Interview with Erzsébet Barát, Organizer of the Annual Conference, Language, Ideology, Media: Gender/Sexuality Relations in Hungary

Abstract

Language, Ideology, Media: Gender/Sexuality Relations in Hungary is an annual interdisciplinary conference first launched in September 2005 that has grown into “the only regular research forum for feminist scholarship concerned with Hungarian cultural practices of gender and sexuality” (http://primus.arts.u-szeged.hu/ieas/gender/index.html). Since the first contextualizing/grounding event in 2005, whose theme was ‘A nő helye a magyar nyelvhasználatban’ (Woman’s Place in Hungarian Language Use), the conference has touched upon such important issues as stereotypes of “woman” and “femininity” (2006), feminine/masculine identity and experience (2007), the relation of “woman” and body/sensuality (2008), the spaces of sexuality (2009) institutionalizations of gender relations with a specific focus on the intersection of gender and nation(alism) in Hungary (2010). (See the Archive section of the webpage for detailed information.) The theme of the upcoming 2011 conference will concern issues of gender relations and feminism in post-socialist Hungary. To date the conference is the only academic forum in Hungary that provides an opportunity to explore contemporary issues of the relations of Hungarian language and power, cultural representations and ideology, and Hungarian women and feminist thought from an interdisciplinary perspective attracting scholars from Hungarian as well as non-Hungarian universities. Speakers of the conference include well-established feminist scholars with international visibility, such as Louise O. Vasvári (New York University, Stony Brook University), Andrea Virginas, Sapientia, Transylvanian Hungarian University, Cluj, Bolemant Lilla Comenius University, Bratislava, Mária Joó ELTE, Budapest, Judit Friedrich, ELTE Budapest, Nóra Sélley, University of Debrecen, or Erzsébet Barát (University of Szeged, Central European University, Budapest), and Anna Kérchy (University of Szeged). The conference also attracts young Hungarian scholars entering academia, for whom the conference provides an invaluable platform for professional experience and networking.