When a first collection of essays was published in 1997 (cf. HSAA 2) this did not only serve the purpose to give some insight into the research going on at the English Institute but to also pledge ourselves to its 120-year-old academic tradition.¹

Besides, it signified a break from a harassed period of political, academic, and personal upheavals that had taken place at our university in the wake of the events after the Wall came down in 1989. A number of us who joined the English faculty and staff from 1992 onwards had come from the other side of the Iron Curtain. We found ourselves plunged into a roller coaster-paradigm of thrusts and counterthrusts, which demanded both considerable adaptation and change of perception on all sides.

Now in 2001, on the 125th anniversary of the English Institute, only seven out of the fifteen contributors to the volume published five years ago are still teaching here. In spite of non-dwindling numbers of English students budgetary constraints and structural measures have taken their toll. By next year, when Martin-Luther-University celebrates its fifth centenary, the English Institute will have had endured even further cuts, so that it will be left with less than half of the original number of its scholars and will have lost yet another few of those who handed in an article for the present publication.

Hence, this volume pays tribute to those who have been dedicated to the Institute since their student days, thereby establishing a vital link with its history, to those who committed themselves to holding up its academic, administrative, and social standards against all odds and ends since the early 1990s, and to the youngest colleagues amongst us who after graduating from our Institute embarked on its teaching and research programs with aspiring hopes.

¹ Entwicklungslinien: 120 Jahre Anglistik in Halle. Ed. Wolf Kindermann. Münster: LIT, 1997. A second volume of essays written by alumni of the English Institute appeared under the title Dona Anglica: 120 Jahre Anglistik in Halle. Eds. Gisela Hermann-Brennecke and Dietmar Schneider. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 1997.