The 22nd annual American Studies seminar, entitled “Freedom in America: The Principle, the Theme, the Reality,” was held at the Mersin Hilton Hotel in Mersin, on 5-8 November 1997, co-sponsored by the American Studies Association of Turkey and the United States Information Service in Ankara.
After addresses of welcome by Helena Kane Finn, Public Affairs Counselor of the U.S. Embassy, and Gülriz Büken, President of the American Studies Association of Turkey, the keynote speech, entitled “Freedom’s Buried Children: Strange Fruit in Liberty’s Cradle” was delivered by Emory Elliott of the University of California, Riverside.
The presentations by participants ran as follows in order of delivery:
Himmet Umunç (Hacettepe University), “The Land of Plenty and
Freedom: The Changing Vision of America in the Colonial Period.”
Marilyn Garber (California State University), “Constitutional
Freedoms: The Role of Unpopular or
Oppressed Minorities in Establishing American Personal and Civil
Rights.”
John Drabble (Koç University), “White Fear and Black Hate: Countersubversive Constructions of Race and Gender in FBI Counterintelligence Operations, 1964-1971.”
Seçkin Ergin (Ege University), “The Idea of Freedom in American War Novels: The Second World War.”
Serpil Oppermann (Hacettepe University), “The Interplay between Freedom and Change in Paul Auster’s Fiction.”
Matthew DeCoursey (Bilkent University), “Censorship and Obscenity: Jurgen, 1920.”
Sema Taþkýn (Hacettepe University), “Being the Voices of Freedom in their Own Special Ways: A Study on the Poetry of Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks and LeRoi Jones.”
Türkay Bulut and Cem Can (Çukurova University), “Freedom of Religion and Cult Phenomenon in US Society.”
Judith Baer (Boðaziçi University), “The Contradictory Clause: Religion, Separation, and Accomodation in the Relinquist Court.”
Christina DeCoursey (Bilkent University), “The Problem of the Liberty: The Mutation of an Ideal.”
Leo J. Mahoney (Baþkent University), “The Machine above the Garden: Star Wars and the Quest after Techno-Freedom in Our Times.”
Sema Bulutsuz (Ýstanbul University), “Our Ears are Now in Excellent Condition.”
Pete Remington (Ege University), “Rocky Balboa: Portrait of a Freedom Fighter.”
Hakan Dibel (Dokuz Eylül University), “These Mad Abandon’d Times: The Experience of Freedom in Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema.”
Over a hundred participants from different universities in Turkey benefited from the opportunity to exchange ideas on a wide range of topics covering the theoretical and the practical features of freedom. Controversial issues such as how free the American people are led to intriguing discussions.