Introduction

This Companion addresses the field of Inter-American Studies in its cultural studies dimension. The Companion conceptualizes Inter-American Studies as a dialogical lens between North and South within comparative and relational studies of the Americas. By addressing students and scholars from various disciplines such as Latin American Studies, American Studies, Caribbean Studies, and Canadian Studies, this Companion intends to provide new momentum for rethinking area and area studies in the age of globalization. Inter-American Studies is a currently blossoming transdisciplinary field of scholarship. It is embedded within a set of new directions in the fields of area studies and global studies with a focus on America/América in its plural version. With its emphasis on ‘inter’ within the Americas, this field of investigation addresses research paradigms meant to complement transatlantic and transpacific approaches to the Americas and to add a redefined area studies lens to global processes in the Americas. The Companion covers a diversity of approaches, attempts to capture the field’s presence in different disciplines such as literary studies, cultural studies, media studies, history, and anthropology and aims to chart established as well as new paradigms within the field. Hence, it hopes to capture the very dynamism that characterizes the field at the present moment. Scholars from a great variety of U.S. American, Canadian, Latin American, Caribbean, and European universities are the contributors to this volume. The contributions are from canonical figures in the field as well as from a younger generation of scholars. The idea behind this selection is to reflect the emergence of the field and to establish a link between earlier and contemporary methodologies.