DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN STUDIES
SCHOOL OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES
EÖTVÖS LORÁND UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
BUDAPEST
____________________________________________________________
KULTÚRDIPLOMÁCIA: KULTÚRAKÖZVETÍTÉS
KÖZÉP-EURÓPA ÉS AZ ANGOL NYELVŰ ORSZÁGOK KÖZÖTT
Rövidtávú képzési program külföldi hallgatók részére
CULTURAL DIPLOMACY: MEDIATING BETWEEN THE CULTURES
OF CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD
Short-term program for international students
Cultural Diplomacy is an interdisciplinary MA program coordinated by the Department of
American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.
Language of instruction: English
Length of program: three semesters (fall, spring, fall)
The Program has been designed for
(a) ELTE MA students in English and American Studies and
(b) international students.
(a) ELTE students have the option to enroll either for
(i) the whole 50 credit program, or for
(ii) individual courses.
However, when more students register to the courses than can be admitted, priority is given
to those who do the whole specialization. For this reason, ELTE students are encouraged to
register for the whole 50 credit specialization.
(b) International students have the option to enroll either for
(i) single semesters, in which case they need to take all the four courses (for a total of 17
credits) offered in that particular semester, or for
(ii) the whole 50 credit program, in which case they are required to spend three, preferably
consecutive, semesters at ELTE.
Cultural diplomacy is the art of mediating between cultures. In our Cultural Diplomacy
Specialization Program, students will learn basic facts, skills, and vocabularies, drawn
from several disciplines in the humanities, which they can use when they professionally
interpret cultures. The program is geared toward teaching cultural mediation between
Europe (primarily Central Europe) and the English speaking countries (primarily the U.S.).
This involves the writing and speaking to an American audience about social, historical,
political, literary, or other issues that relate to some part of Europe and, vice versa,
presenting American topics to European audiences.
The program qualifies the students for very particular jobs and endeavors, such as
- cultural diplomacy (diplomats working in embassies or international cultural centers);
- international journalism (foreign correspondents, or journalists assigned
internationally);
- international literary or art agency (agents marketing cultural goods and carrying out
an import-export activity of sorts within the realm of culture);
- professional, academic, or literary translation (translators of professional, academic,
and literary texts);
- or simply fine conversationalists (who want to understand, and be understood by, foreign
friends).
PROGRAM COORDINATOR:
ENIKŐ BOLLOBÁS, DLitt, PhD, habil., Professor, Chair (Dept American St)
TEACHING FACULTY:
ZSÓFIA BÁN, PhD, Associate Professor (Dept American St)
RÉKA BENCZES, PhD, Assistant Professor (Dept American St)
ÉVA FEDERMAYER, PhD, Associate Professor (Dept American St)
TIBOR FRANK, PhD, DLitt, habil., Professor (Dept American St)
RYAN JAMES, PhD, Native Language Instructor (Dept of American Studies)
ZOLTÁN KÖVECSES, PhD, DLitt, habil., Professor (Dept American St)
ÉVA SZABÓ, PhD, Assistant Professor (Dept American St)
STANLEY WARD, Native Language Instructor (Dept of American Studies)
EDIT ZSADÁNYI, PhD, habil., Associate Professor (Dept Comp Lit)
LIST OF COURSES
Semester #1 (Fall semester) (17 credits)
1. Introduction to Cultural Diplomacy (Enikő Bollobás), 5 credits
2. The War for the “Hearts and Minds of the People”: the Role of Ideology in the
Cold War (Tibor Frank), 5 credits
3. Comparative Ecocriticism: American and Hungarian Perspectives on Nature,
Culture, and the Environment (Éva Federmayer), 5 credits
4. Tutorial seminar, 2 credits
Semester #2 (Spring semester) (17 credits)
1. Comparative (European-American) Visual Culture Studies: Visual Acts of
Historical Memory (Zsófia Bán), 5 credits
2. Reading (Post)Communism from Queer Perspectives (Edit Zsadányi) or Narrative
subjectivity and Women in the Literatures of Central Europe (Edit Zsadányi)
3. Cognitive Linguistics and Political Discourse in Central Europe and the U.S. (Réka
Benczes), 5 credits
4. Tutorial seminar, 2 credits
Semester #3 (Fall semester) (17 credits)
1. Understanding Central Europe: An American Perspective (Stanley Ward), 5 credits
2. Cognitive Aspects of History after World War Two (Zoltán Kövecses), 5 credits
3. Terms and Concepts in the Study of the History of Central Europe (Éva Szabó), 5
credits
4. Tutorial seminar, 2 credits
Further optional courses
Fictional Representations of the Cold War: A U.S.-Central European perspective
(Enikő Bollobás), 5 credits, (spring semesters)
Changing Borders, Diaspora Nationalism and Transnationalism in Central Europe and
the Americas (Éva Szabó), 5 credits (spring semesters)
Comparative (European-American) Cultural Studies (Éva Federmayer), 5 credits
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Introduction to Cultural Diplomacy (Enikő Bollobás)
5 credits
This is an introductory course into the general claims and methods of cultural diplomacy.
