Inter-American studies or Imperial American studies?

Abstract As inter-American studies gain greater academic visibility, we are now in a position to ask whether the field constitutes an imperial threat to Latin American literary and cultural study, or whether it provides a valuable basis for cross-cultural comparison. Do inter-American studies represent the latest variation on the Monroe Doctrine of policing the region? What do we make of the fact that inter-American studies blossoms just as Latin Americanism becomes increasingly more powerful in the academy? This article argues that while questions of empire and appropriation must be considered as we assess this burgeon-ing field of inquiry, an inter-American perspective also affords possibili-ties for studying cultural production. These possibilities include comparative studies of works that have been largely marginalized by scholars of the Americas, such as Brazilian and indigenous literatures. In addition, the inter-American approach is able to put pressure on nation-alist and cultural essentialist epistemes by focusing on the ways that culture often transgresses borders, both geographic and identitarian