Introduction: The Early United States in a Transnational Perspective

About the Book Chapter

This volume originates in a conference on the topic of “Hemispheric Encounters” that took place at Leipzig University in April 2012. The conference provided early Americanists from Europe and the United States with research interests in transnational approaches a forum for discussion and exchange. The conference was funded by the German Research Foundation as part of our research projects on “Post-Revolutionary Identity Constructions in a Transnational Perspective” (Pisarz-Ramirez) and on “The Trans-National Imagination in Early American Travel Writing” (Heide). Our research has been significantly influenced by twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship that complicates interpretations of early American culture, which often persisted in a national paradigm marked by exceptionalist tendencies. The questions raised and the discussions that emerged during our gathering in Leipzig form the conceptual basis for this volume.

About the Author

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Pisarz- Ramiez (SFB 1199 & Leipzig University)

My research focuses on the cultural processes which link American culture to other cultures or which are situated in between cultures. My doctoral dissertation investigated literary translations of Stephen Crane texts as cultural products at the intersection of literary studies, cultural studies and translation studies. For my Habilitation project, I researched the border zone between the United States and Mexico as a culturally productive space which plays an important role in redefining concepts of nation and national culture. My current research interests are in the fields of 19th century inter-American relations, transnational studies and critical regionalism, Latino/a studies, migration studies, and 21st century concepts of race and ethnicity.