In the first part of the course we will explore the area through readings about
comparativism, global culture, cultural pluralism, and cultural relativism, wile in the
second part students conduct their own research into a particular scholarly topic,
approaching it from both the (Central-)European and American perspective. Ultimately, we
will contribute to setting up an internet database of comparative global culture.
The War for the ’Hearts and Minds’ of the People: the Role of Ideology in the Cold
War (Tibor Frank)
5 credits
The course focuses on conflicting ideologies in the Cold War era. Primary attention is to be
given to the conflict of capitalism versus Communism/Socialism, Liberalism versus
Marxism-Leninism, market based versus planned economy. Special attention will be given
to the classics of Liberal and Marxist thinking, leading British and American as well as
Soviet philosophers and political scientists, and their impact on political strategy and
political thought worldwide. The rise and fall of Marxist egalitarian ideas can be also
documented by the Hungarian example, 1945-2009.
Comparative Ecocriticism: American and Hungarian Perspectives on Nature, Culture
and the Environment (Federmayer Éva)
5 credits
A recent effort to redraw the boundaries of literary studies and cultural studies in the age of
environmental crisis, ecocriticsm seeks to rethink the human place in nature, positing a new
category, place/environment, as a viable perspective on how human culture is connected to
the physical world, hence how culture affects nature and how it is affected by it. This
course will be concerned with discourses on places and spaces in a selection of American
and Hungarian texts (in English translation), teasing out how the concept of eden,
wilderness, land, nature, pastoralism, country and city, apocalypse and pollution has
changed over time in the respective local/national culture/literature. Drawing on these
(mostly) literary texts, we will also attempt to read them comparatively, in a cross-cultural
perspective, seeking to tie our literary/cultural analyses to a green moral and political
agenda.
Comparative (European-American) Visual Culture Studies: Visual Acts of Historical
Memory (Zsófia Bán)
5 credits
This course intends to investigate different techniques in the construction of historical
memory, discussing examples from both sides of the Atlantic. We will be looking at how
East-Central European and American art reflects culture-specific, as well as national or
regional attitudes towards historical events and historical trauma. It is especially relevant to
investigate the changes in these attitudes after the fall of the Berlin wall, i.e. after the
political transition in East-Central Europe. The course will focus on works produced in
different media, i.e. literature, art, film, photography, architecture and museums. Besides
discussing the different techniques these works use for the construction of historical
narratives, we will also look into how these narratives reflect contemporary public
discourse related to the events in question.
Reading (Post)Communism from Queer Perspectives (Zsadányi Edit)
5 credits
The course focuses on the issues of marginality (what has been set aside as not “normal”,
perverse and “other”) to analyze the cultural construction of heterosexual normativity.
Using the works of Eve Sedgwick (The Epistemology of the Closet), Judith Butler (Gender
Troubles) and Nikki Sullivan (Critical Introduction to Queer Theory ) as course materials,
we will challenge established dichotomies such as normal and perverse, mainstream and
marginal. Studying in literary works the extensive appearance of the “closet” metaphor we
wish to come up (and out) with new interpretations addressing issues of homosexuality. In
the second part of the course, we intend to translate the American theory into Hungarian
culture and try to understand why it is such a sensitive issue that raises controversies and
violence. We will analyze works such as the film Crying Game by Neil Jordan, Thomas
Mann’s Death in Venice, the novels of Erzsébet Galgóczi, Péter Nádas and Agáta Gordon;
the poems by Ádám Nádasdy and Mátyás Dunajcsik.
Narrative subjectivity and Women in the Literatures of Central Europe (Zsadányi
Edit)
5 credits
The course will survey Hungarian women writers in the twentieth century. Having learned
the theoretical consequences of distinguishing between the cultural construct of gender and
biological sex, the class will put more emphasis on the historical and regional differences
of women’s movement.
We will approach the issue of female subjectivity from literary historical point of view, and
will focus on Hungarian woman writers in the interwar period. Most of these authors are
forgotten by now as happened with many of their European contemporaries. In the second
half of the twentieth century some names appeared here and there in Hungarian literary
historical works - without any context. The aim of the class is to create a possible context
both for these forgotten women writers and both for the Hungarian feminist studies that
investigate them. The course wishes to create new and fresh environment for these works
and wants to make them accessible for the present reader. Not forgetting about the
historical differences, we would like to dialogue with Hungarian women writers from our
present point of view. We are looking for the answers for those questions that excite us
now in the united Europe at the turn of the 21st century. The present construction of
European female identity is deeply influenced by the events at the turn of the 21st century:
recent Balkan war, the end of the iron curtain and the united Europe.
