Language: EN | Published: 31-12-2022 | Abstract | pp. 233-240

Howard Robert Coase's critical review of Seeing Silence by Mark C. Taylor.

2022-12-31



Journal: Review of International American Studies

A Road Course in Early American Literature: Travel and Teaching from Aztlán to Amherst by Thomas Hallock (A Book Review)

Nathaniel R. Racine

Language: EN | Published: 19-12-2021 | Abstract | pp. 157-164

Nathaniel R. Racine's review of A Road Course in Early American Literature: Travel and Teaching from Aztlán to Amherst by Thomas Hallock.

2021-12-19



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Ecopoetic Place-Making: Nature and Mobility in Contemporary American Poetry by Judith Rauscher (A Book Review)

Carlotta Ferrando

Language: EN | Published: 29-12-2023 | Abstract | pp. 195-204

Twenty years into the 21st century, the matters of forced mobilities, relocations and displacement are more than ever issues at hand, as we keep on witnessing ceaseless global migratory movements resulting from political persecutions, wars, violence, and/or climate change. Taking the cue from the intersections of environmental transformations, global ecological crisis and human mass mobilities, Judith Rauscher’s Ecopoetic Place-Making (2023) focuses on contemporary “American ecopoetries of migration,” namely the “the oeuvres of […] chosen poets that prominently feature American places and American histories of displacement” (2023: 31).  Drawing mostly from the fields of Ecocriticism and Mobilities Studies, her work explores the complex relationship between migratory subjects and the non-human world, in particular, “the many ways in which human-nature relations are shaped by physical and geographical movement, whether voluntary or forced” (2023: 34) as well as “the varying effects that these displacements in place and between places have […] on the environmental imaginaries in the works of contemporary American poets of migration” (2023: 24).  Ecopoetic Place-Making offers an interesting and thought-provoking analysis of five contemporary authors (Craig Santos Perez, Juliana Spahr, Derek Walcott, Agha Shahid Ali, and Etel Adnan), migrants of different national, cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. Drawing inspiration from their own experiences of mobilities, these poets, through their works, challenge restrictive and exclusive ideas of place-attachment. This text is a critical review of Judith Rauscher's monograph.

2023-12-29



Journal: Review of International American Studies

The Discourse of Propaganda: Case Studies from the Persian Gulf War and the War on Terror by John Oddo (A Book Review)

Piotr Gumuła

Language: EN | Published: 30-09-2021 | Abstract | pp. 251-256

Piotr Gumuła's review of John Oddo's The Discourse of Propaganda: Case Studies from the Persian Gulf War and the War on Terror. Pennsylvania State UP, 2018.

2021-09-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Doing God’s Will: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Life of Purpose by Larry L. Macon Sr. (A Book Review)

Weronika Kurasz

Language: EN | Published: 30-09-2021 | Abstract | pp. 239-249

Weronika Kurasz's review of Larry L. Macon Senior's Doing God’s Will: Martin Luther King Jr. and a Life of Purpose. Saint Paul Press, 2019.

2021-09-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation by John Matteson (A Pre-Publication Book Review)

Mariola Świerkot

Language: EN | Published: 31-12-2020 | Abstract | pp. 221-228

Mariola Świerkot's review of John Matteson's A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation. W.W. Norton & Company 2021. ISBN 978-0-393-24707-7

2020-12-31



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Area Studies Revisited Die Geschichte der Lateinamerikastudien in den USA, 1940 bis 1970 by Torsten Loschke

(A Book Review)

Ursula Prutsch

Language: EN | Published: 23-12-2019 | Abstract | pp. 175-180

A book review of: Torsten Loschke, Area Studies Revisited. Die Geschichte der Lateinamerikastudien in den USA, 1940 bis 1970. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2019.

