CIAS - Center for InterAmerican Studies

The Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS) is a cross-faculty institution of the Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology and the Faculty of Linguistics and Literature. CIAS emerged in 2011 out of the interdisciplinary teaching and research network of InterAmerican Studies, founded in 2002, and Bielefeld University’s defining focus on "Latin American Studies".

The Americas are unique in the world for their cultural, social, and political contrasts. Despite the evident geopolitical differences between North and South America and the Caribbean, societies in the Western Hemisphere are nonetheless characterized by a shared history of European colonization, which continues to produce underlying structures. Therefore, CIAS supports an interdisciplinary and inter-regional perspective in area studies in its research and teaching, accommodating the recent demands for transnationalization in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences that arise in the context of current globalization and polarization processes.

In the area of postgraduate studies, CIAS offers an independent interdisciplinary master program in “Inter-American Studies”. The CIAS hosts an open research colloquium on Inter-American Studies during each semester. CIAS also organizes events such as workshops, conferences, and summer school programs. Central publication platforms of the CIAS are the e-Journal FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research and the editorial Kipu-Verlag.