Bulletin #20

October 1995 - Vol. 6/No.1
New School for Social Research
65 Fifth Avenue, Room 404 & 423
New York, NY 10003
Tel: (212) 229 - 5580; Fax: (212) 229 - 5894; E-mail: BreuerI@newschool.edu

Director: Elzbieta Matynia
Coordinator: Ina Breuer
Assistant and Bulletin Editor: Heshan de Silva Weeramuni
Associate: Lidia Bialek

Table of Contents

An Update for Old and New Friends

to assist in building new curricula in the social sciences and to create a common teaching and learning environment for both faculty and graduate students from the region and the U.S.;

to initiate and facilitate joint research projects and encourage young scholars from the region to stay in the academic community by engaging them in international collaborative projects;

to provide support for new democratic institutions and initiatives in the region by involving the rising generation of educators, leaders and future policy experts in economic and public policy study programs;

to cultivate a multifaceted forum (conferences, lecture series, publications) for an on-going discussion of the issues of democratization and for a broader exchange of ideas between American and East European scholars.

As you may know, ECEP is governed by an International Steering Committee composed of scholars and intellectuals from the region and the U.S.

***

Though we are sorry to see her go, I am delighted that Sharon Cooley is now pursuing her doctorate with a research grant in Budapest. I am also happy to welcome Ina Breuer as ECEP's new Program Coordinator and Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni as Program Assistant and Editor of our Bulletin.

Publishing Initiatives For Curriculum Project

Policy As Democracy: Public Policy Workbook, edited by Elaine Zimmerman, ECEP, November 1995.

In a sense, the process of public policy is like a good oral story. It passes from community to community. Pieces are added on. Other pieces are dropped. It takes on new and old meanings as it travels, based on the needs and values of the community. The difference between a story and policy is that a story can always be changed. Public policy becomes, at some point, the law passed or the budget utilized. It can also be altered, but changing an agreed upon policy is not easy. This is also because the dynamic process of public policy design, with public input and debate, is taken very seriously. And what takes a long time to define, test, debate and implement, should not be easily undone.

Public policy can provide and enhance opportunity and access for people. It can be a major vehicle of democratic change for a nation. However, people must understand how to think about policy - how to design it and ensure its implementation. Like anything of power, if it is not done well, it can become the opposite of what was intended.

This public policy book seeks to provide an introduction to policy for new analysts in this area. It offers an overview and then explores different kinds of policies. Topics range from health to environment to children's policy. There are discrete sets of skills necessary in policy work: (i) assessing need and crafting policy; (ii) implementing and overseeing policy within government and the communities affected.

This book provides the material in both areas. It examines policy design and analysis as well as the steps necessary for policy to be enacted. National and state experts have been invited to address specific policy areas. The majority have written introductions to their topic, several relevant articles, and chosen sample pieces of legislation that illustrate general policy directions or illuminate important issues about implementation and oversight.

The editor, Elaine Zimmerman, has been a leader in public policy for twenty years. She has crafted national and state policy initiatives in child and family policy, poverty, anti-violence and economic development. She has also served as national spokesperson, employing organizing and public education skills in her policy work. Ms. Zimmerman has taught high school, junior college and university students. She has also taught parents organizing skills to effect productive change for their neighborhoods and families. Presently, Ms. Zimmerman is the Executive Director of the Connecticut Commision on Children for the State Legislature.

Gender Inequality in Law and Society: A Reader, edited by Malgorzata Fuszara and Eleonora Zielinska, The Warsaw University Press, December 1995.

This reader contains both essays on issues related to the role of women, and relevant empirical material such as statutes. It consists of several sections which include such topics as the political participation of women, violence against women, the status of women in prison, equality in education, motherhood and productive rights, and international and national general legal regulations on gender equality. There are a number of individual contributors to the reader including Slawka Walczewska whose article on the history of women at the Jagiellonian University also appears in this edition, and New School Professors Ann Snitow and Elzbieta Matynia.

Grappling With Democracy: Deliberations on Post-Communist Societies (1990-1995), edited by Elzbieta Matynia. SLON Publishing, Prague. December, 1995.

