Salzburg Seminar

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

As six of the seven American participants returned from last summer's general session of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies (the eighth having remained in Europe for a year of study), we read with considerable surprise and consternation Mr. Amfitheatrof's article of November 21. In it he has included several misstatements of fact and has also misconstrued the tenor of the Seminar.

In one of his central passages (also referred to in the sub headline), Mr. Amfitheatrof states that". . . national tension undermined last summer's Seminars for the first time. The Germans and the Austrians, with a half of the Italian block, developed a hostility for the Americans, Belgians, French, and English, and the other half of the Italians. . . . the reappearance of national feeling at the Seminar corresponds with the overall situation in Europe, where the right wing groups discredited by the war are beginning to form again." We find these statements completely unfounded. Participants did not come to the Seminar chiefly as representatives of national groups, but as individuals interested in various American studies; what groupings did develop were far more a result of mutual interests that of nationality and did not "undermine" but benefited in that they helped greatly in the interchange of ideas and opinions. As for the specific faction referred to, it simply did not exist; there was no evidence at this summer's Seminar for the implication that a miniature Axis was formed.

Germans the Same

As "documentation" for his statement, the author quotes one of the American participants as saying that "After all the liberal ideas I've had all my life I never thought I could feel hostile to a national group, but I found the German obstinate and terrible to get along with." Apart from the long-winded and familiar arguments which we could invoke to question seriously the wisdom and value of such flat generalization (just the sort of thing, by the way, which a stay at the Seminar ought to make ridiculous), we would like it known that we disagres completely with the specific reported sentiments. We found the Germans, as a group, neither more nor less obstinate and neither easier nor harder to get along with than any one of the other fifteen nationalities whose members were present.

Our experience at the Salzburg Seminar was not of a pseudo-United Nations composed of wrangling member nations, as Mr. Amfitheatrof's misnomer, "General Assembly" (instead of general summer session), might suggest; nor was it by any means of an "intellectual Point Four," with the inequality of intellect and the condescension that this term implies. Obviously, there was discussion and disagreement, as is to be desired in a closely-confined intellectual community. But this vibrant atmosphere. Far from leading to the formation of hostile camps rather served as the basis for the uniquely enriching undertaking which the Seminars.

Barbar Burt, SG: Stanley Cavell, 2G; Richard Reche, '50 3G: Anne Cook, '53; David L., Stark, '53; Martin J. Wohi, '53.