International Black Sea University Faculty of Humanities Direction of American Studies American Studies Periodical 2nd Edition American Studies International Research Conference Materials Tbilisi 2009 Chief Editor: Prof. Dr. Tamar Shioshvili, The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities International Black Sea University Computer and Editorial Assistance: Tamar Karazanishvili, M.A., Secretary of the Faculty of Humanities International Black Sea University © International Black Sea University, 2009 UDC: 908 (73) A-47 TABLE OF CONTENTS: SECTION I: Education and Social Issues TAMAR SHIOSHVILI The Black Presence in American Life Today ........................................................................ 6 IRINA BAKHTADZE Changing Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century – A Culture of Change .............. 12 IRMA MESIRIDZE The Scope of Multicultural Education ................................................................................. 15 TAMAR KARAZANISHVILI Funding American Higher Education: University Policies and Student Aid Programs ...... 20 BETUL AYSE SAYIN Voice of America: American English ................................................................................. 25 LELA ABDUSHELISHVILI Adult Education: Do Trends in the America Foreshadow Trends in Georgia .................... 29 VALERI MODEBADZE The Importance of the Formation of a Common Civil Identity for a Polyethnic State ....... 33 NINO CHACHANIDZE Making a Research (American Experience) ........................................................................ 39 NINO FARIZOVA Echo of the Invisible World – Endangered Native American Languages ........................... 43 SECTION II: United States – Georgia ELENE MEDZMARIASHVILI Peculiarities of Waves of Georgian Emigration to the North America ............................... 50 NINO IAKOBISHVILI The Most Democratic Country’s Undemocratic Exercise – Death Penalty in the U.S. ...... 58 3 IRMA GRDZELIDZE, NINO PKHAKADZE Gender and Language Variations (English and Georgian Languages) ............................... 63 SOPHIO KHIDASHELI Influence of the American Pop Culture on Georgia ............................................................ 65 TEONA LAVRELASHVILI The Evolution of USA Security Policy and Contemporary Challenges .............................. 69 SECTION III: History, Art, Economics EDWARD R. RAUPP The Coming Collapse of the US Dollar ............................................................................... 75 TAMAR KEINASHVILI Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy: Two Very Different Times, But Two Very Similar Men …………………………………...80 TATIANA PAPIASHVILI Global Financial Crisis in Georgia and in … Georgia ........................................................ 83 DADUNA KHUTSISHVILI The Bush Doctrine and the Relationship between Reagan’s Foreign Policies .................... 88 NICHOLAS MAKHARASHVILI Strategic Management in PR Practice ................................................................................. 94 DAVID APTSIAURI An Impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 on the US Economy (Some Basic Trends, Statistical Facts and Observations) ................................................. 101 GEORGE SHADURI The Structure of American Blues ...................................................................................... 107 NINO GAMSAKHURDIA Martin Luther King as a Milestone in the American History ............................................ 111 NINO ESITASHVILI PR Technologies and US Presidents ................................................................................. 114 4 KHATIA CHELIDZE Jazz Age ............................................................................................................................. 119 SECTION IV: Literature and Women’s Issues TAMAR KOBESHAVIDZE The Problem of Communication of the Reader and the Author in Pyhchon’s Novel “The Crying of Lot 49” ......................................................................... 123 TAMAR CHEISHVILI Recyclopedia: Harryette Mullen’s Award Winning Poetry Collection ............................. 129 TAMTA TSKITISHVILI Women’s Role Increase in the US in the 20th Century ...................................................... 133 BAIA KOGHUASHVILI American Romantic Essay ................................................................................................. 140 5 SECTION I: Education and Social Issues The Black Presence in American Life Today TAMAR SHIOSHVILI* America has permanently fixed attention on its lingering racial crisis. According Prof. Orlando Patterson1, “What is strange, however, is that, in the current ‘90s rhetoric of race, the pain exceeds the gain.” About two decades ago conservative view among blacks at practically all points in political range was, that relations between races were disruptive, be it the left, concentrating on the political neglect of the destroyed ghettoes, or the right, disapproving the abuses of affirmative action and unsuccessful government policies. According Prof. Orlando Patterson, both subjectively and by certain objective standards 1990s were among the best and worst of times, at least since the ending of Jim Crow laws for the African American population. American scholars of 1990s were considering it, paradoxical, that it was precisely the considerable success of America’s experiment in integration that made it almost impossible for a black Americans to recognize what they had achieved2. This lack of gratitude, in turn fueled white resentment. On the one hand, there is no denying of the fact, that in absolute terms, African Americans, on average, are better off now than at any other time in their history3. The civil rights movement effectively abolished the culture of post-juridical slavery, which reinforced by racism and legalized segregation, had denied black people the basic rights of citizenship in the land of their birth. They are now very much a part of the nation’s political life, occupying positions in numbers, and importance that go well beyond mere ethnic representation or symbolic gestures rather than the effective action. Quite apart from the thousands of local and appointed offices around the country (including majorships of some of the nation’s largest cities), blacks have occupied positions of major national importance in what is now the dominant power in the world – as governors, senators and powerful members of Congress chairing major congressional committees, and as appointed officials filling some of the most important offices in the nation, including that the head of the most powerful military machine on earth, Colin Powell phenomenon that is phenomenal. * Prof. Dr., Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, International Black Sea University, Tbilisi, Georgia. 6 SECTION I: Education and Social Issues The author of the article Prof. Dr. Tamar Shioshvili as a Fulbright scholar meeting Colin Powell in Washington D.C., 2004, Department of the state. For the first time, a black man was seriously considered for the nation’s highest office, with this strongest support coming from people with conservative vies on race. It would be ridiculous to dismiss these developments as purely symbolic. What they demonstrate, beyond a doubt, is that black is no longer a significant obstacle to participation in the public life of the nation. What is more, blacks have also become full members of what may be called the nation’s moral community in cultural life. They are no longer in the basement of moral discourse in American life, as was the case up to about fifty or sixty years ago. Until then blacks were “invisible” men “in the nation’s consciousness, a truly debased ex-slave people. America was assumed to be a white country. The public media, the literary and artistic community, the great national debates about major issues, even those concerning poverty, simply excluded blacks from consideration. No longer. The amount of the achievement of the last fifty years in American race relations can not be overstated. The black presence in American life and thought today is seriously penetrated. A mere 13 percent of the population, they dominate the nation’s popular culture: its music, its dance, its talk, its sports, its youth’s fashion; and they are a powerful force in its popular and elite literatures. A black music, jazz, is the nation’s classical voice, defining its civilizational style. So powerful and unavoidable is the black popular influence that it is now not uncommon to find persons who, while remaining racists in personal relations and attitudes, still have surrendered their tastes, and their viewing and listening habits to black entertainers, talk- show hosts and sit-com stars. The typical Oprah Winfrey viewer is a conservative white lower- middle-class housewife; the typical rap fan, an upper-middle-class white suburban youth. The cultural influence of so small and disadvantaged minority on the wider society that has so severely abused it, finds few parallels in the history of civilization. Closely related to the achievement of full political and cultural citizenship has been another great success of the post-war years: the desegregation of the military between 1948 and 1965. The extraordinary progress made in eliminating all formal discrimination; and a good deal of informal prejudice in promotions, has made the military, especially, the Army, a model of successful race relations for the civilian community. With more than 30 percent of Army recruits and 10 percent of its officer corps black, the Army, stands out in