This collection of essays is the offspring of an intellectual project, at once modest and ambitious, which was initiated almost ten years ago in New York, Warsaw, and Budapest to provide the opportunity for a sustained and uninhibited discussion of democratic theory and the prospects for democratization. After 1990 this loosely structured endeavor came to be generally known as the Democracy Seminars, with more or less formalized chapters in 14 countries of that vast neighborhood we refer to so imprecisely, but with a bow to Solomon, as Central and Eastern Europe.

The earnest dialogue taking place in the late 80s in private apartments in Warsaw and Budapest and in the Wolff Conference Room at the Graduate Faculty - despite the exchange of discussion summaries - had a fleeting quality. So no one ever thought of preserving a complete record of these early seminars. But some remaining bits of correspondence, as well as some reports from the early discussions are included as a Prologue to the book.

The collection introduces the reader to the debate that surrounds the unprecedented systemic changes taking place in the post-Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, especially in their political, social, and cultural realms. The book is organized into four major parts, which follow the Introduction ("The Democracy Seminars and Beyond") and the Prologue. These are: "Continuity and Change", "Constituting Democracy", "Political Parties and Party Systems", and "Nationality and Diversity: Challenges to Liberal Democracy". The debate is represented here by contributions from scholars, writers, and journalists from 16 countries who also belong to the larger international community of the New School's Graduate Faculty, many of whom are public figures beyond their own countries. They include Adam Michnik, Marcin Krol, Janos Kis, Miklos Haraszti, Jan Urban, Pavel Campeanu, Martin Butora, Ira Katznelson, Ann Snitow, Claus Offe, Ulrich Preuss, Shlomo Avineri, Andrew Arato, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Jose Casanova, and many others.

For the most part, this main body of the book grew out of the second, post-1989 stage of the Democracy Seminars. The majority of the texts were presented and discussed at regular meetings of the local chapters or at the annual international meetings. But the collection as a whole also reflects the broader spectrum of activities of the East and Central Europe Program, including the International Working Groups and the ECEP Lecture Series.

Where the Action is

A Centenary of Women in Polish Universities 
Slawka Walczewska

The resistance of the universities to admitting women broke down in 1895 first in the culturally less repressed Austrian part of Poland. In that year's summer semester, three female students were allowed to participate in classes without, however, the right to take exams. One and half years later, they obtained degrees in pharmacy. All three had been students in the Flying University. The following year, as many as eight female students were admitted, and by the period between the two world wars, their number had grown to represent a third of all students.

Initially, the prevailing attitude toward the female students had been one of hostility. Newspapers published malicious comments and cartoons, and male students were hostile toward their female colleagues. Romana Pachucka, one of the first female students at Lvov University, describes in her memoirs how other male students pushed her out of the line when she was waiting to pay her tuition fee for the first semester of her studies.

There was a paradox in this: the Jagiellonian University, established in 1364 and most generously endowed in 1399 by a woman, Queen Jadwiga, would not admit women within its walls for five centuries. Only one woman had broken this ban early on: Nawojka, dressed as a man, managed to become a student in the mid-fifteenth century. When she was exposed, a mob tried to drown her in the river as a witch. She was only saved thanks to the intervention of Bishop Olcsnicki, and spent the rest of her life in a convent. In the 1930s, the first dormitory for female students at Jagiellonian University in Cracow was named after her.

Ironically, the story of Nawojka is, to a certain degree, quite up to date. Even though women are allowed to study and conduct research at least formally on equal terms with men, in fact, they have to submit themselves to the current criteria of scholarship which are defined by the male majority.

Since men decide whose research results constitute the historical framework of a given branch of science, the names of women scholars often tend to be omitted. For example, the most popular Polish book on the history of philosophy, three volumes written by a male author, gives no mention to Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, or Edith Stein.

However, at present, the problem of the relationship between gender, science, and the wider issue of the cultural implications of gender difference continues to academic status in Poland. A number of publications on this subject have appeared in recent years and the climate at the universities is increasingly more open to feminism. This year, on the hundredth anniversary of the enrollment of the first female students at the Jagiellonian University, the Graduate School for Social Research in Warsaw has decided to launch a series of courses in gender studies. It will consist of four seminars: western femininst theories, the legal status of Polish women, social and cultural identities of women, and the models of male and female identity in Polish culture. The beginning of the second century of women at Polish universities appears to be full of promise.q

Slawka Walczewska, feminist activist and author is a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School for Social Research in Warsaw. Translated by Jacek Kucharczyk, who is a former Democracy Fellow of the East and Central Europe Program.

