Cultural Studies paper by Vasvári, Louise O.
Böske Simon, Miss Hungaria and Miss Europa (1929): Beauty Pageants and Packaging Gender, Race, and National Identity in Interwar Hungary
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this interdisciplinary paper, utilizing cultural studies, gender studies, and media studies, Vasvári investigates the socio-political role of beauty pageants in 1920s European – and more specifically – in Hungarian culture. The article is structured as a case study of the life of Böske Simon, who in 1929 won the first Miss Hungaria competition and in the same year also the title of Miss Europa. Vasvári examines how the problematic gender representation of women in such pageants and their reception by the press and by the public interact in the broader interwar cultural sphere in post-Trianon Hungary. She also aims to place Simon’s role as Hungarian beauty queen in a broader international focus by examining from a gender perspective the international development of beauty pageants and of commercial beauty culture in the 1920s. Finally, Vasvári examines the symbolic space allotted to the concept “modern girl,’ who came to represent both the enticements and the dangers of modernity, in the interwar [re]construction of gender and national identities. A coda to the main body of the article will be devoted to Béla Zsolt’s 1932 novel, A királynő családja, a merciless critique of the pretentions of the Jewish petite bourgeoisie, based in part on Böske Simon’s pageant experiences, a connection that has not been noticed in earlier criticism.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Louise O. Vasvári (M.A. and Ph.D., UC, Berkeley) is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and of Linguistics at Stony Brook University. Currently she teaches in the Linguistics Department at NYU and is also Affiliated Professor at the University of Szeged. She works in medieval studies, diachronic and socio-linguistics, Holocaust studies, and Hungarian Studies, all informed by gender theory within a broader framework of comparative cultural studies. In relation to Hungarian Cultural Studies she has published numerous articles, as well as, with Steven Tötösy, Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature (2005), Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies (2009), and Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies (2011).