C.IAS

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The Center for Inter-American Studies (C.IAS), under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Roberta Maierhofer, was established by the Rectorate of the University of Graz as a platform for interdisciplinary and inter-regional communication and collaboration in the Americas in 2006 and was officially founded in 2007. 

This new interest in Inter-American relationships was sparked by processes such as globalization and transnational migration - developments that transform cultural identities and challenge conceptions of “self” and “other.” Especially in Europe, which itself is in the midst of negotiating a “European identity” in addition to national and regional ones, changing reference points demand re-conceptualization of academic perspectives. For European scholars of Inter-American Studies, the “Americaness” of the Americas and the changing qualities of “self” and “other” are of particular interest, encouraging a re-definition of positions and mental frameworks. 

By building intra-regional cooperation in international education based on teaching and research, new possibilities of collaboration and mobility are created and a wide variety of research projects in the field of Collective Identities, re-conceptualizing traditional approaches not only in terms of transnational and trans-regional, but also in terms of Euro-American relations, international summer schools, multifaceted lecture series, and publications contribute to the establishment of Inter-American Studies on a national and also international level.

The university's declaration of North-, Central- and South America as the second regional focus alongside the already established focus on South-Eastern Europe in 2012 highlights the commitment of the University of Graz to the study of the Americas.