We Have Hope Within Us - Notes on the Fourth Annual Democracy & Diversity Carcow Summer Graduate Institute, Summer 1995

Thirty-nine students from all over the region, and some from further afield, attended four courses and one policy workshop over the intensive three-week period. Among their number were Lidia Bialek, a Pole who is the 1995-96 Kalwinska Fellow at the New School, one who was involved with the Solidarity Movement from its inception, and Libora Indruchova, a Czech Junior Professor at the University of Pardubice and the Coordinator of the Gender Studies Center in Prague. Another, Jana Juranova from the Slovak Republic, whose publications include a 1994 book, Menagerie, is the co-editor of Aspekt, a femininst journal she also helped found. The students included Marija Lucic, Natasa Milenkovic and Milica Minic, three women from Belgrade who are active in the women's movement and anti-war movement in Yugoslavia. Then there was Olexander Hryb, a Ukrainian doctoral student at the Graduate School for Social Research in Warsaw and Lviv State University, who is also a former student of the Central European University. Another Pole, Magda Iwanska, a 1995-96 Mellon Democracy Fellow of the New School, is a young assistant professor from Warsaw University interested in public policy which she pursues through vigorous involvement in issues surrounding the disabled, and gay and lesbian communities. Michal Vasecka, another Slovak, will start teaching public policy at Academia Istropolitana this fall, and is the founder and director of the Documentation Center for the Research of Slovak Society. An Estonian, Maaris Rauseep, displays this same passion for academic excellence and social involvement. A psychologist and a sociologist by training, she is also deeply involved in human rights issues, and has been the recipient of several Fellowships from such bodies as the Commission of the European Community, the Democracy Foundation and the Council of Europe.

The courses offered at this year's Institute were both diverse and, atthe same time, complementary to one another. Political Scientist David Plotke of the Graduate Faculty, taught "Problems in Democratic Politics Today". His course provided a good introduction to the texts and authors read in political science and sociology as well as a framework from which to view democratic politics today.

A second course, "Theories of Gender in Culture", was taught by Ann Snitow, a member of the Committee for Gender Studies at the Graduate Faculty, and Co-Chair of the Network of East and West Women. Professor Snitow's rare ability to combine theory and practice - itself combined with infectious zest - was a valuable component of the Summer Institute. Her course simultaneously exposed students to the issues and texts in gender studies, and to activities beyond the theory, such as the women's shelters in Cracow and Nowa Huta. As in previous years, it was Professor Snitow's presence that had motivated several male and female students from the region to make the journey to Cracow to study under her.

Claus Offe, Chair of the Political Science Department of Humbolt University, and Ulrich Preuss, Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bremen and Director of the Center for European Legal Policy, co-taught "Institution Building in Post-Communist Societies". The readings included selections of a new book co-written by Claus Offe, Ulrich Preuss, and Jon Elster, yet unpublished, entitled Constitutional Politics and Economic Transformations in Post-Communist Societies.

The Graduate Faculty sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb taught "Civil Society and the Public Sphere", which many students described as an enlightening experience, providing a deeper understanding of concepts such as civil society, and of the connections between the philosophical underpinings of democracy and their empirical manifestations.

On the heels of her successful public policy workshop last year, Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director of the Commission on Children for the State of Connecticut, offered another workshop series, this time entitled "Policy as Democracy". The workshop aimed at showing the role of public policy in the process of the formation of democratic institutions and the pitfalls such a process is heir to, and elucidated the manner in which policy can be utilized to bring about social change. The reading materials for the workshop, a series of essays on different policy matters written by experts in the field here in America, is now in the process of being turned by the ECEP into a comprehensive workbook. The idea for this publication was inspired by the success and interest the similar seminar generated at last year's Institute. The seminar once again proved to be very successful, inspiring, for example, a group of Ukrainian students to consider the possible avenues open to them for influencing policies aimed at countering the rising drop-out rates in Ukrainian secondary schools.

These four seminars and the public policy workshop drew students from far and wide, and kept them quite busy! Accentuating the presence of students from the Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Estonia, and Armenia, were a Mexican, a Spaniard, a Chilean, and several Americans. On any given day, all could be found reading their thick course materials or discussing the issues raised that day in class, with coffee generally close by. Though only three weeks long, the Institute was serious, intensive, and equally stimulating for faculty and students all semester. The reading packets disappeared more quickly than the ice-cream cones served at lunch on the hottest days, when even the pleasantness of being atop a forested hill couldn't keep the heat away. Mariela Czoprej, a Polish student at Warsaw University explained that this was not surprising. "We don't have access to the newest materials on say democratic theory or nationalism", she remarked.

