The 3rd Annual American Studies Workshop in Zagreb will take place on October 3, 2015 at the Faculty of Humanities and social Sciences in Zagreb. This year, the workshop is entitled “Quarter of a Century after the Fall of the Berlin Wall – Perspectives and Directions in Croatian and Regional American Studies“. Taking stock of the last quarter century, the workshop intends to explore the ways the United States, conceptualized through the discipline of American Studies, had made its presence felt in the breakup of Yugoslavia and how its culture, diplomacy, economic influence, its images and values have continued to play a role in the countries that came into being after the dissolution of the federation.
3rd Annual American Studies Workshop in Zagreb:
Quarter of a Century after the Fall of the Berlin Wall – Perspectives and Directions in Croatian and Regional American Studies
Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, October 3, 2015
Taking stock of the last quarter century, the workshop intends to explore the ways the United States, conceptualized through the discipline of American Studies, had made its presence felt in the breakup of Yugoslavia and how its culture, diplomacy, economic influence, its images and values have continued to play a role in the countries that came into being after the dissolution of the federation. The departure point of the workshop acknowledges the important role the American presence had in the dismemberment of the socialist world. This will serve as its theoretical-historical context. A further assumption of the workshop is that that presence was not identical in all the places where this dismemberment took place. The case of former Yugoslavia is an instructive case study. Not only did the former federation before its dissolution evince a relationship to the United States different than the other entities of the socialist bloc but, in addition, the countries that have emerged during the last quarter century have shown various engagements with the United States polity.
The topics include, but are not restricted to, the following areas of concern:
Literature (fiction and faction); Popular culture; Visual media; Politics and diplomacy; Economy; Material life and social practices; Technology and science
Keynote speaker (tbc): Professor Russell Reising (University of Toledo, USA)
Language of the workshop is English. Presentations should not exceed 15 minutes.
Please send your proposals, together with a short, 300-word bio, no later than June 1, 2015 to the following addresses: jsesnic at ffzg.hr and scvek at ffzg.hr.
For non-members of the HUAmS/CAAS the workshop fee is 150 kn (ca 20 Euros). The fee is waived for the members of the founding associations of the AASSEE (Association for american Studies in South-East Europe). The presentations will be published in the Working Papers in American Studies, after a due editorial process.
Co-organizers: American Studies Program, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb; HUAmS (Croatian Association for American Studies); A Cultural History of Capitalism – Britain, America, Croatia (CSF project).
