ABSTRACT
In July 1980, Earl E. Fitz, a professor of Spanish, Portuguese, and comparative literature at Penn State University, predicted that
inter-American literary studies, naturally of a comparative nature, will prove themselves to be a major trend of the near future, one which will eventually establish itself as a permanent and vital part of every comparative literature department and program in the country.
(10) Over thirty years later, comparatists know that Fitz was only half right. While inter-Americanism has resurfaced in the 2000s as a key idea, the majority of teaching posts, fellowships, and seminars designated as “Literature of the Americas,” “Transnational,” or “Hemispheric American Literature” are housed in English departments, where Anglophone literature holds precedence. This historically anachronous approach places British before indigenous, Spanish, French, and Portuguese American cultures. The institutional frame subsumes the hemisphere under the United States, rather than the United States under the hemisphere.