Cultural Studies paper by Szőke, Dávid
Deterritorialized Identites in György Dragomán´s Rendszerújra [‘System Reboot’] (2018) (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the present paper, I will examine the questions of minority identity in György Dragomán´s Rendszerújra. The short storied presented in this volume have all called tales of liberation, whereby the task of their heroes is to put an end their own closed, subjugated and humiliated existence and strive toward freedom. In these stories, the reader is confronted with the dynamics between the several forms of institutionalised power, such as political and police control, or the hierarchies in the individual’s personal relationships. In his book, Dragomán uses countless references to Kafka’s work, from the individual’s nightmarish flight from the institutionalised regimes in The Process (1925) to Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis. For Kafka, becoming, rather than being, a minority signifies an ethical action and an existence, whereby minority groups are determined by their identities and the resistance to the power structure they are subjected to. In my talk, I will highlight that the notion of “becoming a minority” is present in Dragomán’s stories in multiple forms, whereby this concept refers to all those groups that are subjected to and enslaved by tyranny. I will discuss how the process of deterritorialization, i.e. those cultural and social practices that make this “becoming” possible are represented in Dragomán’s book, and what consequences can be drawn to our modernised and globalised culture, where the social media and the newest technological developments new manifestations of totalitarian control have been emerging.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dávid Szőke, Ph.D. student in the Comparative Literary Department at the University of Szeged, Hungary does research in the area of English, German, and Hungarian literatures, gender studies, transculturalism, and minority studies. He has held a guest lecture about the influence of Central European Jewish exiles on British culture after 1945 at Käroli Gáspár University, Budapest, October 3, 2019. He is currently researching the influence of the German Jewish exile literature on Iris Murdoch’s early novels, with a special focus on the Holocaust, post-war trauma, the European memory culture and the coming to terms with the past. [beszelo86@gmail.com]