Olga Antsyferova
Ivanovo State University

 Comparing the Russian  and American Academic Communities

    My experience as a Fulbright scholar in the USA gave me an ample opportunity to compare the structure, functions and modes of self-identification in the US and Russian academic communities. Overall, the American university system seemed more flexible and capable of self-adjusting to the demands of the moment. The university program is directed, so to say, by the demand curve, and in the long run, the 'marketability' of the university courses is of crucial importance. Though Russia is far behind the USA in technology and electronic media, we still can adopt some American educational technologies. More attention should be paid to the students' interests, for their free choice.
    I found another advantage of the US academic community in its more competitive spirit. The financial support of the Fulbright committee made it possible for me to make a presentation at the 1999 MLA convention in Chicago and also to submit an article for publication in an American journal. Both enterprises were made on the competitive basis. This experience showed that the US academic community is much more rigor in its demands, which, in the long run, makes its activities more fruitful and its criteria more unbiased. The practice of anonymous reviewing in the USA makes one's attempts at publication more difficult, but the results are more rewarding.
    As for the weak points in the organization and functioning of the US academic community they are connected, as its advantages are, with the marketability of the academic knowledge. Financially supported, 'politically correct' academic topics seem to oust less 'trendy' things. In this respect the situation in the USA paradoxically reminds the Soviet times. The modern American Cultural and Literary Studies are no less ideologized than they used to be in this country: the choice of authors and problems is made in full accordance with the dominating ideology.
    Social, economic, cultural mechanisms working in all spheres of American life seem more impersonal as compared to Russia. But, generally speaking, it doesn't result in the feeling of alienation because this impersonal system is so well-organized that a person doesn't feel unprotected.
    Teaching American Studies in Russia is still a real challenge because, as ever, the teacher has to deal with numerous preconceptions and stereotypes. Now that more and more Russians came to know the USA from their own experience, their image of the USA doesn't prove to be more adequate and complete, it is again somewhat biased. New stereotypes have replaced old ones in Russian mass consciousness. These ideological simulacra should be deconstructed in the name of mutual understanding between the two peoples.