The students also benefitted from a number of extraordinary guest lectures during their stay. Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz read selections of his poetry and reflected on a life of art and politics. Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza and quintessential engaged public intellectual, delivered a lecture concerned with the future prospects for post-Communist Poland which he entitled "A Rebellion Against Sociology". He explained that, "the selfless defense of democracy is a rebellion against sociology, because democracy is a system which allows its challengers to destroy it". Shlomo Avineri, the Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University and former Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gave a memorable lecture on the influence of East and Central Europe on the political and social life of contemporary Israel. We were also invited to attend lectures by Konstanty Gebert, who is one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Warsaw, and a scholar, writer and correspondent from Sarajevo of Gazeta Wyborcza, given at the Cracow Jewish Center and organized by New York University's Study Abroad Program. The first explored the history of Jews in Poland since World War II, while the second discussed the situation in present day Yugoslavia from the unique perspective of the Jewish population in Sarajevo. At a roundtable entitled "The Future of Central European Roots", Jacek Purchla, the Director of the International Cultural Center - our partner in Cracow, traced the development of the idea of Central Europe. As a complement to this lecture, the historian and former Polish Consul General of Austria Emile Briggs delivered his thoughts on the concept of "Mitteleuropa" and its applicability to the present situation. Cynthia Mueller, the Director of Admissions of the Graduate Faculty of the New School spent one evening with students sharing her knowledge of American institutions of higher learning and the various paths open to those students who are interested in pursuing graduate work this side of the Atlantic.

Several guests visited the Institute just to sit in on classes, meet students, and talk with the faculty. Maura Kealey, now a Parisian, who, along with Cynthia Epstein taught the first gender studies course at Berkeley in the early 1970s, spent a week with us, attending classes, and being engaged deep in conversation, taking in the readings, and the view of the Tatra Mountains from the terrace of Przegorzaly Castle, which we called home. Other visitors to the ECEP Institute included Carol Tegen of the Open Society Institute in New York, Merrill Oates, Director of the Curriculum Resource Center, and Mindy Roseman, Associate Director of the Project on Gender and Culture, both of the Central European University. The distinguished feminist and legal theorist from UCLA and Humbolt University, Francis Olsen, was a guest lecturer in Ann Snitow's class.

In addition to the classes and lectures, students were invited to a reception hosted by the International Cultural Center and by the German, Austrian and American Consuls General. They were given tours of the historic city of Cracow with its Jagiellonian University founded in 1364, the historic Jewish quarter of Kazimierz and the Wieliczka Salt Mines, an economic mainstay of the region visited by Nicholas Copernicus and Emperor Franz Josef, and famous for its dazzling underground sculptures carved out of the salt deposits. Students also undertook a trip to the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.

One evening was set aside for a roundtable on regional affairs in which each group of students from the region presented the current state of affairs in its country. Students appreciated this chance to exchange information and discuss issues which were both specific to each country and relevant in a much wider context. Emile Danielian, a student at the American University of Armenia, commented wryly that "after the presentation of the Armenian contingent the audience had a slight idea of my country and what is going on there now." Another wrote of the Institute that she "enjoyed particularly the roundtable at the end, that gave me precious data about [the various countries]. For me, Armenia or the Ukraine will forever be associated with the faces and names of real people. Thanks to your school, I am now in the possession of knowledge about the realites and mentalities in eighteen countries all over the world."

Mona Simu, a Romanian student at the University of Bucharest described her experiences of the Summer Institute vividly. "The opportunity to communicate," she wrote later, "with people around the world, that the Cracow school offered me, was very important. I think that events like summer schools which gather people from many countries turn nowadays into true schools for tolerance and respect among people, and the Cracow Institute was one of them. I've reinforced my belief that cultural differences are not barriers to communication, that the problems we deal with in our countries (in this corner of Europe) are most alike, that people think almost the same way. And then I suddenly perceived myself not only as a Romanian, but also as a free member of the international community." Similarly, when asked about the Institute, Michal Kowalski, a student at the Graduate School for Social Research in Warsaw, and a faculty member at Warsaw University, expressed a similarly favorable opinion. "It is very difficult", he said,"to describe and to evaluate such an excellent program as this one. Everything was at the highest level - courses and classes, professors and participants, discussions and the so-called social events, accommodation and food. Even the weather reached the level." Suzana Stular, a Slovenian student, expressed similar praise about the Institute. She generously noted that, "I have to admit that all the years of my studies probably didn't give me so much as these three weeks in Cracow did, for both my knowledge and my personal development."

