Discourses That Matter: Selected Essays on English and American Studies

How can English and American Studies be instrumental to conceptualizing the deep instability we are presently facing? How can they address the coordinates of this instability, such as war, terrorism, the current economic and financial crisis, and the consequent myriad forms of deprivation and fear? How can they tackle the strategies of de-humanization, invisibility, and the naturalization of inequality and injustice entailed in contemporary discourses? This anthology grew out of an awareness of the need to debate the role of English and American Studies both in the present context and in relation to the so-called demise of the Humanities.

Drawing on Judith Butler’s rethinking of materiality as the effect of power, in her study Bodies That Matter (1993), we locate this collection of essays at the crossroads of discourse and power, while we expect the work collected here to highlight the ability of discourses to materialize in, or as, truth, and as such to support or decry particular constituencies. Discourses therefore matter to us as products and vehicles of power relations that can be subject to the analytical and interpretative tools of English and American Studies. Our idea was to challenge especially young scholars to position their research concerning the ability of their fields to be discourses that matter; in the case in point, to be critical practices that make an active intervention in current debates.

By focusing on matters such as language as witness to the world, representations of gender, race, and ethnicity, performative discourses, exceptionalism and power, and interculturality, these essays pursue the chance to deepen, enlarge, and question both literary and cultural phenomena, their established critical readings, and the strategies deployed in representations. Finally, English and American Studies in the present collection demonstrate their affiliation to the Humanities by exploring the numerous possibilities offered by their discourses: their ability to foster critical thought, allowing us to think for (and outside) ourselves, their capacity to test, argue, and question, and their profound imaginative potential.

Maria José Canelo is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and a Researcher at the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. She holds a PhD in American Studies from NYU.

Marta Soares holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Coimbra, with a dissertation on the poet Adrienne Rich.

Marta Mancelos is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Coimbra. Her dissertation focuses on the work of Japanese-American poet Sawako Nakayasu.

Cláudia Pinto is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Coimbra. She works on the reconfiguration and use of myth in nation-building through superhero comics and fantastic literature.

Fernando Gonçalves holds an MA in American Studies and is currently writing his PhD dissertation on Acoma Pueblo poet and critic Simon J. Ortiz, at the University of Coimbra.

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Susana Amante

Enrico Botta

Tommaso Caiazza

Maria José Canelo

Gonçalo Cholant

Fernando Goncalves

Susanne Kopf

Marta Mancelos

Sylwia Markiewicz Lopes

Jose Moura

Claudia Pinto