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The article presents author's opinion on American literature at a conference. According to the author the University of Zagreb, the English department is the second largest in the liberal arts college. The word raised a titter in the crowded lecture hall, per- haps because "beatnik" sounds almost Serbo-Croatian. Also perhaps because the state of mind it suggests seemed exotic in a police state which of late is relaxing its discipline, and now makes welcome at least some foreign ideas, but which still cannot afford or even imagine a domestic crop of "dharma bums."