2019-12-23



Journal: Review of International American Studies

The Chosen People: The Hudson River School and the Construction of American Identity

Tricia Cusack

Language: EN | Published: 30-09-2021 | Abstract | pp. 107-152

This article considers nineteenth-century riverscapes of the Hudson in relation to the formation of American identity. It argues that riverscapes in the United States contributed to welding a national identity to a Christian one, although officially the identities were distinct. I examine the role of the Hudson River School in the creation of the ‘wilderness’ as an image of American homeland, and how this construct incorporated the iconic figure of the Euro-American Christian ‘pilgrim-pioneer.’ America looked more to the future than to the past for its national narrative, and an orientation to the future was symbolized in art by the flow of the Hudson toward distant horizons, while the pioneer identity was extended to embrace the entrepreneur-developer. The pioneer has remained an iconic figure for American nationalism, but is now more firmly located in the nation’s past; Janus’s gaze has been adjusted, demonstrating the potentially fluid character of nationalist discourse.

2021-09-30



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Lacrosse – It’s a Way of Life, dir. Lívia Šavelková, Tomáš Petráň and Milan Durňak, Global Lacrosse Village/Lakrosová vesnice, dir. Lívia Šavelková and Milan Durňak, On the Shore/Na Břehu, dir. Lívia Šavelková and Milan Durňak

(Film Reviews)

Zuzanna Kruk-Buchowska

Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 313-317

Review of: Lacrosse – It’s a Way of Life (2014), directed by Lívia Šavelková, Tomáš Petráň and Milan Durňak, Global Lacrosse Village/Lakrosová vesnice (2015), directed by Lívia Šavelková and Milan Durňak, and On the Shore/Na Břehu (2022), directed by Lívia Šavelková and Milan Durňak

2023-08-28



Journal: Review of International American Studies

American Literature in the World: An Anthology from Anne Bradstreet to Octavia Butler, edited by Wai Chee Dimock et al.

(A Book Review)

Fiorenzo Iuliano

Language: EN | Published: 23-12-2019 | Abstract | pp. 167-174

A book review of: Wai Chee Dimock, et. al., editors, American Literature in the World: An Anthology from Anne Bradstreet to Octavia Butler. Columbia UP, 2017. 

2019-12-23



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Presidential Address

Giorgio Mariani

Language: EN | Published: 01-05-2015 | Abstract

Giorgio Mariani's Presidential Address at the 6th World Congress of the International American Studies Association, Szczecin, Poland, followed by the introduction of the central themes of the present issue.

2015-05-01



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War: The Journals of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, edited by Giles Scott-Smith and Charlotte Lerg

Deborah Cohn

Language: EN | Published: 23-12-2019 | Abstract | pp. 159-166

A book review of: Giles Scott-Smith, and Charlotte Lerg, editors, Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War: The Journals of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

2019-12-23



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Sin Sick: Moral Injury in War and Literature by Joshua Pederson (A Book Review)

Angelo Arminio

Language: EN | Published: 15-06-2022 | Abstract | pp. 149-154

Joshua Pederson’s Sin Sick: Moral Injury in War and Literature proposes the use of moral injury – a psychological concept describing the affliction of those who break their moral code when committing despicable acts – as a framework through which war narratives of the American War on Terror can be productively read without resorting to the controversial idea of perpetrator trauma, which seems to excuse veterans as victims of the war.

Pederson provides the reader with a clinical overview of the condition as well as a first literary theory of moral injury as a manifestation of various forms of excess through a genealogical reading that includes analyses of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Camus’ The Fall. Sin Sick appears as a step in the right direction as it addresses in a timely manner a blind spot in trauma theory using a concept that more accurately describes a specific type of suffering. In the author’s mind the very term “moral injury” entails an acknowledgement of the soldiers’ wrongdoing, and this allows him to defend contemporary war writers from critics accusing them of using a narrow point of view that focuses on the pain of the American protagonists and hides the suffering of their victims.

Ultimately, the study introduces readers to a fresh way to understand the psychological pain of perpetrators and seeks to inaugurate a new branch of studies that can run in parallel with trauma theory.

