Transatlantic studies is an emerging field within literary, cultural and political studies. Its interdisciplinary scope, a feature it shares with other area studies fields, makes it particularly apt for AAU scholars to engage with. All European languages and cultures have significantly been shaped by their long history of interaction across the Atlantic Ocean, often antagonistically defined (as in wars and trade conflicts), but often also collaboratively defined (indeed, as in wars and trade alliances). The perspective is equally rich when seen from the Americas, where the relationship with Europe, can be variously regarded as colonial/postcolonial, or as pay-back/writing back to the ancestral cultures.This volume sets out to investigate specific aspects of Transatlantic cultural and/or textual exchanges in any period and mode the authors see fit. We have accepted both humanities approaches and textually focused social sciences approaches. The broad scope of the volume is indeed one of its essential strengths, as all readers of it will be sure to encounter new subjects areas and insights. The aim is therefore to be inclusive rather than exclusive in this book, allowing colleagues from all programs within our broad department to contribute papers from their core research areas, whether these chiefly fall within English, Spanish, German, French or other European language areas – or whether they are chiefly linked to one or another of the Americas.The volume is, appropriately enough, conceived as a transatlantic collaborative endeavor in its own right, as it features contributions from both AAU and Brenau University, Georgia, USA – one of our exchange partner universities.
