The Atlantic World and Atlantic Studies: Literary, Cultural and Historical Perspectives on Europe, Africa and the Americas (v.1, 2004- )

The emergence of the focus as a field is obvious from a crudely simple search of Historical Abstracts, http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/histabst.html and America: History and Life, http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/am_history_life.html. Using “Atlantic world” as a phrase retrieves 98 citations in Historical Abstracts and 155 citations in America: History and Life. A Google search finds 76,700 pages. When searching Google, use the form "atlantic world", that is, remember to use parentheses. A WorldCat http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/worldcat.html search retrieves 93 citations from a Notes/Comments defined search (these are for essays in books) and 182 citations for books doing a simple Title search. A search of the MLA Bibliography http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/mla.html find 12 items. Searching in JStor http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/jstor.html across history journals for the Exact Phrase, but without restriction to location, finds 306 articles; restricting the phrase to appearance in the title retrieves 4 articles. Needless to say, appearance of the phrase is not the whole story, but neither is it meaningless. The categorization is revealing.

Atlantic Studies is available to us in electronic format. Find it by consulting the Electronic Journals search engine, http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/ft.html. It’s published on behalf of The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas (MESEA). Visit MESEA’s Web site at http://www.mesea.org/. “The Society promotes the study of the ethnic cultures of Europe and the Americas in their circum-Atlantic relations from a transdisciplinary literary, historical and cultural studies perspective.”

Atlantic Studies focuses on the Atlantic “as an arena of cultural change and exchange, translation and interference, communication and passage.” Among its editors, advisory board, and editorial board are scholars from the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere. Some recent articles include: “C.L.R. James’s American Civilization,” “’I’ll Teach You How to Flow’: On Figuring Out Atlantic Studies,” and “The Atlantic as Metaphor.” Contributions have a literary emphasis, reflecting the genealogy of the sponsoring organization.