Szegedi Tudományegyetem - Ahol tudás és szándék találkozik

Chair: Prof. Mihály Balázs DSc
Institute for Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, Department of Old Hungarian Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 544 365
E-mail: rotonde@freemail.hu

Assistant Chair: Prof. Olga Penke DSc
Institute for Neo-Latin Cultures, Department of French Linguistics and Literature
H–6720 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone: (+36 62) 544 237
E-mail: polga@lit.u-szeged.hu

Co-operating Institutes 
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Institute of Literary Scholarship,
Institute of History

École Normale Superieure Lettres et Science Humaine
15, parvis René Descartes
BP 7000
69342 LYON-cedex 07

The School was founded in 1994, by Professor Lajos Csetri, Department of Classical Hungarian Literature. Integrating contemporary Hungarian and international trends, Professor Csetri erected the School on the finest traditions of literary scholarship in Szeged. The diverse theoretical traditions have been engaded in a productive cooperation within the organisational framework of the School ever since.

Part of the programmes concentrate on traditional forms of textual scholarship, the exploration, recovery and publication of unknown or hitherto unavailable texts of Hungarian and European literatures. The significance of these projects is underlined by historical conditions: Hungarian literary and cultural historical scholarship had been unable to fully explore earlier literary sources by the early 20th century, and the collections suddenly outside the new Hungarian borders established by the Trianon Peace Treaty became unavailable for further research. Moreover, the reinterpretation of the romantic notions of national literature and the recognition of texts written in languages other than Hungarian as also constitutive of Hungarian literature have enormously facilitated the research of texts produced in Latin in the 15–18th centuries.

Scholars in Szeged engaged in textual scholarship have been constantly aware of issues posed by literary theory. Workshops of vast importance have been formed here constantly since the early 1960s, at first with commitment to linguistics and/or semiotics. By today concerns of most poststructuralist movements have also been integrated into their conceptual frameworks. As a result, numerous original works have been published, gaining international recognition. The majority of definitive works of theory have been published in Hungarian translation as well.
In line with the School’s versatile character, most of the major branches of modern philology have also created workshops – with the lamentable exception of Hispanic literatures – and each workshop integrates approaches of literary history and/or theory to varying degrees. The School now has programmes in British and American literatures and cultures, German, French, Italian, Russian literatures and Comparative Literature, the latter covering the literatures of neighbouring nations (Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian and Romanian) as well.
The School pursues a high level of thematic and methodological diversity, yet at the same time, Professor Csetri and the ensuing directors (coordinators) have maintained an active dialogue among the programmes. An important framework of this dialogue is the ongoing series of methodology workshops held by prominent representatives of Hungarian and international literary scholarship.

Educational Programmes

1. British and American Literatures and Cultures
Programme director: Prof. Endre György Szőnyi DSc
Institute of English and American Studies, Department of American Studies
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone: (+36 62) 544 030, Fax: (+36 62) 544 259
E-mail: geszonyi@lit.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Protomodern and postmodern cultural representations in anglophone literatures and cultures, and their comparative study ( Supervisors: Attila Kiss, György Endre Szőnyi)
– Mediality and semiography: theories and case studies in verbal and visual cultural representations (Supervisors: Attila Kiss, György Endre Szőnyi)
– Intercultural, intermedial and intertextual approaches to analyses in literary history (Supervisors: Éva Federmayer, Ágnes Zsófia Kovács, György Novák, Béláné Resch)
– Imagination, heterodoxy, occultism and the fantastic in Anglo-Saxon culture (from the 16th to the 21st century) (Supervisor: György Endre Szőnyi)
– English intellectual and cultural history (Supervisor: György Endre Szőnyi)
– Gender studies (Supervisors: Béláné Resch, Erzsébet Barát, Éva Federmayer, Irén Annus)
– American intellectual and cultural history (Supervisors: Irén Annus, Zoltán Vajda, György Novák)
– American film, visuality; film theory (Supervisor: Réka Mónika Cristián)
– Modern American drama (Supervisor: Réka Mónika Cristián)
– Postcolonial theories (Supervisors: Réka Mónika Cristián, Éva Federmayer)
– Visual culture in the United States (Supervisor: Irén Annus)

