Cal State Long Beach philosophy professor Julie C. Van Camp has been selected for the Fulbright Scholar Award to lecture at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, where she will be teaching freedom of speech, government support for culture and American diversity during the fall semester of 2007.
Van Camp will be in Bratislava for one semester and will return for the spring 2008 semester.
“My interest in this project for teaching at Comenius in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, grows out of correspondence by e-mail in the late 1990s with professor Erich Mistrik,” who is the department chairman and an aesthetic education professor at Comenius University. “Our e-mail correspondence addressed the challenges faced in the European countries, which both revealed in their new freedoms after the fall of the Soviet Union, but also faced declining government support for cultural activities,” Van Camp said.
She said she does not know the language, but said she is planning on pursuing an introductory language study on her own before departing the country.
The Fulbright Scholar program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The goal of the program is to develop a mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries, according to a press release.
Van Camp said she is also a huge supporter of free speech and has been that way throughout her career, which dates back to the early ’70s when she was a graduate student on the Freedom of Expansion Committee and a newspaper editor in both high school and college.
Van Camp has also received a number of teaching awards over the past 17 years, including the university’s Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award in 1999 and Most Valuable Professor Award in 2000.
Van Camp also said she has been struck by Bratislava’s rich history, important’and historic architecture, its extensive cultural events, and the gorgeous geographic setting. She has also traveled to parts of Europe on a number of different occasions.
Van Camp received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, her master’s and Ph.D. from Temple University, and her J.D. from Georgetown University, where she specialized in art law.
While teaching in Bratislava, Van Camp will not only be teaching courses on race, ethnicity and gender in American law. She will also be developing a course for Ph.D. students, which will most likely examine U.S. diversity by race and gender in the arts. She said she looks forward to developing a course that would meet the needs and interests of the Ph.D. students.
“I hope I can teach an understanding of the American perspective on free speech, as protected by our First Amendment, especially for artists, our approaches to supporting the arts, and our history of addressing diversity in American culture,” Van Camp said.
