Transatlantic Studies and the Geopolitics of Hispanism

Abstract

Transatlantic Studies are the outcome of a dual shift: a geographical displacement provoked by the geopolitical de-banking of area studies and an epistemological rift produced by the biocapitalist regime of accumulation. This combined shift translates profound geopolitical realignments, economic transformations and epistemological quandaries that make up our global age. If the geographical displacement from continental regions to oceanic ranges was meant to salvage area studies from their geopolitical obsolescence, and the epistemological displacement from hardcore, neo-positivistic and developmentalist social sciences to relativistic, postmodern and postcolonial multiculturalism was a response to the economically driven and globally experienced cultural turn, the emergence of Hispanic Transatlantic studies can be understood as the last-ditch effort of U.S. Hispanism to regain its lost prestige and, perhaps, its historical hegemony by taking part on this global geopolitical realignment. In a familiar way, the academic goals of U.S. Hispanic studies coincide once again with the global strategy of the ideology of Hispanism, confusedly entangled with the overlapping interests of Spanish capitalism and transnational corporations, in such a way that Spanish cultural and moral hegemony over the Hispanic world become an alibi for global economics and international geopolitics.