Major courses
– The Representational Devices of Protomodern English Literature
– The Representational Devices of Postmodern Anglo-American Literatures
– Protomodern and Postmodern Anatomies: Epistemological Experiments in English Drama
– The Postsemiotics of the Subject and the Subject of Literature
– The Laboratories of Identity: Postmodern Drama and Theatre
– American Intellectual and Cultural History
– Film and Semiotics
– Postcolonial Identities

2. Classical Hungarian Literature
Programme director: Prof. Mihály Szajbély DSc
Institute of Hungarian Linguistics and Literature, Department of Classical Hungarian Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 544 366; (+36 62) 544 365
E-mail: szajbely@hung.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Generic issues in classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mária Zentai)
– Grand oeuvres in classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mária Zentai)
– Literary canonisation and recanonisation in classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mária Zentai)
– Individual and collective identity formation and literary outlook in classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mária Zentai)
– Multilingualism: Non-Hungarophone cultural representations in 18th and 19th century Hungary (literature, theatre, science, journalism, etc.) (Supervisor: Katalin Hász-Fehér)
– The history of the formation of myths in classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Katalin Hász-Fehér)
– Publishing theory of and textology in classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Katalin Hász-Fehér)
– Literary, cultural and national outlooks in the correspondence, diary and memory writing of classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Katalin Hász-Fehér)
– The realisation of critical editions from the corpus of classical Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mihály Szajbély)
– History of criticism in the classical period of Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mihály Szajbély)
– Literature and its sister arts in the classical period of Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mihály Szajbély)
– History of institutions in the period of literature’s transformation into an autonomous subsystem (Supervisor: Mihály Szajbély)
– The history of literary media in the classical period of Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Mihály Szajbély)
– Contexts of popular fiction: cultural history and the history of techniques (Supervisor: Gergely Labádi)

Major courses
–  Sources of 19th Century Hungarian Literature
– The Institutional System of Hungarian Literature in the 19th Century
– Generic Tendencies in 19th Century Hungarian Literature
– Reception Strategies of Literary Works of Art in the 19th Century

3. Comparative Literature
Programme director: Prof. István Fried DSc
Institute for Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, Department of Comparative Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone: (+36 62) 544 520, Fax: (+36 62) 425 843

Research topics
–  Significant figures of comparative literature in Hungarian and international literary criticism (Supervisors: István Fried, György Fogarasi)
– Culture as text (Supervisors: István Fried, György Fogarasi)
– Intercultural hermeneutics (Supervisors: István Fried, György Fogarasi)
– Orality, writing, mnemotechniques (Supervisors: István Fried, György Fogarasi)
– Cultural memory (Supervisors: István Fried, György Fogarasi)
– Literature and its sister arts (Supervisors: István Fried, Katalin Kürtösi)
– Regional problems (Supervisors: István Fried, Katalin Kürtösi)
– Literary criticism and fellow disciplines (Supervisors: István Fried, Katalin Kürtösi, György Fogarasi)

Major courses
– Perspectives of Comparative Studies
– Literary Criticism and Interdisciplinarity
– Literariness and Culturality
– Critical Theory

4. French Literature
Programme director: Prof. Olga Penke DSc
Institute for Neo-Latin Cultures, Department of French Linguistics and Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone: (+36 62) 544 237
E-mail: polga@lit.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Research in genre theory and genre history: transformations of short prose genres, the autobiography, the memoir and the novel, historiography, the travelogue, and their fellow genres (Supervisors: Ilona Kovács, Olga Penke, Géza Szász
– Natural and social philosophy in 17th and 19th century French literature (Supervisor: Péter Balázs)
– Hungarian-French intellectual and literary connections: investigations in reception (Supervisors: Olga Penke, Géza Szász)
– French literary theory and aesthetics (Supervisors: Tímea Gyimesi, Katalin Kovács)

Major courses
– Historico-Generic Tendencies in French Literature
– Chapters from the History of French Prose
– Interactions of Intellectual Historical Tendencies and Literary Programmes in the History of French Literature
– French Literary Theory and Aesthetics

