Literature of the Americas Literature of the Americas 2541-7894 2542-243X IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2025-19-296-315 Review Article Articles 50 Years of the December Americanist Conferences in Moscow: History and Prospects of the American Culture Studies 2025 Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 Based on the experience of the organizers of the December Americanist conferences in Moscow and its long-term participants, the article outlines the history of the academic forum for over fifty years (1975–2025). Three stages are distinguished: Soviet period, Perestroika, and the contemporary 21st century period. The programs and materials from the past fifty conferences clearly show the pivotal factors that facilitated or complicated research at every stage: the continuity of studies in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Tashkent during the Soviet period; the emergence of new regional centers of American studies (Kazan, Chita, Tomsk) and new conference sections; the appearance of bilingual publications; the beginning of international contacts during the Perestroika; the completion of the academic History of USA Literature (in 6 vols); the challenges of the contemporary period characterized by growing tensions in Russian-American relations. A special attention is paid to the imagological round table “The Image of Russia and the Image of America: Mutual Influence,” which has been held since the early 1990s and now bears the name of its founder, Yassen Zassoursky. The main line of development is marked by an expansion of the research field from a purely philological focus to cultural studies approach, encompassing the ethnic and gender aspects of American and Canadian culture. 1. Bashmakova 1979 — Bashmakova, Louisa P. Problemy razvitiia sovremennogo amerikanskogo romana. R. Wright. R. Ellison. J. Baldwin. [Problems of Contemporary American Novel Development. R. Wright. R. Ellison. J. Baldwin]. Krasnodar, Kubansky universitet Publ., 1979. (In Russ.) 2. Mikhaylova 2025 — Mikhaylova, Larisa G. “Piatidesiataia konferentsiia issledovatelei  amerikanskoi  kul’tury:  ‘Amerikanskaia  kul’tura  i  demokratiia: puteshestvie vo vremeni — Sculpting the Future to Build the Present: American Culture and Democracy’” [“The 50th Conference of the American Culture Studies Researchers: ‘Sculpting the Future to Build the Present: American Culture and Democracy’”]. Rossiia i Amerika v XXI veke, no. 6 (2025). https://rusus.jes.su/s207054760035469-2-1/. DOI: 10.18254/S207054760035469-2 (In Russ.) 3. Mikhaylova 2017 — Mikhaylova, Larisa G. “Puti ustanovleniia sistemy kommunikatsii v kul’ture SShA: 42-ia konferentsiia Obshchestva po izucheniiu kul’tury  SShA  v  MGU”  [“Ways  to  Establish  Communication  in  American Culture: XLII Russian Society of American Culture Studies Conference”]. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriia 10: Zhurnalistika, no. 3 (2017): 191–199. (In Russ.) 4. Mikhaylova, Chernodubrovskii 1987 — Mikhaylova, Larisa G., Cherno- dubrovskii, Vladimir L. “K itogam konferentsii ‘Poetika literatury SShA i amerikans- kaia deistvitel’nost’’ 1–4 dekabria 1986 g.” [“On the Results of the Conference ‘American  Literature  Poetics  and  American  Reality’”].  Vestnik  Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriia 10: Zhurnalistika, no. 3 (1987): 72–78. (In Russ.) 5. Mikhaylova et al 2018 — Mikhaylova, Larisa G., Knyazeva, Marina L., and Lebedenko, Maria E. “Ne gollivudskii blokbaster? Trilogiia Pitera Dzheksona ‘Hobbit’ v vospriyatii rossiiskoi i amerikanskoi publiki” [“Not a Hollywood Blockbuster? Peter Jackson’s Hobbit Trilogy in Perception of Russian and American Audience”]. SSHA i Kanada: ekonomika, politika, kul’tura, no. 8 (2018): 77–98. (In Russ.) 6. 7. Voronchenko 1992 — Voronchenko, Tatyana V. Meksikano-amerikanskii fenomen v literature SShA [Mexican-American Phenomenon in Literature of the USA]. Moscow: MSU Publ., 1992. (In Russ.) 8. Voronchenko 1996 — Voronchenko, Tatyana V. “Stanovlenie i razvitie literatury chikanos SShA. (K probleme vzaimodeistviia literaturnykh traditsii)” [“Chicano Literature Emergence and Development in the USA: On Interaction of Literary Traditions problem”]. PhD diss., Moscow: MGU Publ., 1996. (In Russ.)