Submitted Papers

DiasporaThen and Now: Multiethnic Reverberations

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Writers, and certainly Hungarian writers, have confronted the past in order to argue for a better future for the nation. Today, this is often means addressing the geographically fragmented reality of the Hungarian community. That is, the diaspora. Yet, the concept is not wholly new. Hungarian as a multiethnic nation had an internal diaspora before the Treaty of Trianon and an external one following it. I will examine the approaches of several writers to this problem.

Pál Závada sees a Slovak "diaspora" of sorts in his Jadviga párnája. Péter Huncik examines the conficts in the new nation states that thrust Hungarians into diaspora without the movement of populations. In Romania, Béla Markó's Költők koszorúja addresses the problem of cultural maintenance within different cultural environments. This seems to me the central problem of the Diaspora: while remaining culturally and (sometimes) linguistically part of the mother country, to come to an understanding of geographical and political realities that do not, and never have, reflected on ethnic or linguistic borders. Authors can transcend political borders and point to a cultural commonwealth that embraces the diversity of modern writing.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Enikő Molnár Basa received her PhD degree in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is the author of a monograph on Petőfi (Twayne) as well as the editor of the Hungarian series within the Twayne World Authors series. She served as Guest Editor for volume, Hungarian Literature in the Review of National Literature series. Currently she is contributing to The Literary Encyclopedia on several authors ranging from Balassi to modern writers. Over the years, Dr. Basa has published numerous articles, contributed to books, and presented papers at scholarly venues such as the Modern Language Association, the American, International and Southern Comparative Literature Associations, the American Hungarian Educators Association and the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada. She is the Executive Director of the AHEA. eniko.basa@verizon.net

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Otilia Kozmutza Bölöni

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The books of the French or Magyar author, of Romanian origins, Otilia Marchişiu (born 1873 in Homorod, Satu-Mare, deceased 1951 in Hungary), an intimate friend of great personalities of European culture- Anatole France, Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brâncuși, the Hungarian poet, Ady Endre- appear as a coronation of special spiritual efforts, materialized in works of reference for the history of the feminist movement. The relationship with the great sculpture, Auguste Rodin, constitutes a special chapter in Otilia Marchişiu-Bölöni’s biography and that of her husband’s. The Bölöni’s are going to be dear guests in the workshop and dwelling of the sculptor in Meudon. Otilia dedicates a series of editorials, that will cause sensation in the media of the time, Rodin being at that time a consecrated artist, of world fame. The study of Otilia Marchişiu’ biography must be approached through the “moments” of the young author, in the company of celebrities from literature or international art. One such “moment” is with novelist, poet and literary French critic, Anatole France, a Nobel Prize laureate of 1921. The culminant point of this relationship is a common trip to Italy, that will become the pretext for an admirable travel memoir, published in 1924, published in Budapest under the name “The Walks of Anatole France” and in 1929 in French: “Promenades d’Anatole France”. Otilia Marchişiu’s biography and works are a testimony to a culture of three languages, of the way in which cultures intertwine in the consciousness of a single personality. Her works, which contain pages of memoirs, serials, diary and travel notes, studied until today only from the perspective of documentary, with the confessed intention to recompose images, biographies and faces lost with the passage of time, has revealed itself from the perspective of the fragmentary, bricoleur and multicultural postmodernist spirit.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Stefania Maria Custura is a graduate in philology (Romanian and German language), teaches Literature History at Sapientia University in Miercurea Ciuc- Romania. She has published in Romania and abroad, studies about imagery, multiculturalism, relations between ethnic groups in Transylvania. This work is realized with the collaboration of Valentin Trifescu and Corina Moldovan from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj. stefaniacustura@yahoo.com
Csaba Molnár studied Engineering (1975-1980) and Applied Informatics (1999-2001) at Brașov University – Romania and has more than 30 years experience in education. An present he is a teacher of vocational subjects at Áprily Lajos Secondary School in Brașov. He is a passionate researcher of proofs, evidencies of anykind, connected to the ethnic groups who live or lived in minority or diaspora.

