Chicano Cultural Studies Forum

Book excerpt: The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Forum brings together a diverse group of scholars whose work spans the interdisciplinary fields of Chicana/o studies and cultural studies. Editor Angie Chabram-Dernersesian provides an overview of current debates, locating Chicana/o cultural criticism at the intersections of these fields. She then acts as moderator of a virtual roundtable of critics, including Frances Aparicio, Lisa Lowe, George Lipsitz, Wahneema Lubiano, Renato Rosaldo, José David Saldívar, and Sonia Saldívar-Hull. This highly collaborative and deeply interdisciplinary project addresses the questions: What is the relationship between Chicana/o studies and cultural studies? How do we do cultural studies from within Chicana/o cultural studies? How do Chicana/o cultural studies formations (hemispheric, borderland, and feminist) intermingle? The lively conversations documented here attest to the vitality and spirit of Chicana/o cultural studies today and track the movements between disciplines that share an interest in the study of culture, power relations, identity, and representation. This book offers a unique resource for understanding not just the development of Chicana/o cultural studies, but how new social movements and epistemologies travel and affiliate with progressive forms of social inquiry in the global era.