2022-06-15



Journal: Review of International American Studies


The Beats in Mexico by David Stephen Calonne (A Book Review)
Nathaniel R. Racine
Language: EN | Published: 03-06-2024 | Abstract | pp. 157-162
The Beats in Mexico (2022) by David Stephen Calonne is reviewed here in terms of its contribution to the larger body of academic studies that explore the representation of Mexico in US literature. Calonne's study distinguishes itself by emphasizing the importance of overlooked female writers among the Beat generation, including Bonnie Bremser, Joanne Kyger, and Margaret Randall, who appear alongside more familiar names such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. In doing so, Calonne expands the discussion of the Beats in important ways and, furthermore, offers a welcome contribution that enriches the conversation around the understanding (and misunderstanding) of Mexico by US writers and intellectuals. Given the continued tensions between the two countries, it should be of great topical interest as well.
2024-06-03



Journal: Review of International American Studies

American and European Leftist Academia through the Prism of Paul Berman’s A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968

Alexander L. Gungov

Language: EN | Published: 23-12-2019 | Abstract | pp. 89-102

In his book, Paul Berman outlines a productive framework for a further interpretation of ideas of the leftist thinkers in North America and Europe. This article tries to follow Berman’s approach and to provide a critical stance towards the views of a number of Western social and political philosophers who write after 1968 and even after 1989. My findings confirm Berman’s light irony to this trend of thought but emphasize that some of the works discussed seem to be realistic in avoiding unjustified optimism concerning the leftist position.

2019-12-23



Journal: Review of International American Studies


Decolonial Animal Ethics in Linda Hogan’s Poetry and Prose. Towards Interspecies Thriving by Małgorzata Poks (Book Review)
Ann-Sofie Lönngren
Language: EN | Published: 28-06-2024 | Abstract | pp. 151-156
Małgorzata Pok’s Decolonial Animal Ethics in Linda Hogan’s Poetry and Prose: Towards Interspecies Thriving (2023) focuses on the relationship between the modern, hierarchical, anthropocentric view of non-human animals, and the traditional, relational view in Indigenous ontologies. In dialogue with human-animal studies, decolonial studies, and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), the study provides an in-depth engagement with the literary authorship of Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan. The questions that Poks asks are: What is the significance of Indigenous knowledges for the Anthropocene? How do these knowledges relate to the extinction of species and environmental grief? What insights are offered by Indigenous ethics to activists and decision makers in this regard? Despite the scope of Hogan’s production there is not much written about her literary production, Poks claims, even less so about the representation of the human-animal relationship in it. This is a lack which Poks makes up for in a thorough investigation of Hogan’s prose and poetry from the 1970’s until today. In Hogan’s works, themes like mercy, compassion, wildness, grief, and the connection between femininity and animality are in constant dialogue with the painful story of Indigenous America. Through Hogan’s own experiences in life, her description of places like Oklahoma and Colorado gain both material and metaphorical qualities. This is also the case with the landscapes and the non-human animals who inhabit them and who become agents in their own right in a constant yet shifting and transformative relationship to the human, who is thus decentered in effective ways.
2024-06-28



Journal: Review of International American Studies

"What activism can learn from poetry": Lyric Opacity and Drone Warfare in Solmaz Sharif’s LOOK

Keegan Cook Finberg

Language: EN | Published: 15-06-2022 | Abstract | pp. 69-87

The essay explores whether concealing humanness or emphasizing humanness is a more effective strategy for anti-drone activism that seeks to disrupt the conventional epistemologies of militarized surveillance. Building on Édouard Glissant’s decolonizing philosophy of relation and more recent theories of gender and surveillance such as Rachel Hall’s notion of “animal opacity,” the essay argues that poetry is one place we might find an answer to what seems like a binary problem of seeing versus unseeing humanity in technologically mediated aerial warfare. I illustrate that the 2016 poetry collection LOOK by Solmaz Sharif intervenes to suggest activism that steers readers away from the logics of recognition and toward the ethical potential of concealment. LOOK garners formal elements from lyric and experimental poetry traditions to employ a strategy of resistance-looking based in multiple valences of opacity.multiple valences of opacity.

2022-06-15