That is why I am unable to choose a single symbolic act to represent this most recent stage of the movement; our direction is so clearly paradoxical that no one can say just where we are now, let alone prophesy where we may be headed.

Gene Wise

With this fourth edition of aspeers, we once again follow our ambition to showcase young scholars’ work beyond the graduate classroom and to offer a sphere for interdisciplinary discussion, debate, and exchange across national borders. As we believe that outstanding graduate scholarship hardly receives the appropriate amount of recognition for its contribution to the developments in American studies, we want to give voice to emerging scholars—not because their work can “prophesy where we may be headed” (Wise 317), but because it can give us a sense of where young scholars want to go.

In addition to our goal to present the diversity of the upcoming generation of American studies, this issue also aims at highlighting a core theme of the discipline: the dynamic relationship of nature and technology. We ‘revisit’ this topic with new perspectives resulting from the discipline’s various turns in a topical section consisting of two academic contributions, a selection of artwork, and our Professorial Voice. With a second part of academic contributions, we try to give a snapshot of graduate American studies in Europe that is not exclusively grouped around a certain topic but rather is intended to mirror the field’s diversity. On the following pages we would like to introduce our readers to the topical spotlight of Nature and Technology, Revisited, and to the entire scope of academic and creative contributions as well as to the Professorial Voice.