About us

We are a transdisciplinary research group that integrates women’s lived experiences into the production of knowledge and teaching. More specifically, in our courses and research we reflect critically on the linguistic, visual and haptic modes of semiosis, the production, circulation and perception of cultural, literary, film and media productions. In the name of self-reflexivity, we study and teach the viability and formation of the various concepts in academic discourses as matters of social and cultural contexts.

We are responsible for designing and teaching the Gender Through Literatures and Cultures Specialization in the MA in English Studies program and the supervision of PhD theses from a gender/sexuality perspective in the English Literature and Culture and the English Applied Linguistics Doctoral Schools. Our students learn to apply critically the various theoretical approaches and methods to the study of gender and sexuality relations. They explore a growing body of feminist theory that revises our understanding of how gender/sexuality impacts our (understanding of) life. We study and understand the specificities of society and culture in terms of gender and sexuality distinctions, their reasons and effects for our life. A crucial element of that feminist exploration is an intersectional approach that shows how gender/sexuality relations are intertwined in their diverse formations cross-cut with other relations of distinction in society and culture, such as class, race, ethnicity, religion, (dis)ability, or region.

We launched in 2005 the annual interdisciplinary international gender studies conference (NYIM) that explores social and cultural articulations of gender/sexuality relations and representations, their changing meanings and values enacted in the Hungarian cultural spaces within and beyond the borders of Hungary.

We are committed to running and editing the first and (to date) the only Hungarian journal in gender studies, TNTeF (Társadalmi Nemek Tudománya Interdiszciplináris e-Folyóirat) launched in 2011.

History of Gender Studies in Szeged

Teaching Gender Studies on its own right in the English Studies Department started with the introduction of some elective courses in the academic year of 1989/1990. The results and the emerging directions of the potentials of a more organized curriculum were brought together in a conference, A Classroom of One’s Own we organized in 1993 financed by a TEMPUS Joint European project. In the second half of the 1990s in addition to classes on feminist literary criticism and women’s writing we introduced courses in the field of social linguistics and cultural studies as well. Then in 1998 as part of the general refashioning of the traditional philology type of curriculum in the department into a critical theory and cultural studies type of programme, we could concentrate our efforts in teaching gender studies and designed a specialization block that is comprised of ten courses. It was GLASS, the Gender in Language and Literature Specialization Stream that came to a successful end in 2010 when the old type of five-year MA programme ran out. GLASS is the foundation of our new MA degree programme, Gender through Literatures and Cultures in English (GLCE). In the new Bologna-type of MA programme in English Studies students must choose one of three Tracks. The Concentration in Gender Studies, Gender through Literature and Culture in English, is one of them. It’s launch in September 2009 marked the opening of the new, fourth period in our history.

If you are interested in our reflections on the history of teaching Gender Studies in the Institute please turn to our contribution “Is There a space for Teaching gender studies in Hungarian Higher education?” In Pető, Andrea (ed.) Teaching Gender Studies in Hungary, edited by Pető Andrea, 13-21 (Budapest: Ministry of Youth, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity, 2006). The two authors, Sarolta Marinovich, the founding convener of the GLASS specialization program and Ezsébet Barát, the convener of the new MA programme discuss the four periods in the context of the changes in the Hungarian higher education policy after the system change in 1989.

Contact

For further information, direction, or feedback, please, contact the convener of the Programme, Erzsébet Barát via the following telephone/fax number or email address:

Phone: +36 62 544 526
Fax:    +36 62 544 259
e-mail: zsazsa at lit.u-szeged.hu