This volume is the product of a joint effort to bring together critical views "from the Old World" on the field of American Studies. The contributors are leading Americanists working in Spanish academia who believe in the importance of working on American Studies from a multidisciplinary, inclusive perspective. The volume constitutes a testimony to the current state of research on American Studies in Spain, which occupies a key position in the transatlantic appreciation of the field. Ranging from Romanticism to Postmodernism, form the human to the post-human, from the Salem witchcraft trials to the Holocaust, from the Other to the Zombie, from fiction to history, from African-American slavery to Native-American reservations, from Spanish Unamunian philosophy to Whitmanesque poetryto name just a few of the themes discussed in these pagesthis entire volume is grounded on a transatlantic vision and dialogue, which has taken on great importance after the so-called "transatlantic turn." All in all, this book provides the critical gaze of the "expert outsider" who is able to offer a somewhat different but complementary point of view, which can only enrich the general appreciation of American Studies.

Isabel Durán is Professor of American Literature at the Complutense University of Madrid, and President of SAAS (Spanish Association for American Studies). Her research focuses on US literature and gender studies, lifewriting and ethnicity. She is currently working on ageing studies. Rebeca Gualberto is an Assistant Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, where she completed her PhD in Literary Studies with honours in 2015. Her teaching and academic interests focus on the study of myth-criticism, modernism, gender and cultural studies. Eusebio De Lorenzo is a Lecturer of English at Complutense University, where he has taught Shakespeare, Contemporary American Poetry, and Translation. He was a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship at Stanford. His research interests include: contemporary poetics, ideology and literature, subjectivity and the construction of authorship. Carmen M. Méndez-García is an Associate Professor at the Complutense Univesity of Madrid. Current research interests include 20th and 21st US literature, the Counterculture, postmodernism and contemporary fiction, spatial studies and gender and minority studies (specially Chicana studies). Eduardo Valls-Oyarzun is Reader at the Complutense University of Madrid. His research focuses on Nineteenth Century Fiction (Britain and US), contemporary British fiction and film studies.