Masterarbeiten InterAmerikanische Studien
Ann-Kathrin Lauer: Mobility and Transculturation in the Americas
Cultural and Linguistic Identity of Samaná Americans Since the 19th Century
The history of the Samaná Americans begins with their resettlement in 1824 from Philadelphia to the Samaná peninsula as part of the plan of the Haytian President Boyer to populate the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere. Only a few decades later, the piece of land would become part of the Dominican Republic and witness several mechanisms of nation building. The preservation and hybridization of language, linguistic identity, group identity and collective memory due to displacement and transnational mobility, spanning a period of almost 200 years, are the focus of this study, which uses a multidisciplinary approach of cultural studies, ethnohistory, and sociolinguistics.
Atahualpa García Ibarra: La Triple Frontera
Los estudios actuales sobre literatura y frontera en las Américas se centran en analizar las relaciones entre México y Estados Unidos. Sin embargo existen otros espacios de contacto, este proyecto se centra en la región entre Guatemala y México. Parto de la base teórica que se generó en lo que se considera el paradigma fronterizo (EUA-Mex) para analizar si los mismos conceptos pueden ser aplicados en la region fronteriza que contempla esta investigación. La idea de un tercer espacio (Soja), Borderland (Anzaldúa), y culturas híbridas (Canclini) sirven como punto de partida para el análisis. Entre México y Guatemala se presenta lo que se puede considerar una triple frontera en la que la dualidad de los imaginarios de frontera deseo y frontera terror se disloca. La producción literaria en la región juega un papel importante como respuesta para visibilizar las voces de la frontera, las editoriales independientes y cartoneras proporcionan el canal ideal para conectar la producción literaria que se genera desde ambos lados. Sin embargo es necesario preguntarse cómo se representa la frontera y sus dinámicas en sus productos culturales. Este trabajo resalta la importancia de discutir la frontera y su literatura desde la perspectiva interamericana.
Jannik Kohl: Mimicry and performative negotiations of belonging in the everyday.
The paper aims to show that by synthetizing both concepts into a new analytical framework, it will be possible to overcome those shortcomings and gain new insights into the process of social identification. In order to prove the viability of this synthetized concept of belonging as a possible analytical concept in literary studies, the framework will be applied on the analysis of the novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Caribbean author Maryse Condé. In doing so, the thesis addresses the question of how subjects are capable of negotiating their everyday belongings in contexts of social power relations which are characterized and expressed through intersecting forms of hostility and oppression.
Stephan Kreher: Black Atlantic Hybrids.
This monograph examines how sampling in U.S. Hip Hop transgresses national and regional boundaries. By contextualizing and comparing the Brazilian source material from the 1960s and 1970s with U.S. Hip Hop from the 1990s onwards, it traces flows of musicians, music, and ideology along the Interamerican U.S.-Brazil axis. The fusion and recontextualization of music styles through sampling shed light on aspects of the African American struggle and result in transcultural musical hybrids that encompass the African diaspora in the Americas, activism, cultural resistance, and ‘double consciousness’. Building on postmodern intertextuality, these hybrids become products of a ‘sonic cosmopolitanism’ for a world shaped by the heritage of the black Atlantic.