5. Italian Literature
Programme director: Prof. József Pál DSc
Institute for Neo-Latin Cultures, Department of Italian Studies
H–6722 Szeged, Petőfi Sándor sgt. 30–34., Hungary
Phone: (+36 62) 544 038
E-mail: paljzsf@lit.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– The Italian literary Middle Ages in a theological context. The poetics of Dante Alighieri (Supervisor: József Pál)
– Italian Renaissance: literature and visual arts (Supervisor: József Pál)
– The Baroque (Supervisor: József Pál)
– Italian Neoclassicism in Its European Contexts (Supervisor: József Pál)
– 20th century Italian literature (Supervisors: József Pál, Klára Madarász)
– Italian Renaissance and Baroque literature and literary Theory (Supervisor: Éva Vígh)
– 16th–17th century Italian cultural history (Supervisor: Éva Vígh)

Major courses
– Late Mediaeval and Early Renaissance Genres
– Humanist History Writing
– Poetical and Rhetorical Theories in Early Modern Neo-Latin Literatures
– Neo-Latin Epic Poems in Europe and Hungary

6. Literary Theory
Programme director: Prof. Ferenc Odorics DSc
Institute for Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, Department of Comparative Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 544 387
E-mail: odorics@hung.szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Narratology in the 20th century (Supervisor: Ervin Török)
– Old and new rhetoric (Supervisor: Ferenc Odorics)
– Semiotics and literary studies (Supervisor: Ferenc Odorics)
– Philosophy of science and literary theory (Supervisor: Ferenc Odorics)
– The borderlines of verbality and visuality (Supervisor: Izabella Füzi)

Major courses
– Tendencies and Directions in 20th Century Literary Theory
– Interdisciplinarity in Literary Theory
– The Philosophical Foundations of Contemporary Tendencies in Literary Theory
– Strategies of Literary Interpretation in Contemporary Theoretical Tendencies

7. Literatures in German
Programme director: Prof. Árpád Bernáth CSc
Institute of German Studies, Department of German Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone: (+36 62) 544 247; Fax: (+36 62) 544 245
E-mail: bernath.a@lit.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Literary theory, the poetics of possible worlds / textology (editionsphilologie) (Supervisor: Árpád Bernáth)
– Literature in the age of Goethe, Weimar Classicism (Supervisor: Árpád Bernáth)
– German literature and philosophy, history of poetics (e.g. artistic and literary theories of the German Romanticism, etc.) (Supervisor: Géza Horváth)
– Significant figures in the 20th–21st century literature of Germany and Switzerland (Supervisor: Géza Horváth)
– Mediaeval and early modern German literature (Supervisor: Tünde Katona)
– The 16th–17th century intellectual history of the German culture in Hungary (Supervisor: Tünde Katona)
– Culture, mediality and literature in the 18th Century (Supervisor: Endre Hárs)
– The literature of German Romanticism, Vormärz and poetic realism (Supervisor: Márta Barótiné Gaál)
– The literature of German Expressionism at the turn of the 19th–20th century (Supervisor: Károly Csúri)
– Significant figures of 20th–21st century Austrian narrative literature (Supervisor: Attila Bombitz)

Major courses
– Literary Theory: the Poetics of Possible Worlds
– Mediaeval and Early Modern German literature
– Literature in the Age of Goethe
– Poetic Tendencies in 20th century German Literature

8. Literatures of Classical Antiquity
Programme director: Assoc. Prof. János Nagyillés CSc
Institute for Archaic and Oriental Studies, Department of Classica-Philology
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/ Fax: (+36 62) 544 313
E-mail: nagyilles@gmail.com

Research topics
– The Interpretation of Ovid’s exile-elegies from a narrative psychological perspective (Supervisor: Ibolya Tar)
– Greek and Roman historiography (with specific focus on the historiography surrounding the figure of Alexandros) (Supervisor: Ibolya Tar)
– Investigations in the hermetic tradition (with specific focus on questions of dating, its relationship to Platonism and its survival in the Christian tradition) (Supervisor: Ibolya Tar)
– The influence of Greek tragedies on Seneca’s works (with specific focus on the structural role of the chorus) (Supervisor: Ibolya Tar)
– The survival of Greek literary traditions in Archaic, Golden Age, Silver Age and - Late Imperial Roman literature (Supervisor: Ibolya Tar)
– The representation of Roman values in the fine arts and their use for propagandistic purposes (Supervisor: Ibolya Tar)
– Roman epic of the Silver Age: intertextual investigations (Supervisor: János Nagyillés)

