Spring 2016 Re:Views Transatlantic Partnership: Interviews with His Excellency Andrew H. Schapiro and Michael Žantovský The Many Sides of Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel US Elections 2016 Tento projekt vznikl za finanční podpory a taktéž nemateriální pomoci Grantu TGM Spolku absolventů a přátel Dear readers… As always, I would like to thank you all for your support Masarykovy univerzity, Filozofické fakulty MU, Katedry anglistiky a amerikanistiky FF MU, Brno Expat Centre, and I hope you shall enjoy reading Issue IV as much as ESCape, Krmítka a Plánotisku. The king is dead. we enjoyed working on it! Long live the queen! This project was realized with financial as well as non-material help and support of TGM Grants of Alumni and On behalf of the Re:Views Magazine, Friends of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts MU, Department of English and American Studies FA MU, Brno Well, although our king did not quite die – as I am relieved Markéta Šonková Expat Centre, ESCape, Krmítko, and Plánotisk. to say – it is still an end of one era. Finally, after all those editor-in-chief years of reading about it, I can begin to imagine how the British felt when Edward VII sat on the throne after Queen Victoria. Just like them, not many of us remember anyone else but Jeff to sit on the throne of the Department Contents of English and American Studies. So to console our hearts and minds, let us all celebrate the fact that he still stays The Many Sides of Jeffrey Alan as our viceroy. Vanderziel ................................ 4 - 9 Back to 21st century and the simile-free language. I have The Fulbright Program ........ 10 - 15 to say that this Issue really is special. Not only because “To boldly go where all the smart we have seven new editors and a brand new workshop- people have gone before” ..... 10 - 12 like course where we produced many of these lines – The Fulbright Commission fortunately no one was harmed (Roald Dahl, you should in the Czech Republic .......... 13 - 15 Editorial staff External Contributors learn from us, we have safe working conditions!) – but most of all, because I am really proud that many people The Transatlantic Partnership Markéta Šonková, editor-in-chief Helena Brunnerová, photography working on the magazine, many of those who usually ..................................... 16 - 29 Anna Formánková, chief of staff Zuzana Motalová, graphic tasks do not work with us, and even those who maybe heard Interview with Michael Martina Krénová, finances and web Radka Michaláková, editor about us for the very first time, helped us produce this Žantovský ............................... 18 - 21 Barbara Ocsovayová, PR & editor Tereza Pavlíková, editor & transcripts incredible issue. To all of you, I send my biggest thanks! Interview with H. E. Andrew Šárka Panochová, external staff coordinator Natália Poláková, editor H. Schapiro ............................ 22 - 29 Blanka Šustrová, editor Pavel Peléšek, editor Not to steal all the thunder, it is fair to say that the Tereza Walsbergerová, editor Pavla Wernerová, PR & editor circumstances helped us too... The US presidential US Elections 2016 ................ 30 - 43 elections are always something to observe. So we observed External cooperation: Petr Čučka (photography & postproduction), Irina Matusevich (production The Candidates ..................... 30 - 32 them for you. And we also asked some of those most & postproduction), Audiovisual Support team E-learning Office, FA MU (production assistance), The American Spectacle ...... 33 - 35 Pavla Nováková (editor), Tomáš Varga (editor). qualified to express their opinions and ideas on what is How to Elect a POTUS ........ 36 - 39 going on. But it is not only the US where something is Expert Section ...................... 40 - 43 Katarína Gažíková, quality check happening. It seems like the British Isles are becoming Štěpán Šonka, graphic design, typesetting & composition keen on referenda. So we had a look in that too. PhDr. Kateřina Tomková, PhD, editing & course supervision Brexit .................................... 44 - 55 And some of us even overcame their fear of the inquisitive Unless stated otherwise, contributions in the magazine do not necessarily express opinions of the entire editorial staff, external Student Interview ................. 56 - 57 contributors and staff, sponsors, partners and patrons, Department of English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, or Masaryk lenses and stood in front of a camera. Three cameras, in University. Neither does the magazine wish to act as an official medium for communicating opinions of the above mentioned subjects. fact. I feel very privileged I could talk to His Excellency Authors of the particular articles and pieces are solely responsible for their content. Unless stated otherwise, the magazine does not own Andrew H. Schapiro, the US Ambassador to the Czech Letter from Abroad .............. 