Winter 2025 Special Issue of The European Journal of American Studies CfP
Call for Papers for the Winter 2025 Special Issue of The European Journal of American Studies
Transatlantic Flows: Cross-Cultural Interfaces between the U.S. and Europe, 1945 to Present (Edited Collection of Essays)
This volume builds on the approach taken in a previous contribution to The European Journal of American Studies, the special issue America to Poland: Cultural Transfers and Adaptations (13-3/2018), a collection of articles inspired by the work of, among others, Winfried Fluck, Rob Kroes, and Radina Vučetić—European theorists and historians who view the cultural phenomenon of so-called Americanization as a process of fertilization rather than colonization of European culture(s). Expanding the scope of the previous volume to include not only European perspectives beyond Poland on American cultural influences but also, hopefully, to examine examples of the continuing transatlantic transfer of European tastes, cultural formulae, and media formats—despite the cultural logic of the era of American cultural dominance, dubbed the “irresistible empire” by Victoria de Grazia—this volume explores transatlantic cross-fertilization in various cultural spheres, including the arts, cultural institutions and practices, languages, literature, and media. Depending on the case in point, the United States or specific European countries may be on the receiving end of this process, with the vectors of transatlantic exchange pointing either West or East—even though, as it has often been observed, since WWII and during the Cold War, it was the U.S. that saw a record surplus in the cultural exchanges with Europe. The end of the Cold War and the emergence of an increasingly global cultural arena have, on the one hand, strengthened the dominant position of American culture (especially its popular culture) vis-à-vis national and increasingly supranational European cultures, but, on the other hand, through electronic and digital media, facilitated cultural transfer moving in the opposite direction: from Europe to America.
We encourage contributions that examine transatlantic cultural flows in terms of importation, appropriation, translation, adoption, adaptation, and deployment of lifestyles, symbolism, iconography, cultural institutions, as well as literary and artistic trends, in a wide range of academic fields such as cultural and social history, social studies, visual culture and media studies, literature, and linguistics.
Possible lines of inquiry may include:
- European adaptations of American media formats and content,
- American adaptations and remakes of European media formats and content,
- The transatlantic transfers in terms of lifestyles and tastes,
- The transatlantic literary and artistic influences,
- Memory politics and related symbolism in the transatlantic context,
- Transfer of ideas and ideologies.
Please submit your articles, together with a short bio, by June 1, 2025 to: pskurowski@swps.edu.pl and eoki@swps.edu.pl.
Contributors should follow the current MLA guidelines for formatting and documenting the submitted texts.