Major courses
– Interactions of Classical Antique Art and Literature
– Chapters from the History of Classical Antique Drama
– Variants of Classical Antique Epic Poetry
– Mythological Themes in Classical Antique Literature

9. Modern Hungarian Literature
Programme director: Dr. Zoltan Virág
Institute of Hungarian Linguistics and Literature, Department of Modern Hungarian Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 543 096
E-mail: viragz@hung.u-szeged.hu

Research topics
– >Poetic variants in contemporary Hungarian prose (Supervisor: Sándor Olasz)
– The metamorphosis of the short story and the novel in the Hungarian literature of the first half of the 20th century (Supervisor: Sándor Olasz)
– Dialogic and monologic variants of poetics in 20th century Hungarian poetry (Supervisor: Zoltán Virág)
– Linguistic-poetic attitudes in the Hungarian poetry of the second half of the 20th century (Supervisor: Zoltán Virág)
– Foreign Hungarian literature, minority literatures, Southern Slavic-Hungarian literary connections (Supervisor: Zoltán Virág)
– The poetic characteristics of postmodern Hungarian prose (Supervisor: Gábor Szabó)
– Foreign Hungarian literature (Supervisors: Sándor Olasz, Zoltán Virág)

Major courses
– Periods of Modernism and Literary History
– Hungarian Criticism in the 20th Century
– Genres and Tendencies in Modern Hungarian Literature
– Textual Types in Contemporary Literature

10. Neo-Latin Literature
Programme director: Prof. László Szörényi DSc
Institute for Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, Department of Comparative Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Petőfi Sándor sgt. 30–34., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 544 633
E-mail: neolatin@hung.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Neo-Latin epic poetry (Supervisor: László Szörényi)
– Theory of poetics and rhetoric (Supervisor: László Szörényi)
– The Renaissance and early modern Latin scholarship (Supervisor: László Szörényi)
– Erasmus of Rotterdam and His reception in Hungary (Supervisor: László Szörényi)
– Humanist history writing (16th–17th century Hungarian Historiographers and Historiographers related to Hungary) (Supervisor: István Dávid Lázár)
– The Latin works of Petrarca – reception, history (Supervisor: István Dávid Lázár)
– Theory of history (ars historica in the Renaissance and the Early Modern era) (Supervisor: István Dávid Lázár)

Major courses
– Late Mediaeval and Early Renaissance Genres
– Humanist History Writing
– Poetical and Rhetorical Theories in Early Modern Neo-Latin literatures
– Neo-Latin Epic Poems in Europe and Hungary

11. Old Hungarian Literature 
Programme director: Prof. Mihály Balázs DSc
Institute for Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, Department of Old Hungarian Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 544 365
E-mail: rotonde@freemail.hu 

Research topics
– Denominations and literary movements in early modern Hungary and Transylvania (Supervisor: Mihály Balázs)
– Cultural institutions and literary programmess under the aegis of the Reformation (Supervisors: Mihály Balázs, Miklós Latzkovits)
– Intellectual and generic tendencies in late Renaissance Hungary (Supervisor: Péter Ötvös)
– Theme and variation in 17th century Hungarian poetry (Supervisor: Péter Ötvös)
– Non-Hungarian literature in the 17th Century (Supervisor: Péter Ötvös)
– Domestic and foreign schooling (peregrinatio academica) and 16th–18th century – Hungarian literature (Supervisor: Zsuzsa Font)
– Paratexts in old Hungarian poetry (Supervisor: László Szilasi)
– Combinatorics and the concepts of poetry in 17th century Hungarian poetry (Supervisor: László Szilasi)
– Imitatio, aemulatio, and applicatio in 17th century Hungarian poetry (Supervisor: László Szilasi)

Major courses
– Sources of Old Hungarian Literature (Textological-Philological Introduction)
– Early Modern Intellectual Trends
– Early Modern Cultural Institutions
– Genres and Tendencies in the Early Modern Literature of Hungary

12. Russian Literature
Programme director: Assoc. Prof. Katalin Szőke CSc
Institute of Slavic Philology, Department of Russian Language and Literature
H–6722 Szeged, Egyetem u. 2., Hungary
Phone/Fax: (+36 62) 544 160
E-mail: kszoke@lit.u-szeged.hu 

