Foreword

With its seventh issue, aspeers continues to grow and, in growing, to develop its self-understanding as a project and to make fundamental, sometimes difficult, decisions. First and foremost, this is a sign of the ever increasing success of the venue as a whole: By including two contributions from Switzerland, the journal has added yet another entry to the list of countries from which publications have originated. Articles, artwork, and professorial voices from Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States have appeared both online and in print since the inaugural issue of 2008. With its 2014 issue on “American Anxieties,” aspeers presents a sixth topical focus on a highly dynamic aspect of American culture and on a productive field of American studies.1 Comparing the contributors pages of our first six issues with the names of successful young scholars of American studies in Europe today—be it on student lists at some of the few scholarship-granting PhD programs or on tables of contents of publications such as Amerikastudien/American Studies—it is evident that aspeers has grown to be a prestigious first step in a career in American studies.

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