58 - 59 any of the pictures or photographs; their authors or owners are always credited. The magazine is a non-profit project. Republic whom I asked about Czech-American relations. Podcasts ................................ 61 - 67 It is believed that usage of low-resolution images for scholarly, commentary, criticism, research, and the like purposes qualifies as fair And because there is no such thing like too many good use. news, I could ask questions on similar topic also Mr. Michael Žantovský. The result is an amalgam of ideas and Critique: Jacob Riis .............. 66 - 69 Published by experience(s) from both sides of the Atlantic – one from Re:Views Magazine, z.s. IČO: 04915984 Review .................................. 70 - 73 Arne Nováka 1/1 ISSN: 2464-7306 a diplomat who formed our new democratic ties with 602 00 Brno Publication date: May 16, 2016 the USA and one from another diplomat, who nurtures Published twice a year (once per academic semester) in Brno and cultivates these ties now – and I sincerely hope you IDEAS ......................................... 74 Cover picture: Jeffrey A. Vanderziel by Helena Brunnerová. shall like both the articles as well as the videos. 4 The Many Sides of Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel The Many Sides of Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel 5 though he did not know this yet, shape the next studies,’ and I said ’I’m not really doing anything twenty-seven years of his life. “My life has never in the States’ so I came back.” Moreover, because The Many Sides of Jeffrey Alan been planned in the sense that I’m going to A, B, of the fact that his family moved around so much Vanderziel C. Yes, I’m going to A, but what happens after that when he was a child and he therefore does not have would depend on what happens with A. And so strong attachment to places, nor to people, he was I came, and what happened after is the result of able to stay long-term. “People come, people go, By Martina Krénová and Tereza Walsbergerová people move, people go away… I think that that has allowed me to stay here.” Although he is not leaving the department altogether, the fact that he is stepping down as head after 15 years I cannot imagine the sight of Dykes definitely feels like the end of an era. That is why we decided to sit down with the former Head and current on Bikes leading Prague Pride would The Expat Deputy Head of the Department of English and American Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Jeffrey Alan go very well here, topless women on Vanderziel, find out more about his life, and take a peek at the many different sides of the man who has gone Since he came to Brno after the Revolution, the from doing the local paper delivery route in San Francisco suburbia to being in charge of one of the oldest English their hogs riding down the street, that curriculum at the department had just undergone departments in the world. would be a bit much. In the States, in a massive change from more linguistics and San Francisco, it’s normal. literature-oriented one with very little history The Pupil The Hobbit, which then prompted him to join a and culture to something more similar to the science fiction book club when he was fifteen. “I curriculum as we know it today. In his words, it pretty veraciously read everything. I had read The things that happened here.” After he went back to was not a smooth transition. “The Department had Though it may seem like he had in many ways the Lord of the Rings by the time I was sixteen probably the States in 1990, realizing his dissertation was a very turbulent period in the mid-90s when there stereotypical American childhood, it was a pretty about five or six times.” In other words, reading not going anywhere, he decided to return. “At that were serious disagreements among staff about the rough ride. While he primarily grew up in San became a way to escape his everyday life. time Don [Sparling] and Doug Dicks who was a direction of the Department. I wasn’t at the center Francisco suburbs, his family moved around a lot, Fulbright scholar at the Department at that time, of those, I was a marginal, young, new person at which meant that as a very young boy he often The Scholar said ’why don’t you come back and do American the Department, and so it wasn’t really my place.” found himself having to be the new kid at school. “I wouldn’t say I had a lot of friends or was very Although he claims to have had no literary heroes popular. Junior high school was a pretty miserable with whom he would identify in his personal life, there were a few scholars who helped mold his young mind into the academic that he is today. I pretty veraciously read everything. I “There was a teacher in junior high school that was had read The Lord of the Rings by the quite influential, Mr.