New Center for Regional Research at Bielefeld University

Anglo America and Latin America: cultural, language, social, and political contrasts between industrial nations and so-called developing and emerging countries are encountered more in ‘the Americas’ than in just about any other region in the world. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has now approved a Center for Regional Research on ‘the Americas as Space of Entanglement(s)’ at Bielefeld University. The project is being funded to the tune of more than three million Euros over a period of four years. On 1 February, the leading scientists and their postdoctoral students will start their preparations. The project will provide jobs for fifteen scientists and one administrator. Renowned scientists from Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Europe will contribute to the opening conference from 6 to 8 May.

‘The Americas as Space of Entanglement(s): Transborder Flows, Geopolitical Imaginaries, and the Social Production of Environment’ is the full title of the project submitted by the Bielefeld Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS). Its goal is to study the historical and contemporary dynamics shaping the two American continents as a space of entanglements. These include economic dependencies, migration movements, transnational communities, transborder media and communication flows, and political integration processes. These fields show the urgent need to question and overcome handed down cultural, political, and scientific ideas on space and work out innovative research approaches for regional studies on the Americas. The researchers will be investigating the often conflict-ridden interAmerican relations from the period of independence in the 18th and 19th centuries until today.

The new Center for Regional Research will continue several years of internationally visible interAmerican research at Bielefeld University. Alongside the Research Group E Pluribus Unum at the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld’s pioneering role is demonstrated through the foundation of the International Association of InterAmerican Studies (IAS) and the Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS). The group engaged in research and teaching on InterAmerican Studies at Bielefeld University has been active since 2002. The new management board is composed of the Project’s speaker Professor Dr. Wilfried Raussert (American Literary and Cultural Studies), Professor Dr. Angelika Epple (General History specializing in the 19th and 20th centuries), and Junior Professor Dr. Olaf Kaltmeier (Transnational History of the Americas).

There will be three groups for young academics in the project involving scientists working in cultural, media, and language studies; sociology, political science, and social anthropology; economic, environmental, and political history; religious studies; law; and ecosystems biology. This will bring together the existing expertise at Bielefeld University on the United States, Canada, and Latin America. The project thereby stands out as an example of the interdisciplinary and international orientation of the University and plays a central role in the main research area ‘Theories and Methodologies in Humanities and Sociology’.

For further information in the Internet, go to:
ww.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/cias/verflechtungsraum.html

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Wilfried Raussert, Bielefeld University
Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies
Telephone: +49 521 106- 3649
Email: wilfried.raussert@uni-bielefeld.de