Research topics
– Functions of the icon (Supervisor: Valerij Lepahin)
– The icon and Russian literature (Supervisor: Valerij Lepahin)
– The Religio-philosophical foundations of Gogol’s St. Petersburg Stories (Supervisor: Katalin Szőke)
–  The Subcultural Metatext of Russian Symbolist Prose (Supervisor: Katalin Szőke)
– The “female principle” in early 20th century Russian literature (Supervisor: Katalin Szőke)
– Trends in Contemporary Russian Prose (Supervisor: Katalin Szőke)
– The Utopian idea in the literature of Russian Symbolism / Avant-garde (Supervisor: Ibolya Bagi)
– The failure of Utopian Ideas: The Oeuvre of Andrej Platonov (Supervisor: Ibolya Bagi)
– Rusyn-Hungarian literary connections in the light of translation literature (Supervisor: Ibolya Bagi)

Major courses
– The Icon and Early Russian Literature
– Poetic Tendencies in 19th Century Russian Literature
– Intellectual Tendencies and Generic Types in Early 20th Century Russian Culture
– Principal Tendencies in Present-Day Russian Culture and Literature

Available facilities 
Students can use the Institute and University libraries and the programme’s students office and computers.

Condition of admission
– university degree
– succesfully completed entrance examination

In the course of the admissive process the candidates are evaluated on the basis of two criteria. On the on hand, academic achievements are taken into consideration. In this case, besides academic records, publications and activity in the Scientific Students’ Associations represent an important asset. The possession of foreign language diplomas (recognised by the Hungarian state) also provides an advantage. On the other hand, the committee evaluates the validity of the written and verbally presented research proposal, and whether the candidate appears qualified to accomplish it.

Documents to be enclosed with the application
– copy of the university degree
– two-page long research proposal
– certificates of language teaching practice, if any

Representative dissertations (title, author, supervisor, year)

1. Dante Alighieri „Isteni Színjáték. Pokol” – Babits Mihály fordítása [Dante Alighieri „Divine Comedy. Hell” – The Translation by Mihály Babits] Norbert Mátyus, József Pál, 2007
2. Andrej Rubljov alakja a középkori orosz kultúrában és Andrej Tarvkovszkij filmjében [The Figure of Andrej Rubljov in Medieval Russian Culture and in Andrej Tarvkovszkij’s Movie] Mihály Fresli, Valerij Lepahin, 2007
3. Ovidius pontusi elégiái narratív pszichológiai megközelítésben [The Pontian Elegies of Ovid from a Narrative Psychological Approach] Mariann Czerovszki, Ibolya Tar, 2008
4. Az Ekphraszisz fikciói (Elméleti, történeti és diszciplináris átrendeződések az ekphraszisz teoretikus diszkurzusaiban) [Fictions of Ekphrasis (Theoretical, Historical and Disciplinary Shifts in Theoretical Discourses on Ekphrasis)] Réka Orsolya Milián-Bogyai, Ferenc Odorics, 2009
5. Ein anderes Wort und ein anderes Land. Zum Verhältnis von Wort, Welt und Ich in Ingeborg Bachmanns Werk [Another World and Another Land. The Relation between Word, World, and I in the Works of Ingeborg Bachmann]Hajnalka Nagy, Attila Bombitz, 2009
6. Homérosz-értelmezések a 16–17. századi angol irodalomban [Interpretations of Homer in 16th–17th century English Literature] Miklós Péti, Bálint Rozsnyai, 2007
7. Bél Mátyás irodalom- és nyelvtörténeti munkái [Bél Mátyás’s Works on Literary- and Linguistic History] Gyöngyi Bókayné Komlóssy, László Szörényi, 2008
8. Az angolszász–magyar unitárius érintkezések a 19. században [Anglo-Hungarian Unitarian Connections in the 19th century] Sándor Kovács, Mihály Balázs, 2007
9. Az emberképzet philosophiája. Berzsenyi mint elméletíró [The Philosophy of „emberképzet”. Berzsenyi as a Theoretical Writer] Gergely Fórizs, Mihály Szajbély, 2007
10. A metafikció mintázatai [Patterns of Meta-fiction] Kinga Balcsik-Tamás, István Fried, 2009
11. Utópikus vonások Babits Mihály prózaművészetében [Utopian Features in Mihály Babits’s Prose Works] Lilla Kocsis,Sándor Olasz, 2010