Iberian Studies to the South

MARCELO TOPUZIAN

Mapping Iberian Studies

Brill

Año: 2023;

Iberian studies propose a specific way of postulating and constructing new comparative research objects. Hence the importance of considering them a powerhouse of speculation and not a given empirical field (an "Iberian culture"). At the same time, it is essential to consider the institutional place of Iberian studies as a research program. The institutionalization of a discipline does not consist only in its autonomization but also in how it enters into an obligatory and constant dialogue and conflict with those that until then covered –from other problematic frameworks and criteria for the definition of objects– the territory –always already mapped– on which it will now cut its own specificity. An account of the challenges of Iberian studies in the Southern Cone of Latin America involves reviewing its relationships, agreements, and conflicts with Hispanism, transatlantic Studies, cultural studies, and comparative literature as they are practiced there. Specifically, in the Southern Cone, Hispanism and university courses in Spanish literature or literature in Portuguese have shown little permeability to the research perspectives of Iberian studies. The same has not happened within the field of comparative literature, with less tradition in the region and more open to novelties, especially if they involve theoretical-methodological innovations. Another problem is the scarce institutionalized penetration of cultural studies in these academic fields and the still quite strict separation between research that has literature at its center and perspectives that integrate other arts and, above all, other areas of cultural life in a wide sense.El ISBN se encuentra en trámite