Submitted Papers 2010

Major Contributions of Hungarian Jewish Doctors to Medicine during the Twenties Century

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The presenter focuses her attention on the subject of the life of Jewish physicians in the shadow of the Holocaust. While she is about to create a three generational collective biography, she examines the effect of emigration left on professional development, and the achievements among those who stayed to rebuild the new health system in Hungary.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):

---

“Hungary 101”—Meanings and Uses of History in Narrative Ethno-Cultural Identity Construction among Hungarian-Americans

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this paper I discuss approaches to personal narratives elicited in 28 qualitative interviews with ten second- and third-generation Hungarian-Americans regarding the meanings of history in their ethnicity. The stories that interviewees told about Hungarian and in some cases world history illustrate how the historical elements and icons of the individual’s culture create a unique ethno-cultural identity and community. Besides personal history most immigrants cherish, tell and attempt to hand down the wider historical circumstances and events that influenced them in their decision to relocate. Narratives shift the focus of history from texts to interpreters and historical culture thus becomes a story created by participants rather than something read or viewed by them. Stories about historical events create and maintain communities as well as ethno-cultural identities in specific ways that allow several interpretations and recontextualizations.
In the interviews, two major events of twentieth-century-history occurred in a most articulated form. World War II and the 1956 Revolution in Hungary seem to be the historical story frame for interviewees to explain their ethnic affiliations. The paper explores the narratives about these two major historical events to unfold the double narrative structure that support ethno-cultural identity construction.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):

---

Antisemitism in Hungary. How an Ideology Threatens to Become Violent

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Ever since “modern antisemitism” emerged during the nineteenth century, this phenomenon has become a regular fixture in Hungary too. It always intensifies during times of sociopolitical crisis, most strongly in the decades following World War I and the subsequent Paris Peace Treaties, and clearly again since the collapse of real communism. Could troubling structural parallels once again lead to an escalation of violence? This lecture seeks to answer this question. Beginning with a snapshot of the current state of fear in Hungarian society and the overly narrow conception of anti-semitism in Hungary, a second section goes on to describe the emergence and development of ethnic-völkisch thought as the most important mobilizing factor behind exclusionary tendencies. A third section, on the construction of “the Jew”, draws on theory to describe the manifestations of antisemitism in Hungary, and a fourth section corroborates this theory using empirical examples of antisemitic mobilization. How this mobilization has already resulting in violence, and how the widening schism within society, the sacralization of the nation, and the nationalist victim narrative are all exacerbating the spiral of violence, is shown in the final section.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
computer projection

---

Left Behind: Formation and Evolution of Heritage Language and Cultural Identity in Isolation

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Growing up Hungarian in another country, with virtually no contact to other Hungarians until adulthood impacts how one’s identity is formed and evolves. This study explores, through interviews, how heritage language speakers views of themselves as Hungarians have evolved during their lifetimes.
Participants were asked to describe their initial and evolving conceptualizations of their ethnicity. They reported that challenges to their original conceptualizations of their own ethnicity came mainly through interactions with native and expatriate Hungarians, educational opportunities, and travel to Hungary. Encounters with unfamiliar social, educational, and political situations, views and institutions were some of the categories that emerged in the interviews. Coping strategies for dealing with feelings of alienation and confusion caused by the clash of expatriate cultural norms and expectations compared with reality will be explored and analyzed.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):

---