Cultural Studies paper by Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven
About the Problematics of (E)migration in the Work of Kertész and Márai
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In his paper "About the Problematics of (E)migration in the Work of Kertész and Márai" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses the underlying ideological perspectives of emigration and its corollary aspects in the work of Imre Kertész and Sándor Márai. Since the demise of communism in Central and East Europe in 1989, Márai's works experience remarkable interest not only in Hungary proper but in Europe and the Anglophone world owing to the translation of his works. Márai wrote with nostalgia about the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and its multi-ethnic history and in several of his novels described post-World War II Hungary under Soviet and communist rule. Although he can be considered a proponent of bourgois society, he did not subscribe to the anti-Semitic worldview of his contemporaries whether in Hungary or among other exile Hungarian authors. Kertész, the first and only Hungarian Nobel laureate in literature expresses in his work the horrors of both fascist and communist rule. In his later works he deals extensively with the recurrence of anti-Semitism and anti-Other in conemporary Hungarian society and culture. Both authors' works are also relevant to questions of identity, home, and emigration and it is this aspect Tötösy de Zepetnek explores in his paper.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Author's profile: Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/totosycv taught comparative literature at the University of Alberta and comparative media and communication studies at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, as well as at various universities in the U.S. and Asia. In addition to numerous articles he has published three dozen single-authored books and collected volumes in various fields of the humanities and social sciences, most recently the collected volumes Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies (with Louise O. Vasvári, 2011), Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing (with I-Chun Wang, 2010); Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement (with I-Chun Wang and Hsiao-Yu Sun, 2009), and Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies (with Louise O. Vasvári, 2009). Tötösy de Zepetnek's work has also been published in Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Mahrati, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish translation. He resides in Boston.