Celebrating the 80th birthday of Winfried Fluck, this volume of REAL gathers leading US-American and European literary scholars from English and American Studies to engage one of the most important European scholars of American Studies. Each of the volume's twelve dialogues consists of a republished essay by Fluck and a response by one his interlocutors, written specifically for this occasion. Covered topics range from the aesthetics of early American literature to the history of our digital present and from the Americanization of literary studies to the search for American democratic culture.