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I Just Feel Unique. Self-Reference and Self-Perception in Postmemory Narratives of Second and Third Generation Hungarian Americans

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this paper, I explain the ways in which storytellers construct their ethnic subjectivity using the inherited and often traumatic stories of their parents’ or grandparents’ experiences. For this purpose, I present a combined thematic, structural, and performance analysis of selected postmemory narratives collected in ethnographic interviews. Three main features of ethnicity as part of individual subjectivity have been central to the analysis: (1) the emphasis on choice concerning the individual’s ethnic heritage, (2) the flexibility of ethnicity as accessible complex narrative schemata of possible attitudes and decisions, (3) the negotiability of ethnicity in historical context-driven discourses. These features of self-perception support the seemingly paradoxical concurrence of declining objective ethnic differences and the new, subjective forms of ethnic identification with individually recognized value in ethnicity. The narrative analysis demonstrates how storytellers use positioning techniques in prototypical or Labovian and small story modes to deprive ethnicity of its original constraints of strictly imposed group norms or the necessary knowledge and use of the heritage language. I pinpoint how the language of the stories carries additional information about the relational values of ethnicity in one’s self-perception. In the selected narrative selfies, the idea of being “unique” is a pivotal concept recurring with a broad spectrum of potential meanings constructed in storytellers’ positive and negative experiences in connection with ethnic practices.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Monika Fodor works as Assistant Professor in the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at the University of Pécs. She teaches courses in American Studies, Applied Linguistics, and TESOL. Her research interest includes narratives, identity, ethnicity, oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork. She has authored book chapters and journal articles in the fields including narrative, identity, teaching culture and narrative, and translation studies. Currently, she is working on a book titled Ethnic Subjectivity in Postmemory Narratives: The Politics of the Untold which will be published by Routledge in 2019. In this academic year, Monika Fodor is a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio. fodor.monika@pte.hu

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Bátran éltem idáig …. Szabó Magda

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Az ajtó című regény a nagysikerű író, Szabó Magda tán nemzetközileg legismertebb műve. Párizsban 2003-ban Femina díjat kapott s Amerikában is megismerhette az olvasó közönség több angolnyelvű átültetésben is.
Előadásomban a mű főszereplőinek nagy dilemmáival kívánok foglalkozni. Azokkal, amelyek közül tán az írónő házvezetőnője, Emerenc fogalmazza meg egyszerűen a legalapvetőbbet:
„Nagyobbat nem adhat az ember senkinek, minthogy nem enged neki módot a szenvedésre.”
Ha ízlelgetjük a kulcsszavakat: Szabó Magda, kereszténység, XX. század, méltóság, kötelesség, bizalom… Elgondolkodtató, mi az az érzelem, ami e között a két ember – Emerenc és az Írónő – között kialakul? Mi az a pogány szenvedély, amivel a klasszika-filológiában és a kereszténységben ugyanolyan mélyen hívő Szabó Magda a művében összeköti őket, őket, akiknek tulajdonképpen semmi közük nincs egymáshoz? Egyike sem a hagyományos kapcsolatoknak, melyekhez az európai irodalom – és saját kapcsolati hálónk – hozzá szoktatott bennünket: nem barátság, nem bajtársiasság, nem kollegialitás, nem szerelem, nem a vérrokonság megtartó ereje. Ez valami más. Valami ősibb. Valami barbárabb. Megszeretik egymást. Váratlanul, okok és előjelek nélkül. Olyan példaértékű ez a kapcsolat, hogy idéznünk kell mit mondott Ruth Naóminak:
,,ahova te mégy, oda megyek, és ahol te megszállsz, ott szállok meg; néped az én népem, és Istened az én Istenem. Ahol te meghalsz, ott halok meg, ott temessenek el engem is. Úgy tegyen velem az Úr akármit, hogy csak a halál választ el engem tőled.” (Ruth1:16-17)
Két ember ismerkedésének történetében az "antropológiai talányok" a mindennemű kapcsolatokban örökké nyitva maradó kérdések vagy éppen a rájuk adott rossz válaszok ott rejlenek a műben s úgy gondolom, hogy a 100 éve született Szabó Magda életművének ez a reprezentáns műve a mai 21. századi ember számára is tanúságtétel.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Havas Judit irodalomtörténész, előadóművész felsőfokú tanulmányait az Eötvös Loránd Tudomány Egyetem Bölcsészettudományi Karán magyar-könyvtár szakon végezte. 1975 óta előadóművész. 2003-ban PhD fokozatot szerzett az ELTE Irodalomtörténeti Intézetében. Témavezetője Dr. Kenyeres Zoltán professzor volt. Jelenleg a Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum tudományos főmunkatársa. 2006. március 15-én a Köztársasági Elnök a Magyar Köztársaság Érdemrend Lovagkeresztje kitüntetésben részesítette irodalmi munkássága elismeréseként. drhavasjudit@gmail.com

