Description: Latin American literary/cultural studies in Spanish and Portuguese programs in the United States are conducted by faculty members from different generations, different national origins, and varying times of entering the university system. They come from multiple intellectual and theoretical traditions and are motivated by multiple aesthetic and social concerns. In the United States they are prompted simultaneously by local and Latin American issues. What balance do they strike in order to appeal to the interest of an increasingly transnational US student body, while maintaining the hope that works they produce will also contribute to Latin American cultures? Are they aware of the way previous generations dealt with these issues? And how does it relate to their current practices? This edition seeks not only to outline a historical memory but also to foster discussions that encourage future creation of work at a time when so many of the utopias that previously energised Latin American literary/cultural studies are collapsing.
