RRAAAASS NNeewwsslleetttteerr nnoo...1100//22000099 LLeetttteerr ffrroomm tthhee PPrreessiiddeenntt TABLE OF CONTENTS ______________________________________ Adina Ciugureanu President of RAAS, Professor of English and American, Dean, Letter from the President Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University - ConstanŃa Adina Ciugureanu Dear colleagues, American Studies Ana-Karina Schneider Since the RAAS Conference organized in Bucharest in May 2008, the Board met once in Constan Ńa, September 11, 2009. The first point on American Corners our agenda was the establishing of the topic and dates for the next Baia Mare biennial national conference. After analyzing the proposals, the board decided on the topic which has already been launched to the Conference Participation Romanian members and those of other European associations on the Marius Jucan RAAS and EAAS sites. Our next conference, whose subject is The Silvia Florea, Lucia Pavelescu American Tradition of Descent/Dissent – The Underground, The Countercultural, the (Anti)Utopian will be held at Ovidius University Academic Exchanges and Summer Constan Ńa, Oct. 7-9, 2010. We are happy to announce the Schools participation of Professor Janice Radway, Walter Dill Scott Professor Anda Ştefanovici of Communication Studies, Northwestern University, Illinois, who will Costinela Dragan be our key-note speaker, and of all the Fulbright scholars (senior and Ludmila Martanovschi junior) who will participate both in the conference and in the two day training organized in Constan Ńa at the time. Our conference will Research Projects continue the tradition of the former scholarly events organized in Anamaria Schwab Bucharest, namely being a joint event between the Romanian Michaela Praisler Association for American Studies and the Fulbright Commission. We Daniela Angelica Dorobantu also address our thanks to the American Cultural Center in Bucharest PhD Thesis for its constant and generous support which will make the Constan Ńa event possible. Anca-Luminiţa Iancu Book Reviews An important issue raised at the September board meeting was the Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru fee which the members of our association have paid yearly so far. A Eniko Maior thorough analysis of the amount due to be a member of the RAAS and EAAS revealed the fact that the amount left after paying for our Calls for Papers EAAS membership is so insignificant that nothing can be done with it. Many of our colleagues have wondered what other benefits they can US Embassy Events/Notices get from the association, besides receiving a yearly newsletter and participating, if they wished, in a biennial conference. There are also Fulbright Scholars 2009-2010 young academics and graduate students who would like to become members of the RAAS, but would also be much happier if the RAAS Officers & EAAS membership brought them reciprocal benefits. To all these colleagues and prospective future members, the board brings the news that a higher fee means a reserve fund which will be used primarily to of our association for their participation in the encourage young academics to do research and publish. We intend to biennial conference. Thus, the non-members offer awards for the best MA and/or PhD dissertation on a topic will have to pay a much higher fee, unless they related to American Studies. It is true that at a time of economic decide to become members by September 1, recess, it is not easy to pay a higher fee. Yet, if we think of 2010. encouraging research in general and young academics in particular, moreover, if we think of keeping our association alive, we might then The third point of the agenda was the proposal see a reason behind the enlarged fee decision. We have also decided to create and publish the RAAS journal, with to charge differently the members and non-members the title The Romanian Journal of American Studies . In view of its editing, the board launched a call for editorial conference. Our next national event is, projects and topics, but has not received any response yet. We will re- obviously, the October conference at Ovidius discuss the matter and make decisions about it at our general meeting University Constanta, for which we have held at the end of the October conference. The creation and already received some extremely interesting publication of an American Studies journal will not only raise and challenging proposals. It is my hope that academics’ and graduate students’ interest in our association, but will most RAAS members will attend the also make the RAAS much stronger and more credible at European conference. Meanwhile, do search our site, level. Meanwhile, we are happy to announce the publication of the where you will find the latest news, think of an RAAS volume The Sense of America (Histories into Text) (eds. appropriate title and a short abstract by March Rodica Mih ăil ă, Irina Grigorescu Pan ă, Univers Enciplopedic, 2009), 15 and fill in the registration form for the RAAS containing a large number of the papers presented at the 2008 RAAS Conference, Ovidius University. conference, held in Bucharest. Looking forward to seeing you all in The next important event, which will probably bring some changes to Constan Ńa, the organization of EAAS as regards the delegation of responsibilities, is the European Conference for American Studies, Dublin, March 24- Adina Ciugureanu 29, 2010. Though unfortunately Romania does not have a large representation, there are a few members whose papers have been accepted. The next newsletter will contain a presentation of this huge European event as well as the dates and topic of the 2012 __________________________________________________________________________________ Professor Ciocoi-Pop. All this has American week comprising the American been supported logistically by the students’ symposium, “Cultures in existence in Sibiu of the American Transit”. A selection of the Studies Library, hosting, since 1995, the proceedings of both events are American Centre that had included in the two publications previously functioned in Bucharest. issued by the C. Peter Magrath Moreover, a number of professional Research Centre, East-West American Studies at Sibiu associations has facilitated Cultural Passage and the students’ interaction and exchanges with journal, Cultures in Transit . The AnaAnaAna-Ana ---KarinaKarina Schneider specialists, nationally and presence of Fulbright lecturers and Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu internationally: Sibiu staff have been American specialists has been a a constant presence at the events constant at LBU, our Department Lucian Blaga University has organised by the Salzburg Seminar having hosted over the years both had a long tradition in fostering of American Studies and were professors temporarily based in interest in American culture and among the founding members of the Sibiu and guest lecturers delivering civilisation. With a prestigious Romanian Association for American talks and convening workshops in Americanist, Professor Dumitru Studies; the Academic Anglophone American literature, creative writing, Ciocoi-Pop, as its President after Society of Romania, founded by political science, history and so 1989, the University quickly Professor Sever Trifu at Sibiu in forth. As of 2008, our Department established student and staff 1997, has always encouraged has also become the venue of the exchange programmes with American scholarship and included fortnightly meetings of the American American universities (most notably it among the fields of its Culture Club uniting highschool and the University of Missouri at international publication, American, university students with an interest Columbia) and has hosted Fulbright British and Canadian Studies ; and in American culture from across the lecturers since the early 1990s. In the C. Peter Magrath Centre for city. both the philology and modern Cross-cultural Studies was set up at With such a rich tradition in languages study programmes Lucian Blaga University in 1999. both research and teaching, the courses in American literature, The latter in particular is devoted to Department of British and American culture and civilisation feature promoting Romanian-American Studies in Sibiu was bound to set extensively, and for a number of academic interaction: it has up a programme in American years in the late nineties the most organised a number of events, of Studies, and after some institutional popular master’s programme was in which the annual Fulbrighters’ hesitations, it finally did so in 2009. modernist British and American conference, “East-West Cultural Embedded in a thorough literature. The local doctoral Passage”, has reached its eighth understanding of the special programme in philology has trained edition, and has also triggered the requirements of the cultural studies many of the country’s Americanists, organisation of an annual Anglo- programme, LBU’s American under the masterful supervision of Studies curriculum combines Put very simply, AMS studies efficiently the core subjects of American culture. There are foreign language specialist study consequently two sides to its object with an interdisciplinary approach to of study: On the one hand, the American culture and civilisation, social, political, economic and and the ministerially recommended cultural realities of so large a subjects of the national curricular country have inevitable engendered American core with a creative approach to the intense debate as to what can be study of America relying on local defined as American: who is a real