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Dehumanization in Zsigmond Móricz’s Árvácska

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Written in 1941, Árvácska is one of Hungarian author Zsigmond Móricz’s last, and most important, novels (the author died in 1942). It depicts, in dark and devastating terms, the miserable life of an orphan of the state (“orphan of the state” could be considered a rough translation of the title). In this paper I will address how Móricz offers, in condensed form, an intensely emotional exhibit of the various mechanisms of dehumanization that all too often accompany modernity, particularly as it impacts people who are reduced to objects by economic and governmental forces. In particular, Móricz depicts here a society where ethics and morals have been corrupted to the point where they no longer exist. His assumptions regarding how this state of affairs came about will be investigated and analyzed in light of theoretical concepts surrounding the modern state and dehumanization in the work of thinkers including Val Plumwood, Emile Durkheim, and Julia Kristeva. This glimpse of a traumatizing past in mid-20th-century Hungary will make it possible to appreciate Móricz’s contributions as an outspoken social critic.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ginny Lewis received her Ph.D. in Modern German Literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. She is currently Professor of German at Northern State University. Lewis has authored a translation into English of Zsigmond Móricz’s novel Sárarany, and has written numerous articles on German, Austrian, and Hungarian literature. ginny.lewis@northern.edu

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Nyugat [West] in the West: Hungarian Literary Journals in the post-1945 Diaspora

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
As a researcher of Miksa Fenyő, Nyugat and the role played by literary journals in shaping Hungarian literature, in this lecture I will focus on the unpublished correspondence between Miksa Fenyő and Pál Ignotus, editor of the diaspora journal, Irodalmi Újság [Literary News]. From his home in New York City, Miksa Fenyő remained a participant in emigré circles while maintaining contact with figures from the Nyugat circle, such as Anna Lesznai and Pál Igntous, the son of Nyugat’s famed critic and editor, Ignotus. In Fenyő’s oeuvre, his years spent in New York also marked a resurgence in critical and literary works, many of which were published in diaspora journals. While Fenyő was clearly motivated by the need to remain active in the world of Hungarian literature, his little-known correspondence with Pál Ignotus also reveals how Fenyő, the former editor of Hungarian literature’s most prestigious, modern literary journal, supported and guided Pál Ignotus in his attempt to edit Irodalmi Újság. Following a brief overview of the Hungarian-language literary journals published in the post-war era, I will discuss Pál Ignotus and Fenyő’s correspondence in an attempt to reconstruct how Hungarian authors living in the diaspora maintained their authorial identities in an English-speaking environment.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A PhD student at ELTE BTK, Budapest, Maya Lo Bello is currently completing her dissertation on the critical and editorial role played by Miksa Fenyő in the literary journal, Nyugat. As of September, 2017, Maya Lo Bello teaches at the Foreign Language and Literature Department at the ELTE School of Pre- and Primary Education. She is also Technical Editor of Hungarian Cultural Studies. mayatoth@yahoo.com

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Heritage Language Instruction and the Success in Attaining Communication Goals

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The issue of whether polite language usage should be taught in a foreign language classroom is actually preceded by the following, equally complex question: what gestures, language strategies, or attitudes represent politeness for a given culture? While many may view politeness as a conceptual, or even ideological matter, it can also be interpreted as an opportunity for translating daily practice and customs into an essential classroom exercise. Throughout my work as an educator of Hungarian as a Second and Heritage Language and researcher in the field of empirical pragmatic linguistics, it has been the latter aspects of these questions—those pertaining to the instruction of foreign language students in the nuances of how Hungarian culture constructs politeness—that have fueled and continue to fuel my interest. In this lecture I will therefore explore how the question of politeness relates to the broader area of Hungarian as a Second Language and Hungarian Heritage Language instruction.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Orsolya Maróti (MA Hungarian Literature, Linguistics and Language Pedagogy, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; MA Hungarian as a Second Language and Hungarian Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; MA Cultural Anthropology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; working on her doctoral thesis in Pragmatics) is working as the Head of the Hungarian Language Department at the Balassi Institute. She has experience in teaching foreign (HSL) and heritage students (HHL) for 15 years in the Balassi Institute, at Eötvös Loránd University and at the Corvinus University in Budapest as well. She has worked with Hungarian language teachers as a teacher trainer (HSL and HHL) in Canada, in the Netherlands, in Germany and in many other countries where there are Hungarian language courses for heritage and HSL students. orsolyamaroti12@gmail.com

