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Fulbright veteran
When Hamilton Cravens speaks at the 50th anniversary of the German Fulbright Conference,
it will mark the third time that he has been affilited with that group
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Every time Hamilton Cravens, professor of history, participates in a
Fulbright program, he goes all out.
Cravens' first experience as a Fulbright Scholar came during the 1988-89
academic year when he was the George Bancroft Professor of American History
at Goettingen University in Germany.
Eight years later, the German Fulbright Program invited Cravens back -
this time as the J.W. Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies.
Instead of working with just one university,
Cravens lectured and researched at universities in Bonn, Cologne and Heidelberg.
The J.W. Fulbright Distinguished Chair is named in honor of the long-time
U.S. Senator from Arkansas who started the Fulbright Program.
"As far as I and my colleagues with the German Fulbright Commission
know, I am the only American professor in any field to be honored with
the title and role of Fulbright Distinguished Professor twice," Cravens
said.
This March, Cravens will journey back to Germany as a featured speaker
at the 50th anniversary celebration of the German Fulbright Program in
Berlin. The program is a bilateral partnership between the foreign office
programs of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Council on Exchange
of International Scholars (CIES) of the U.S. Department of State.
"Since you (Cravens) held our most prestigious Fulbright Distinguished
Chair at the University of Goettingen, we believe that your own background
as a scholar and alumnus would be ideal for the respective program events,"
writes Reiner Rohr, chair of the American Program Unit of the German Fulbright
Program.
"The German-American Fulbright Program has been an important link
in our foreign relations with that key European country," Cravens
said, "and, more crucially for us in academe, a central link between
the academic and scientific communities of the two nations, which arguably
have the best scientific and academic communities in the entire world."
The weeklong celebration recognizing the 50th anniversary of the German
Fulbright Program will attract 400 American and European Fulbright grantees.
Cravens will be a co-panelist, discussing international exchange programs
in the United States, specifically the role of the Fulbright Program for
American academia.
"This is not a pedestrian or silly subject for historical research,"
Cravens said. "Indeed, the history of academic exchanges has been
the subject of considerable controversy, some of it quite acrimonious
going back long before the Fulbright Program became a centerpiece for
American foreign relations after World War II."
While Cravens won't speak of his own experiences as a Fulbright Scholar,
he remembers his previous journeys to Germany fondly. He taught American
history, including a course on race in America and the history of American
thought.
He also conducted seminars on American constitutional history, but it
was the ability to continue his research and write that attracted Cravens
to Germany in the first place. That's why he was particularly interested
in Goettingen University and its vast library.
"There are 15 million volumes in that library," he said. "It's
a phenomenal collection. In fact it has the greatest repository of books
on American history in Europe."
As a historian though, Cravens was also drawn to Germany for other reasons.
"I've always held a great fascination with Germany," he said.
"There is an incredible cultural significance in that country, along
with the greatest political horror of the 20th century. How can the same
people, the same country, have both?
"Germany is the key to Europe," he continued. "Germany
is the place to begin if I wanted to understand the modern Europe."
Around LAS
February 25 to March 10, 2002
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