Nationhood and Citizenship Conference
 

The participants' feedback

Kudos to Kate Delaney for having the foresight (at a time of diminishing resources) and the hindsight (learning from history) that these conferences generate the quiet but powerful networks for inter-institutional cooperation and scholarly networking that keeps so many things going. Clearly without the generous financial support (USIA) and intellectual perspectives she supplied, we would have had a small but still "missed opportunity" for building better bridges in Europe.

And kudos to Jurek Durczak for yet again exercising his polymath adminstrative and communications skills to realize a "community" in its own right, one in which so many "nationalities" and "international citizens" could commune freely, happily, and productively.  If a goal of the conference was to better understand today's world through rigorous critical analysis and existential delight, Jurek's alchemy was necessary.

But if, as Brecht says, "Let's have the grub first, then the morals," other parties were almost invisible partners in making sure all sorts of helpings were on the plates.  Jurek Kutnik, absorbed in new duties as an associate dean at UMCS, still found time to make sure the conference proceeded without snags and found time to attend the meetings.  But all sorts of kudos go to the UMCS junior faculty--Pawel Frelik, Dorota Janowska, Gosia Siwek, Bianka Zarzycka--the silent "enforcers" who operated behind the scenes to make sure that if there was to be an international incident, it would be worthy of applause. But to the nitty gritty.  If a need was addressed, it was the isolation facing some regional scholars--from from Minsk and Kiev, but also from Tartu and Bucharest and other Central and European locales--whose work in transglobal issues and thinking--i.e. "American Studies"--no longer gets either the local institutional support it deserves nor the recognition (and support) it once had from the US at the height of the Cold War.  There was clearly a synergy going on at the lectures, the discussions, at the dinner tables which was taking the form of discovering comparative models for problem solving and even problem recognition (e.g. ethnic frictions, ageing, environmental cleanup, aesthetics in the postmodern era, citizenship in the "non-nation state"). And networking like mad.  These are today's, much less tomorrow's, university teachers.  Let me add as a sort of postscript that I've now attended two conferences in Poland with Central-Eastern dominance, and I'm still ga-ga over the sheer brightness of the confreres.

John Leo, University of Rhode Island/1999-2000 Fulbright Professor
 

Thank you so much for the seminar you hosted. I had such a good time visiting you in Pulawy and I enjoyed meeting all the participants of the seminar. I am happy to have got some information about American Studies taught in Europe. The material distributed in the course of the event is being digested and I think it will help to update our American Studies syllabus.
The wonderful books I received will be extremely useful. Your experience in organizing the seminar is worth following and I shall never forget the warm hospitality. I wish I could attend more seminars like yours to have the opportunity to share our fresh ideas. I hope to get together in the same company some day.

Olha Yashenkova, Kyiv Shevchenko University, Ukraine
 

 I am now back in Washington and wanted to write at least briefly (given my jet lag and the formidable amount of email awaiting me here) to express my warm thanks for the extraordinary hospitality of you and your colleagues and for the great care that you all gave to the intellectual and practical work of the organzing the conference. It was a great pleasure
and opportunity for me to participate. I, of course, learned a great deal from the presentations by Piotr, Heinz, Rob, and Eric, but the greatest value for me was in learning more about the perspectives of a generation of younger scholars of American Studies in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. I learned an enormous amount from them--particularly
in the discussions over meals as well from the comments at the formal sessions. I would love to figure out a way that we could involve some younger American studies scholars from U.S. in any future event, which would multiply the levels of interaction. Thanks again for allowing me to participate in this valuable event and to you and your colleagues for your enormous
labors in making it happen.
 

Roy Rosenzweig, George Mason University
 

The conference was highly successful to raise controversial issues of American Studies in general and also those of European American Studies, especially in the actual academic realm of the participants. At the same time, it provided the paticipants with the possibility of both formal and informal consultation. Its organization was impeccable, and no doubt this also contributed to the emergence of durable contacts among faculties of the universities present. The time spent in Pulawy was an extremely useful one. We hope this conference is one of the hopefully long chain of conferences that will enable academics to meet and to discuss in
and about American Studies.
 

Agnes Zsofia Kovacs & Reka Monika Cristian, Jozsef Attila University, Hungary