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The Art and Science of Translation

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The purpose of this study is to describe the key factors to consider in the art and science of translation. This is a rapidly growing field. Improvement in software and technology is encouraging rapid innovation in the language service industry. There are numerous software platforms available for translation. A selected sample of available software programs will be described, with an emphasis on quality. For example, a Hungarian company, Kilgray Translation Technologies, stands at the forefront with their product, memoQ, a CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) tool with many variations that allow for compatibility with other types of translation software as well as standard computer applications for text documents. Translators, editors, proofreaders and project managers use CAT tools to work on and expedite completion of translations of all sizes. Machine Translation (MT) continues to prove ineffective in supporting the vast complexity of languages with regards to context, tone and structure. For example, “Google Translate” generally provides word-for-word translation without consideration of the nuances of context and colloquial expressions. MT, however, would be considered the hypothetical successor to CAT tools in translation technology development. Examples will illustrate the sublime to the ridiculous in the field of translation using MT. In sum, the study provides recommendations regarding best practices to preserve and assure high quality translations as the outcome of these applications.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva Ország has been a member of Hungarian Scout Assocation of Exteris since 1999 and has taken on numerous leadership roles within the assocation in the past decade. She will graduate from Kent State University in the summer of 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in German Translation with a minor in Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Literature, Culture and Translation. She has worked at Localingua, a translation agency in Kent, Ohio, for the past two years, where she has taken on the role of project manager, account manager and correspondent. Éva intends to begin working toward a Master's in Translation and Project Management within the next two years. eorszag@kent.edu

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Kosztolányi and China

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Throughout his life, Dezső Kosztolányi developed a tremendous appreciation for China and its literature. Not only did he translate many of China’s greatest poets into the Hungarian language, he himself wrote several essays on Chinese literature, philosophy, and culture. He also referenced China in several of his own essays and short stories. The presenter will explore Kosztolányi’s reflections on China and its literature during the interwar period which witnessed great intellectual ferment in 20th century Europe, and before China underwent its own major transitions and transformations.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James V. Pavlish is an adjunct professor of Spanish language and literature at John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH. He holds a BS in Linguistics from Georgetown University, an MA in Spanish from Cleveland State University, and of Master’s in Theology from St. Mary Graduate School of Theology (OH). He has presented several papers on the works of Dezső Kosztolányi. He has also read papers on comparative literature at numerous national as well as international venues, the most recent being at the Crossing Borders Conference in Vasto, Italy (2017). jpavlish@jcu.edu

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Ferenc Molnár -- The Refugee New Yorker

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
140 years ago Ferenc Neumann, a.k.a. Ferenc Molnár, the journalist, novelist, and most famously dramatist was born in Budapest on January 12, 1878. He changed his name in 1896 as a gesture of asserted nationalism claiming that as a Hungarian writer, he felt obliged to use a Hungarian pen name. Being of Jewish origin, he had no choice but to escape as a refugee from Nazi Europe. In 1940 he joined his third wife Lili Darvas in New York who fled a year earlier. In spite of his great fame Molnár, the refugee missed Hungary, his native language, the Hungarian stage. None of his works written in the USA after 1940 could compete with Liliom or with his other well known works. He suffered from homesickness, died of cancer in New York in 1952.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Elizabeth Molnar Rajec is a retired professor emerita,Fulbright scholar, PEN member, academic librarian from City College CUNY, published author on Franz Kafka and Ferenc Molnar. The latest among her many publications is Climbing Out From Under the Shadow, New York, 2010. erajec@yahoo.com

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The Sad Recent Past and Uncertain Future of the Szeklers of Transylvania

