Institute of British and American studies organized an international conference on Literatures, Languages, Cultures, Teaching English in a Changing World between September 24th and 25th. These themes were discussed especially in the field of literature, culture, linguistics, translation studies and the Methodology of Teaching English. The conference was attended by around 60 participants from the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Italy, Albania, Slovakia and other countries. 

The conference was also a result of a research in literature and methodology of teaching English sponsored by the grants from the Ministry of Education of Slovakia VEGA  1/0719/26 and KEGA 055PU-4/2026 (Professor Jaroslav Kušnír as the main coordinator of the project) and 030PU-4/2024 (Prof. Zuzana Straková as the chief coordinator of the project).  

The keynote lecturers were well-known scholars in their field and discussed contemporary Australian Aboriginal literature (Professor Anne Brewster from the University of New South Wales), The work of a Polish American author Jerzy Kosinski (Professor Marek Paryž from the University of Warsaw, Poland), and historian, Professor Brenden Rensink from the Brigham Young University, Provo, USA was discussing history, archival research, and transnational research emphasizing the study of the American West as an important region for understanding American history, tradition, and cultural identity. It was also a special privilege that the organizers were honored by a visit of Professor Carlos Morton, Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA, a playwright, drama scholar and an expert in Chicano American literature, and Professor of drama and a theatre director Grzegorz Welizarowicz from the University of Gdansk who have prepared a fascinating stage reading of Carlos´ s play Trapped in Amber rehearsed and produced by the students of English at the university of Presov, Slovakia for less than two days. The students-actors were Eva Šilonová, Kristína Mižíková, Dominika Ďuricová and Makar Yevsieiev. 

In addition, the conference included the poetry and fiction reading by the British Slovak authors and our former colleagues who have been living in Presov most of their life and professional career- James Sutherland-Smith has read from this new collection of poetry published in a bilingual English –Slovak version entitled Spiderweb (Pavučina), and Jonathan Gresty has read from his new unique novel published in Slovak, a sequel to his previous novel Cudzincov kabát (Stranger´s Coat), that is Iné názory (Different Views). In addition to the scholars from the countries listed above, almost all members of the Institute of British and American Studies have presented their scholarly work based on their recent research. The Institute British and American Studies will continue to organize similar conferences in the future to offer both a scholarly, professional and social opportunities not only to present their research results, but also to develop further academic cooperation.