The degree of cross-cultural exchange and collective learning was at times astonishing, and at times bordered on the astonishingly comical. Picture if you will, one evening when, over Kurdish food around a table in Cracow, sat Adam Michnik, a Pole, being interviewed by Barbara Falk, a Canadian student from York University, and Jana Juranova, a Slovak. Listening to the interview, conducted in French, since this was the language shared by Michnik and Falk, and in Polish, since Juranova understood Polish but not French, were others from all corners of the world. Elzbieta Matynia, the Polish-born American Director of the East and Central Europe Program, Michal Vasecka, another Slovakian student, translating the Polish for an Americanized German, Ina Breuer, and myself, an Anglo-Sri Lankan from New York. The topic of conversation was transitions to democracy. Some nights later, in an evening spent exchanging personal and national biographies by singing songs under a star-filled night, a Chilean and a Spaniard burst into an English pop song and were immediately joined by three Yugoslavs from Belgrade.

To try to convey the impact the Institute had on its participants is difficult, particularly since sincerity is an easy thing to misinterpret. Yet, one thing above all stands out as emblematic. When asked later to describe her workshop, Elaine Zimmerman sent us a quotation of Vaclav Havel's thoughts on hope, which she thought would communicate the aims of her workshop. For us all, I think, Havel's thoughts also encompass the very spirit of the entire Institute:

Either we have hope within us, or we don't... It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well... but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed... It is hope, above all, which gives strength to live and continually try new things.

Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni

1995/6 Graduate Fellows from the Region

The Pew Charitable Trusts Democracy II Fellowships
Darius Aidukas (Vilnius, Lithuania) Mr. Aidukas is a 1993 Faculty of Law graduate at the University of Vilnius, and is currently a researcher at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at the same university. He has taught courses on political theory and public policy at the University of Vilnius.

Pavel Fedorchenko (Kiev, Ukraine) Ph.D., Sociology, Kiev State University of Economics, 1994. M.A., Sociology and Political Science, Kiev State University of Economics, 1993. Mr. Fedorchenko is currently an Assistant Professor at Kiev-Mohyla Academy. He has worked at the Institute of Public Administration and Local Government, and is enrolled in their Master of Public Administration Program.

Dionyz Hochel (Bratislava, Slovakia) M.A., History and Philosophy, Comenius University, 1991. He is an Assistant Lecturer in the Political Science Department at Trnava University and is presently pursuing his doctoral studies at the same university. Mr. Hochel has co-taught a course on political ideology with our colleague Martin Butora. He has also studied under a T. G. Masaryk scholarship at the London School of Economics and at the Center for Civil Education in Los Angeles.

Mariela Vargova (Sofia, Bulgaria) M.A., Political Science, Sofia University. Ms. Vargova is currently a Ph.D. candidate and her dissertation is entitled "Constitutional Theory and Comparative Analysis in Eastern European Countries." She is also involved in a program of the Law Department at Sofia University.

Andrew W. Mellon Democracy II Fellowships
Magda Iwanska (Warsaw, Poland) M.A., Warsaw University, Department of Sociology of Custom and Law, where she wrote a thesis on the "Birth of the Homosexual Movement in Poland". Ms. Iwanska also teaches courses on democratic institutions, human rights, and is interested in social minority rights at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences at Warsaw University.

Gábor Juhász (Budapest, Hungary) Master of Laws, Eötvös Loránd University, 1992, M.A., Policy Studies, University of Edinburgh, 1993. Mr. Juhász is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Policy of Eötvös Loránd University, where he is also a doctoral candidate. His dissertation is entitled "On the Effectiveness of Law in the Field of Social Policy."