We will characterize narrative discourse by Hungarian women writers with some typical
examples. The course will focus on works of Margit Kaffka, Cecile Tormay, Jolán Földes,
Emma Ritoók, Magda Szabó, Erzsébet Galgóczi, Krisztina Tóth, Agáta Gordon and Kriszta
Bódis. Most of the works by them are translated into English, and they function as cultural
bridge to make the unique East-European female experience accessible to foreign readers.
Cognitive Linguistics and Political Discourse in Central Europe and the U.S. (Réka
Benczes)
5 credits
Conceptual metaphors and metonymies permeate political discourse. Either explicitly or
implicitly, these conceptual metaphors and metonymies not only impose a certain structure
on politics in general but also shape it to a great extent. The course will demonstrate how a
cognitive linguistic analysis of the conceptual metaphors and metonymies used within
political discourse can provide a better understanding of politics and political ideology.
Understanding Central Europe: An American Perspective (Stanley Ward) 5 credits
The first serious attempt to understand Central Europe in depth was made by the authors of
The Inquiry during the First World War. The analyses prepared by an eminent group of
geographers, historians, demographers, etc. tried to intepret the complex ethnic, linguistic,
etc. conditions in the region as part of the Wilson Administration’s preparation for the Paris
Peace Conference. A similar endeavor took place during the Second World War within the
State Department dealing with a range of issues from creating confederacies in Central
Europe to establishing an independent Transylvania. The Cold War initially brought about
the concept of a ’monolithic Communist bloc’, but this view gradually gave way to a more
nuanced approach to the countries in the region in the 1960s. The post-Cold War era
brought about an oscillation between a ’group-approach’ (Visegrad 3/4) and a more
pronounced bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the individual Central European
states.
Cognitive Aspects of History after World War Two (Zoltán Kövecses)
5 credits
In this course, we take history to be a series of “projected,” or “imagined,” worlds that are
produced by historians as conceptualizers by means of a variety of cognitive processes.
Chief among these are metaphor, metonymy, conceptual framing, and conceptual
integration. We look at the particular cognitive mechanisms that gave rise to the rhetoric of
the cold war; we study the creation and influence of ideologies and philosophical views; we
compare the liberal and conservative worldviews in the US and Hungary; and we deal with
some “sensitive” issues in Hungary in the post-World War Two period, including the socalled “Jewish question.”
Terms and Concepts in the Study of the History of Central Europe (Éva Szabó)
5 credits
The concept of Central Europe — emerging from the 19th century economic interests of
Germany directed at its sphere of influence — has been the object of various modifications
to date. The course follows the development of the concept from the appearance of
Mitteleuropa, its disappearance after World War I, its reappearance in the interwar period,
its melting within the Eastern bloc concept of the Cold War, and its rebirth in the post-Cold
War world, which have all reflected the changing geopolitical systems and power
constellations within a local and global political arena.
Fictional and Filmic Representations of the Cold War: A U.S.-Central European
perspective (Enikő Bollobás)
5 credits
The 1950s were a particular decade on both sides of the Iron Curtain, when the political
became directly personal indeed. This course will investigate works of fiction and film
dealing with the ways the Cold War—and its home reverberations like Stalinism and
McCarthyism—affected the individual. We will read authors from both Central Europe
(among them, Tibor Déry, Erzsébet Galgóczi, Lajos Grendel, Miklós Mészöly, István
Örkény, Milan Kundera) and the U.S. (Cheever, Updike, Nabokov) in order to have a
comparative perspective on the general spleen of the 50s.
Changing Borders, Diaspora Nationalism and Transnationalism in Central Europe
and the Americas (Szabó Éva)
5 credits
The border changes effected by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848) between the
United States and Mexico and the Treaty of Trianon (1920) between Hungary and the
Allies constituted watersheds in the life of the nations involved. The course compares and
contrasts the political, economic, cultural, demographic and migratory consequences of the
border changes that explain the current phenomena of diaspora nationalism and
transnationalism emerging in these regions.
Comparative (European-American) Cultural Studies (Federmayer Éva)
5 credits
The objective of this seminar is to map out the disciplinary boundaries of Comparative
American Studies as a major effort of New American Studies scholarship today. The class
discussions will explore cultural studies texts with a comparative perspective, mostly
deriving from European Americanists who highlight crucial aspects of ‘Americanization,’
crosscultural/transcultural contacts, and the European imaging of America. Besides class
discussions, the course will lean on individual research projects students are required to
begin after the midterm exam. These research projects are expected to scrutinize
crosscultural productions of ‘America’ in Hungarian (or other European) culture, making a
case for a specific local construction and critique of ‘America’ in a given arena of popular
culture, such as the cinema, advertising, home design or youth culture.
Contact person: Mr. Rudolf SÁRDI, Head of International Operations
E-mail address: international@btk.elte.hu
Designated phone number: +36 1 485 5296
Office hours: Mon – Thu, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., Hungary is GMT +1