Orsolya Kis

2017-2018

Orsolya Kis, PhD Candidate in Literature at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

I study Literature at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. I started my PhD at St. Petersburg State University, reached final pre-degree level, and then transferred back to Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest where I had already completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

I find it most interesting to analyse the connections between contemporary and classical literature using the methods of Comparative Literature. According to my hypothesis, postmodern Russian literature is not only connected to the Russian novel of 19th century, but originates directly from it. The theoretical background of research is Mikhail Bakhtin’s Carnival theory and Polyphonic theory. The title of my PhD research is ‘Reception of 19th Century Realist Novels in V. Sorokin’s work’. I state that even though his works seem absolutely innovative, they are in fact transformations of concepts taken from the Russian classics.

Beside my doctoral research I do literary translations, mostly of poems and short stories. I recently translated a drama, ‘Oxigen’ of Ivan Viripaev, which was then performed at the Budapest Contemporary Drama Festival.

 

Zsolt Miklósvölgyi

2016-2017

Zsolt Miklósvölgyi, PhD Candidate in Literary and Cultural Studies, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest

I am a PhD Candidate in Literary and Cultural Studies at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Budapest. After graduating with degree in Aesthetics, at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Institute of Aesthetics and Art History, I started my doctoral studies in 2012. In 2012-2013, I have participated in the Radboud Honours Academy Programme at Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. In 2013-2014 I was a visiting doctoral researcher at Humboldt Universität in Berlin, Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Berlin, Germany.

The main purpose of my doctoral research is to explore the interrelation of spatiality/locality, identity, and the topography of literary texts in the novel Parallel Stories (2005), written by Péter Nádas. Regarding the methodological viewpoint of the research, the dissertation focuses on the theoretical approach of spatial studies and literary criticism. Corresponding to this hybrid discursivity, the standard interpretive techniques of literary criticism mingle with viewpoints and methods of cultural geography, urban archeology, as well as with architecture and design theory.

The novel of Péter Nádas navigates the same hybrid realm of discursive fields, and the exploration of this hybridity is the primary objective of my ongoing doctoral research. By describing the parallel stories of a German family and a Hungarian family from 1930s and ‘40s Germany, through 1960s communist Hungary until the present era of post-communist, postmodern Germany, the novel traces a grandiose panorama of the late modern cultural history of the Central European region.

Beside my doctoral research I am also a co-editor of Technologie und das Unheimliche and Melting Books publishing projects.

Ágnes Vass

2015-2016

Ágnes Vass, PhD Candidate at the Institute of International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

After graduating with a degree in International Relations, I started my doctoral studies at Corvinus University of Budapest, in 2011. One year later I joined as a research fellow to the Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Minority Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences where I was conducting research about the development of minority rights in Central European countries and about the changes of Hungarian policy towards ethnic Hungarian communities living in neighboring countries.

My thesis examines kin-state policy of Hungary from the perspectives of Hungarian communities living around Hungary. More broadly I am interested in state-society relations and interrelations between majority and minority in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, I am interested in (dual) citizenship practices and kin-state policies of states in the Central European region.

In 2014 I also worked for the Budapest based Antall József Knowledge Centre as a project coordinator at V4 and CEI Office where we coordinated projects focusing on the democratic development of Central and Eastern European countries and future of the Visegrad Cooperation. In March 2014 I also worked as a visiting research fellow at PISM (Polski Instytut Spraw Miedzynarodowych – The Polish Institute of International Affairs) in Warsaw, Poland, where I was involved in a project analyzing the relations of Central European countries towards Russia after the Ukrainian crisis.

Henriett Dinók

2013-2014

Henriett Dinók, PhD Candidate at the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest, Hungary. After graduating from Law School, following a short legal practice, I joined the Institute for Legal Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest, as Junior Research Fellow. My doctoral project focuses on bias-motivated crimes, a particularly problematic area in Central-European post-communist states. I have also been active in working with human rights NGOs, and community organizations for Central-East Europe’s largest and most deprived minority, the Roma.

Éva Zsizsmann

2012-2013

Éva Zsizsmann is Curator of English Books at the National Library of Foreign Literature, Budapest and PhD candidate at the English and American Literatures and Cultures Programme of the University of Szeged, Hungary. Her field of research is Postcolonial studies, Canadian literature as well as Place and memory in contemporary Canadian fiction. She has been teaching English for special purposes, doing translations (literature, humanities and social sciences), organising literary and cultural events.