Open Society Institute/ Virtual University Fellowships
Kinga Czuczor M.A., German, Russian, Eötvös Loránd University, 1993. Ms. Czuczor is currently working on a doctoral dissertation on German linguistics. She is also a student in the Media Studies Department of Eötvös Loránd University, where her research centers on the connection between the media and democratic order.

Malgorzata Gajda (Warsaw, Poland) M.A., English, University of Warsaw, 1993. She is a post-graduate student at the North American Studies Center of Lodz University and has taught courses on American culture in the English Department, University of Warsaw. Her research interests center around the representation of women in the media.

Soros Foundation/ Central European University Fellowship
Ladislaw Öllös (Samorin, Slovakia) M.A., History, Comenius University, 1983, M.A., Hungarian Literature, Comenius University, 1983, M.A., Political Science, Central European University, 1994. Mr. Öllös teaches political science and political philosophy at the University of Netra, and is working towards his Ph.D. at Eötvös Loránd University in Political Philosophy. He is researching minority issues and political ideology.

S.S.R.C./ MacArthur Foundation Fellowship
Sylvia Mihalikova (Bratislava, Slovakia) Ph.D., Political Science, Comenius University, 1987. A specialist in theory and political sociology, Ms. Mihalikova is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Comenius University. Her current research includes the role of political culture in transitions of post-communist countries.

NOTES

FALL 1995:

Monday, September 18

Shlomo Avineri, The Herbert Samuel Professor of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spoke on The Presence of Central and Eastern Europe in Israeli Politics and Culture.

Thursday, October 12

Keorapetse Kgositsile, South African poet, philosopher and activist, and Visiting Professor in Democracy at the New School for Social Research, will give a presentation entitled, "The Poet and Social Transformation in South Africa, at 6:00 p.m. in the Wolff Conference Room.

Beginning in October

Weekly Students/Faculty Workshop on East and Central Europe: Policy Issues. Tuesdays at 12:00-2:00, Levinson Conference Room.

Tuesday, November 14

Jerzy Thieme, an U.S. economist, and for the past five years, the Chief Advisor to the Polish Ministry of Privatization, will speak on Political Struggles to Implement the Mass Privatization Program in Poland, 1991-95,at 6:00 p.m. in the Wolff Conference Room.

For information, please call 212/229-5580

ANNOUNCEMENTS

COMMITTEE ON THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY

The Committee on the Study of Democracy, in association with ECEP, will host three visiting professors in the academic year 1995/96.

Janos Kis, Head of the Department of Political Science at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary; and former President of the Hungarian Free-Democrats, will offer a course in Fall 1995 entitled, Democracy Proseminar: Philosophical Problems of the Transition to Democracy.

Galina Starovoitova, head of the Center for Ethno-Cultural Studies, Institute for the Economy in Transition (Moscow); and former M.P. in the USSR and the Russian Federation, will offer a course in the Spring 1996 entitled, Democracy After Communism: the Case of the Former Soviet Union.

György Peter, a professor in the Department of Aesthetics and Media Center at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; and Advisor to the Hungarian Minister of Culture and Education, will offer a course in Spring 1996 entitled, The Reception of American Mass Culture in Central Europe.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Gypsy Lore Society will hold its Annual Meeting and Conference at the New School for Social Research on March 28-30, 1996. Papers on any aspect of Gypsy, Traveler or related peripatetic studies are welcome. Abstracts of 125 words must be received by January 5, 1996. Please send to - Carol Silverman, Department of Anthropology, 1218 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1218; Tel: (503) 346 - 5114; Fax: (503) 346 - 0668; E-mail: csilverm@oregon. uoregon.edu.

MEETINGS

Stefan Amsterdamski, Director of the Graduate School of Social Science, Warsaw;
Bohdan Krawchenko, Institute of Public Administration and Local Government., Cabinet of Ministers, Kiev, Ukraine;
Oleksander Sydorenko, International Renaissance Foundation, Civil Society Programs Department, Kiev, Ukraine;
Michael Kaufman, Editor of Transition: Events and Issues in the Former Soviet Union and East, Central and Southeastern Europe, English bi-monthly, published by Open Media Research Institute, Prague;
Andras Kovacs, Institute of Sociology, ELTE, Budapest;
The Baroness Cox, Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, London;
Heyward Isham, Vice-President of the Institute for EastWest Studies, New York;
Stephen B. Heintz, Director, Institute for EastWest Studies European Studies Center, New York.