The ‘No Kings’ protests on June 14, 2025, incited millions of people across the United States to oppose the policies of Donald Trump’s second presidency, manifesting an outspoken resistance against forms of autocracy. While the fervor and visibility of protesting has wavered throughout US history, sites and moments of resistance (against the government, specific policies, businesses, individuals, etc.) dominate the nation’s collective memory: from the anti-monarchist sentiment linking ‘No Kings’ to the Boston Tea Party, from the abolitionist movement to demonstrations against the Vietnam War, from the Stonewall uprising to Occupy Wall Street or the #MeToo movement.

In fact, US culture has mobilized diverse material and symbolic spaces to give expression to a multitude of forms of resistance throughout history, often also transcending direct political action. Literature and the arts have served as creative vessels for the voicing of disagreement (e.g. in utopian/dystopian imaginations), and popular and folk culture have given visibility to vernacular forms of defiance through polysemy and ambivalence. Spaces of resistance also matter geographically in American culture, e.g. in the perceived urban/rural divide or through the metonymic importance of regions like the US South. This multiplicity begs a number of critical questions: Does resistance form a pivotal part of a mythic US national character—or is it instead a mere momentary aberration from a cultural norm (as might be visible from a transnational perspective)? What identities and communities are constructed and imagined around a tangible or felt resistance? What is even understood as resistance, against and by whom in particular? Are the causes connected to resistance habitually framed as progressive, or at times also as reactionary (e.g. in upholding a status quo), or even as anarchic—and how has that been (re)evaluated in later eras?

For its nineteenth issue, aspeers dedicates its topical section to “American Spaces of Resistance” and invites European graduate students to critically and analytically explore US literature, (popular) culture, history, politics, society, and media through the lens of ‘resistance.’ We welcome papers from all disciplines, methodologies, and approaches comprising American studies and related fields. Potential papers could cover (but are not limited to):

• Representations of resistance and counter-hegemonic narratives in literature, film, TV, music, games, etc.
• Social and civil rights movements, grassroots activism; collective resistance and coalitions of resistance
• The role of geographic places, spaces, and mobilities in cultural and political practices of (counter-)protest
• Material and symbolic transgressions of borders and boundaries; subcultural, folk, or indigenous spaces as sites of resistance
• Digitally based resistance movements; fandom as a space of resistance
• ‘Radical’ identity constructions (e.g. around gender, sexuality, disability, ‘race’) as forms of resistance
• The aestheticism(s) of resistance
• Resistance in the public sphere and through public performance (e.g. civil disobedience); in labor (e.g. malicious compliance); in political theory and philosophy (e.g. Black radicalism)
• Resistance and counter-resistance movements in different political contexts (e.g. far-right self-understandings of the January 6 Capital Riots or the ‘sovereign citizen’ movement as resistance)

aspeers, the first graduate-level peer-reviewed journal of European American studies, encourages fellow MA students from all fields to reflect on the diverse meanings of “American Spaces of Resistance.” We welcome term papers, excerpts from theses, or papers specifically written for the nineteenth issue of aspeers by October 19, 2025. If you seek to publish work beyond this topic, please refer to our general Call for Papers. Please consult our submission guidelines and find some additional tips at www.aspeers.com/2026.