I took a trip down to L’America To trade some beads for a pint of gold.

Jim Morrison

As the title indicates, Trans/American, Trans/Oceanic, Trans/lation points towards the International American Studies Society’s aims to promote cross-disciplinary study and teaching of the Americas regionally, hemispherically, nationally and transnationally. But it also reflects, less strategically but more forcefully, the heterogeneous and often unexpected themes, topics and motifs addressed in this forum.

These articles are revealing in that they give face and expression to the evolving...