These papers were first presented at the first World Congress of the International American Studies Association held in 2003. The articles interrogate the notions of "America," locality and identity and consider the multiple Americas within the US and the bi-continental western hemisphere. The topics vary as widely as the definitions of America itself. They include America's role in globalization, geographical exploration; capital expansion; integration; transculturalism; pre-Columbian and Native American cultures; American exceptionalism; the discourse of terrorism; and the literary representation of American cities. Several contributors also discuss the current state of American Studies itself. The volume lacks an index. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
How Far is America From Here? approaches American nations and cultures from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. It is very much at the heart of this comparative agenda that America be considered as a hemispheric and global matter. It discusses American identities relationally, whether the relations under discussion operate within the borders of the United States, throughout the Americas, and/or worldwide. The various articles here gathered interrogate the very notion of America: which, whose America, when, why now, how? What is meant by fardistance, discursive formations, ideals and ideologies, foundational narratives, political conformities, aberrations, inconsistencies? Where is herepositionality, geographies, spatial compressions, hegemonic and subaltern loci, disciplinary formations, reflexes and reflexivities? These questions are addressed with regard to the multiple Americas within the USA and the bi-continental western hemisphere, as part of and beyond inter-American cultural relations, ethnicities across the national and cultural plurality of America, mutual constructions of North and South, borderlands, issues of migration and diaspora. The larger contexts of globalization and Americas role within this process are also discussed, alongside issues of geographical exploration, capital expansion, integration, transculturalism, transnationalism and global flows, pre-Columbian and contemporary Native American cultures, the Atlantic slave trade, the environmental crisis, U.S. literature in relation to Canadian or Latin American literature, religious conflict both within the Americas and between the Americas and the rest of the world, with such issues as American Zionism, American exceptionalism, and the discourse of/on terror and terrorism.
