Barbora Kaplánková is a film specialist 
who focuses on animated films and fantasy. She is currently pursuing her PhD in the Department of Theater and Film at Palacky University. During the 2023/2024 academic year, she spent five months at Idaho State University as a Fulbright grantee, researching gender within the fantasy franchise from 2000 to 2020. The university is located in Pocatello, the sixth-largest city in Idaho, at an elevation of 1,360 meters above sea level. Barbora's journey to the U.S. illustrated what to expect during her Fulbright grant—overcoming challenges and adapting to different ways of doing things than at home was inevitable. Recognizing the transformative power of her experience across the Atlantic, Barbora encourages others who struggle to envision themselves far from their comfort zones to apply for Fulbright: "I went to do research on fantasy in a small town, and now I’m someone who has seen a bison. If you’re hesitating, I wholeheartedly recommend you go and see a bison too."
The first flight I’ve ever taken was a roughly two-hour one to the Netherlands to see a friend. The second would be an almost twenty-hour journey including three planes, two new airports, and a whole different continent. The thing I signed up for in a fit of confidence and productivity almost two years ago was in motion. I was heading to Pocatello, a small town in Idaho and home to Idaho State University, and as I was standing at the Salt Lake City airport, the first little culture shock began to hit. For instance, there was no way I could walk those four-ish miles to the hotel I booked for the night. Not because I couldn’t walk four miles – that I do at home fairly regularly – but because those four miles were in nature much closer to a highway than to a countryside road. I would have to trust an airport taxi. I would have to find an airport taxi. At home, I don’t “do“ taxis. But I also didn’t “do“ planes until this point. And I most certainly hadn’t thought I would ever “do“ the United States. But now I’ve “done“ airplanes and I was standing on American soil, so I could probably “do“ a taxi. And I did. I was blessed with a delightful driver who had waited patiently while I ran around with my luggage like a headless chicken, trying to find him, and who had gotten me safely to the hotel and back again in the morning, just in time to catch the Greyhound to Pocatello. That little situation was important in showing me, someone independent yet still aggressively out of my comfort zone, that things were simply doable here just like mostly anywhere else.
I didn’t hide the fact that I was, on some level, terrified of the United States during my Fulbright interview. The idea of cities with the same amount of people as my entire country was borderline unfathomable. The distances and car-centric infrastructure seemed aggressively incompatible with my anxious, non-driving self. The fact that if something went wrong I would not be able to pick up and be home in two to ten hours like in the EU was, to put it mildly, disturbing. But the academic and logistical stars kept aligning throughout the entire process. I came out of it richer academically and personally. Yes, it is a cliché, but it is also the truth.
Knowing exactly what I needed from the Fulbright program was incredibly beneficial, if not essential. I knew I needed to talk to the professor whose work on literary fantasy intensely inspired my own research on fantasy film. And Professor Emeritus Brian Attebery turned out to be at home in a walkable, comfortable little town. The second important thing was establishing contact with his institution and being connected with a Fulbright liaison. Professor Alan Johnson not only kept in touch with me for over a year when I was in the process of applying and then preparing for the grant period but also gave me a tour of the university and Pocatello on the very first day and created the sense that I indeed had some sort of a safety net, even this far from home. Thirdly, the terrifying prospect of hunting for accommodation in a small town as a foreigner evaporated once I got in touch with the university’s housing office, which promptly offered me a flat. The amount of worries and money this simple e-mail saved me was frankly amazing. Before I even knew it I was taking a jetlag nap on my new couch, a five-minute walk from my office.
There were some basics to sort – getting a pillow, a blanket, some clothes… a piece of luggage can only contain so much. That demanded a quick familiarization with the local public transport, which consisted mostly of ensuring I always had at least two dollars in cash and not forgetting to thank the bus driver. Suddenly I was someone who was okay moving around an unknown town without functioning Google Maps (at least until I acquired a phone compatible with the local network). But soon I was also someone who excitedly lugged bags of groceries from the one supermarket within walking distance every few days, thrilled to have gotten my hands on caramel-flavored coffee creamer. I was someone who took a million pictures of the sky above a gym parking lot one day because the sunset was stunning and I was now also someone who regularly went to the gym. I was someone who enjoyed the sight of the low hills covered in brush that surrounded Pocatello in every weather, be it sunshine or blizzard; someone who went to Spirit Halloween and to local symphony concerts, who made it her mission to see the Christmas lights in Salt Lake City and, as an avid collector of all things soft and fluffy, to visit the Build’a’Bear workshop in Boise. I was someone who suddenly found herself eating popcorn at a picnic table in the Grand Teton National Park one day and a sandwich at a different picnic table in Yellowstone National Park the other day. I was now also someone who saw a bison (so many bison, actually), the mud pots and the famous Old Faithful, and also his neighbor, Beehive. I was someone who said yes to a D&D session once and suddenly had pockets full of dice. Most importantly, I became many of these someones next to people I knew for barely a few weeks but who felt like I knew them since kindergarten. A few words exchanged at a department gathering, or a knock on an office door transformed into making whole new friends while pushing thirty and marveling at the ease of it.
Everything I did during those five months, big or small, maintained the exciting flavor of novelty. This excitement and novelty seeped into my research. I am lucky to be in a field that never stopped feeling creative and fun to me, and at ISU I had a fully stocked library and the advice of one of the world’s topmost experts at my disposal. I accumulated so much new material it threw off my intended work plan. In the beginning, I was reading a book a day and still, the stack of them was not getting any smaller. What I thought was the finishing stretch of the dissertation race was suddenly the middle. As of today, I am still writing, still processing the sheer amount of new input I brought home with me from Pocatello, and I am very excited for the day I will be able to e-mail Professor Attebery with the news of the dissertation being finished and, fingers crossed, defended. But it wasn’t just the library and the priceless connections with other scholars I was able to make with Professor Attebery’s help, which made my research at ISU exciting. It was the fact that everyone seemed to be on a very similar wavelength. Everyone got it, everyone was excited about literary fantasy just like I was about fantasy film. It broadened my genre horizons significantly, both in academic and personal sense. At work, I can translate these experiences into my class on fantasy film and genre; in my free time I am now regularly exploring whole new areas of fantasy and other speculative literature. People are truly not lying when they call experiences such as the Fulbright program transformative. Academically but also personally. Especially, I would argue, for those who struggle to even imagine participating in such a program. Because generally, things are indeed doable. For the absolute most part, people are nice and helpful and airport taxis are actually pretty great. I went to do research on fantasy in a small town, and now I’m someone who has seen a bison. If you’re hesitating, I wholeheartedly recommend you go and see a bison too.
