Teaching American Studies in Central and Eastern Europe Conference
 

The participants' feedback
 
 

As one of four invited faculty members, like my colleague Heinz Ickstadt from Berlin I represented a European approach to American Studies. The balance thus established between current American and European approaches worked well to give he invited participants from a number of Central and Eastern European countries a good sense of ways in which teach American Studies in their various countries. As a first meeting of its kind it fully deserves repetition in future, either with a new group of participants, or as a sequel going more in depth with the same group that I met this time. It is a crucial learning experience for all parties involved. Not only may the invited participants take home with them new ideas on what to teach and to teach it, the faculty as well got a much better sense of the university situations in Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, networks of continuing exchange of ideas, suggestions, teaching tools, et cetera, result from meetings like this one. Through mail and the Internet academics will remain connected after they first got together to the splendid initiative USIS, Warsaw and Department of American Literature and Culture, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin.
 

Rob Kroes, former EAAS President
 
 
 
 
 

All in all, I thought it was an exciting conference; not only because of the lectures (interesting as they were) but of the exchange of interests, opinions, information, that was going on during the sessions and in conversations over meals. What I find extremely important is to build up a network during the next few years which would 1) help Americanists from the former Soviet republics to reestablish contact with one another (I see the danger that the newly won political autonomy might lead to a new provincial isolation); 2) help them to establish contacts with their colleagues from the national organizations in Eastern (Central) Europe (The Polish organization could be of crucial importance in this process); 3) help to connect all of them with the existent and well-functioning network of Western European Americanists. As I said, in my eyes this is the most important task EAAS has to take on in the near future. Pulawy was a step in this direction - many others have to follow. Let me also say that the conference profited from the warm hospitality all participanmts encountered and from the comfort and convenience provided by the conference hotel. We made plans for the future - let's stick to them.
 

Heinz Ickstadt, EAAS President
 
 
 
 
 

It was not only extremely well-planned and organized, but I was delighted by the quality of the conversations - both in formal presentations and informally at mealtimes and between sessions - that I was able to engage in with all of the participants, presenters and non-presenters alike. The size of the conference was excellent; it provided an opportunity for people from a wide range of countries and backgrounds to come together and share perspectives, but at the same time it provided ample opportunity for informal in-depth conversations that most larger conferences are unable to achieve. I was impressed throughout by the genuine interest, enthusiasm, and sense of collegiality that characterized virtually all the conference participants, the vast majority of whom were genuinely interested in enhancing their understanding of American culture and society, albeit under extremely harrowing conditions that most American scholars would find incomprehensible. The opportunity to meet, to share perspectives, and to establish relationships with people from throughout Eastern Europe and the opportunity it provided to establish scholarly and personal networks seems to me to have been invaluable. In sum, it was one of the most delightful conferences that I've ever attended--there was very little grandstanding and one-upsmanship, and those in attendance were almost universally characterized by a genuine interest in the conference's subject matter and in the ideas and perspectives of fellow attendees. I wish that all professional conferences that I attend could reach the standard that this one achieved. I think that the idea of hosting the conference in a center such as Pulawy, where all the participants were housed in close proximity, provided maximum opportunity for the conversations that were so important to the success of the conference to take place. I know that successful conferences are not simply the consequence of some ineffable chemistry that occurs fortuitously, but rather are the result of a lot of hard work and planning.
 

Norman Yetman, University of Kansas
 
 
 
 
 

I am just writing to say how grateful I am to you for organizing such a wonderful event. The organization was excellent and the program well-balanced and informative. And the weather, thank you for arranging that as well.

Krista Mits, Estonian Institute of Humanities

 The picture emerging from the discussions meant a dual success for the conference itself. Firstly, the main objective, that of presenting the state of American Studies in the region was successful, although the Slovakian, the Rumanian and the Latvian delegation could not attend it. Secondly, the maladies of the situation were also implied which means that the basic questions for continuing this kind of conference are possible to articulate now. For me, an official outsider for American Studies, it became obvious that from among the three areas of focus, namely: American Studies in America; the image of America in Europe and its theoretical implications; the teaching of American Studies in a specific Central/Eastern European context and its problems the latter two created most commentary. A remarkable feature of this cornmunication was that the questions came from all sides, i. e. the lecturers who have ideas and would like to share them, also from the coordinators, for instance when the head of the Association of American Studies asked the question what it would be helpful to facilitate the communication among members, and thirdly also from the audience, who were even interested in down to earth matters like the availability of books and films and the posting and the financing of these items, and felt sorry that their course descriptions could not be publicized and discussed. These features suggest that there is a willingness to communicate that cannot be satisfied in the form of conference questions or informal chatting, but would require panels of interest distinguished and an intensive use of group work where the leader, a coordinator possibly, could find out about and collect ideas on for instance the areas of teaching covered, the strategies that have proved successful, recurring problems that need amendment, kinds of cooperation possible among departments, the programs of summer university courses favored, etc. Naturally, the kinds of questions for these activities should be decided according to the implied audience of such a conference: may they be the teaching assistants, lecturers, professors or all of them together. I am convinced that the success of this pioneering conference is also a sign of the success of the following ones.

Kovacs Agnes Zofia
 Ph.D. student, Jozsef Attila University, Hungary

Thank you for the invitation to Lithuanian American Studies specialists to participate in the regional workshop conducted in Pulawy, Poland, and for the excellent organization of the program. This workshop gave our American Studies specialists a wonderful opportunity to meet not only professional counterparts from Eastern Europe, but also experienced American Studies specialists from the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands. As described by one of the Lithuanian participants from Kaunas Technological University, each American Studies topic discussed at the workshop was like "a brick given into our hands, which we know that we need to build a nice 'American Studies house'. But besides bricks, we need additional building materials. Be patient as you'll see a result." The Lithuanian participants in the workshop felt that the contacts they were able to establish with their colleagues in neighboring countries as well as in Western Europe also made up some of the additional 'building materials'. 


Lithuanian delegation 

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