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The peace treaty after WWI aimed to break up the Austro-Hungarian Empire to its constituent nations, but somehow the traditionally Hungarian Transylvania was attached to Romania, and suddenly in 1920 the ethnic Hungarians there – Szeklers, as they are known— found themselves in minority in Romania. They were not only dispossessed of their country but their identity; nationalist policies were soon put into practice to force assimilation with the majority. This process only intensified under rule of the communist dictator Ceaucescu who –in contrast to the generally multicultural Soviet Union –wanted to abolish ethnic cultures in the guise of “proletarian internationalism”. The cultural shock of the Hungarian community in Transylvania was vividly dramatized in their poetry already starting in the 1920’, but it reached its high point under the particularly repressive Ceaucescu regime. Hungarian poets all through history were regarded as beacons leading the nation in adverse situations, and it was only natural that the struggle for ethnic cultural survival forced this special role on the poets of Transylvania. Paul Sohar proposes to give voice to three of these poets in his translation from books already published or about to come out, quoting Sándor Kányádi from Dancing Embers (Twisted Spoon Press, 2002), In Contemporary Tense (Iniquity Press, 2014) and Behind God’s Back (Ragged Sky Press, 2016), Géza Szőcs from Liberty, Rats and Sandpaper (Iniquity Press, 2017) and Arpád Farkas from Tunnels in the Snow (Magyar Naplo, 2018). In effect, the talk will explore history and future prospects through the eyes of poets who live in Transylvania.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Paul Sohar drifted as a student refugee from Hungary to the U.S. where he got a BA degree in philosophy and a day job in chemistry while he continued writing and publishing in every genre, including thirteen volumes of translations such as Dancing Embers, his first Sándor Kányádi translations from the Hungarian (Twisted Spoon Press, 2002). His own poetry: Homing Poems (Iniquity Press, 2006) and The Wayward Orchard, a Wordrunner Press Prize winner (2011). Other awards: first prize in the 2012 Lincoln Poets Society contest and a second prize from Rode Island Writers Circle prose contest (2014). Latest translation volumes: Silver Pirouettes (TheWriteDeal 2012) and In Contemporary Tense (Iniquity Press, 2013) in addition to a bilingual (English/Spanish) Sándor Kányádi volume (Under the Southern Cross, Ragged Sky Press, 2015). Prose works: True Tales of a Fictitious Spy published by SynergeBooks in 2006 and the collaborative novel The Club at Eddy’s Bar (Phaeton Press, Dublin, Ireland, 2014). Theater experience: contributed the lyrics to a musical G-d is Something Gorgeous produced in Scranton PA 2007 and has had four one-act plays published by One Act Depot in Saskatchewan, Canada, 2013 and 2014. Magazine credits include Agni, Gargoyle, Kenyon Review, Rattle, Poetry Salzburg Review, Seneca Review, etc. He often lectures at AHEA and MLA conferences and at Centennial College, NJ. Sohar’s translation work has been recognized in the form of prizes such as the Irodalmi Jelen Translation Prize (2014), Toth Arpád Translation Prize and the Janus Pannonius Lifetime Achievement Award (both in 1916, Budapest, Hungary). sohar.paul@gmail.com

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The Memoirs of a Hungarian Lady: Theresa Pulszky in Vienna, Szécsény and London

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
My presentation sets out to examine the life and work of Theresa Pulszky, the wife of Kossuth’s diplomatic envoy Ferenc Pulszky, whose authorial persona came to be remembered as a‘Hungarian lady,’ as she fashioned herself in her memoir of 1849. Although their books were signed as co-written by Ferenc and Theresa, her person and work deserves particular attention for her important role in serving the cause of the 1848-49 revolution with her pen: her memoir and the three-volume publications Tales and Traditions of Hungary and Red, White, Black in the early 1850s make a significant contribution spreading knowledge about Hungary but also about the New World. Her role as the female émigré writer was instrumental in establishing a number of interconnected phenomena including the role of the female literary author and transmitter of knowledge between Central Europe and the Anglophone world.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsuzsanna Varga studied English, Hungarian and Portuguese language and literature at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She received her PhD in nineteenth-century English literature at Edinburgh University. She has taught and researched at different British universities, including the University of Essex, University College London, and De Montfort University. She has taught Hungarian Studies at Glasgow U. since 2008, and she is also in charge of the Hungarian library collection at the U. of Oxford. Her research interests include nineteenth-century women’s writing, travel writing and translation history. She serves as Section Editor for Hungarian Cultural Studies, e-Journal of the AHEA. zsuzsanna.varga@glasgow.ac.uk

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