Thinking Through Nationalism

Unpacking the Nation through American Studies

One of the serious boundaries and dilemmas for a journal that wishes to reach an international audience is the matter of language. Working from Canada, most of NeoAm’s executive have grownup or been well-exposed to a bilingual environment and immersed in the “language” of multiculturalism. But, this is not to say that Canadians, like our American counterparts to the south and in nations around the world, are not actively engaged in discussions about “accommodation” or “compromise over the cultural makeup of the nation-state”. Recently we decided that the journal would attempt to launch a series of posters and advertisements in multiple languages, despite the organization’s (current) inability to actually accept papers in the posted languages. In other words, the posters would be used for the exclusive purpose of increasing general awareness among a wider global audience, as NeoAm would not be able to alter its practice of requesting written works in English only. This decision to launch the posters has produced a fair amount of debate, even amongst our small executive. Some have argued that the journal would be misrepresented by advertisements in languages other than English, while others argue that so much of the work done in American Studies assumes a monolingual readership. Needless to say, this debate may never be solved—certainly not within the scope of our small publication—but it points to the crucial and problematic role that language plays in the constitution of identity, subjectivization and the cultural apparatuses that sustain any collective identity.

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