Centre for the Study of Central Europe

Seminars 2011/2012:

Upcoming Events:

• Wednesday 2 May 2012 NB. 5 pm
  Leigh Penman (Goldsmiths' College London)
  Politica Theosophia. Visions of Godly government in millenarian literature of the early seventeenth century.

  Márta Velladics (National Office of Cultural Heritage, Budapest)
  Dissolved monasteries and new parishes in Hungary during Joseph II's reign. An acceptable explanation.

• Wednesday 9 May 2012
  Daniel Siemens (UCL SSEES)
  Coming to terms with Socialism in the German Democratic Republic. Re-migrants from the West at the Faculty for Journalism in Leipzig, 1945-1961.

Previous Events:

2011/12

• Monday 19 March 2012, 5 pm, Wilkins Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre
  The Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Common History, Divided Memory. A Discussion with Professor Norman Davies on his book Vanished Kingdoms.
  

• Thursday 8 March 2012 , Room 431, 6-8 pm
  Informal Discussion on Contemporary Hungarian Politics

  Since Fidesz won the general elections in 2010 and proclaimed a 'revolution of the voting booths', the Hungarian government and its far-reaching reforms have attracted a great deal of critical attention, both domestic and international.

  This informal discussion for students and staff at SSEES addresses the recent constitutional, electoral and media reforms, and the controversies surrounding them, and asks the following:

  • How might historical precedents help us understand the 'revolution of the voting booths'?
  • How has constitutional reform been framed in the light of 'unfinished business' from 1989?
  • How is political polarisation reflected in the Hungarian media landscape?
  • Given the increasing frequency of mass demonstrations, what are the opportunities for building consensus?

  Speakers:
  Dr Tom Lorman, UCL SSEES
  Prof. Martyn Rady, UCL SSEES
  Vali Tóth, Hungarian Radio correspondent

  Chair: Dr Gwen Jones

  This event is convened by Eszter Tarsoly (Senior Teaching Fellow in Hungarian Language, UCL SSEES), Dr Gwen Jones (Hon. Research Associate, UCL Hebrew and Jewish Studies) with the kind support of Dr Richard Butterwick (Senior Lecturer in Modern Polish History, UCL SSEES).

• Wednesday 7 March 2012, film screening, Room 432, 4pm
  Vortex, directed by John Oates (Open University) and Csaba Szekeres. The film is a co-production by The Open University and the Hunnia Filmstudio, Budapest, and is a documentary that follows the lives of young Roma children and their families living in poverty in a remote village in rural Hungary. The screening will be followed by a discussion with John Oates. Enquiries to Eszter Tarsoly (e.tarszoly@ssees.ucl.ac.uk)

• Wednesday 29 February 2012
  Forum on Early Modern Central Europe
  Dr Karin Friedrich (University of Aberdeen)
  'Magnate, governor, soldier, spy' - the power networks of a seventeenth-century Lithuanian nobleman'

• Wednesday 8 February 2012
  Dr Milena Hebal-Jezierska (University of Warsaw)
  'Linguistic national stereotypes in the Czech Republic'

• Wednesday 25 January 2012
  Dr S. C. Rowell (Lithuanian Historical Institute, Vilnius)
  'Damned if they did not and cursed when they did: official fifteenth-century Lithuanian policy on Church Union and Catholic-Orthodox relations in parish life'

• Wednesday 7 December 2011
  Frank Sysyn (University of Toronto)
  'Hrushevsky Confronts Lypynsky: Varying Visions of Seventeenth-Century Ukraine'

• Wednesday 30 November 2011
  Wioletta Pawlikowska (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)
  'Can we determine the national and territorial origins of the canons and prelates of the cathedral chapter of Vilna in the sixteenth century?'

  Agnieszka Whelan (UCL-SSEES)
  'Gardening amidst the ruins of their expiring country'. The Czartoryskis at Powązki and Puławy

2010/11

• Wednesday 8 June 2011
  NB. Masaryk Senior Common Room, 6.00pm
  Book Launch
  Rebecca Haynes, Martyn Rady (eds.)
  "In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the Right in Central and Eastern Europe" (IB Tauris)

• Wednesday 23 March 2011
  Roundtable - Archives, Archivists and Historical Research
  Elizabeth Shepherd (London), Archives and Archivists in 20th century England
  Dennis Deletant (London), Reflections of a Masochist - Researching in the Securitate Archives
  Commentator: Stefan Berger (Manchester)

• Wednesday 9 March 2011
  Roundtable - Political Violence
  Moderator: Ger Duijzings (London)
  Elissa Mailänder Koslov (Paris), Being "Herrenmensch": The Practice of Violence in the Generalgouvernment (1939-1944)
  Richard Bessel (York), Leaving Violence Behind: Thoughts on the Development of Postwar Germany after 1945
  Commentator: Nik Wachsmann (Birkbeck)
  Convenor: Philipp Müller (London)

• NB. Tuesday 1 February 2011, 5.30pm, Room 132, 14 Taviton Street
  Roundtable 'Media History in Transnational Perspective'
  Rebekka Habermas (Göttingen), Togo and the Reichstag: Colonial Scandals Revisited
  Christina von Hodenberg (London), Bigotry Goes Global: The Effects of 1970s 'Relevant' Television Sitcom in England, USA and West Germany
  Commentators: Kristin Roth-Ey (London) and Titus Hjelm (London)

• Wednesday 3 November 2010
  Moderator: Simon Dixon (London)
  Frank Sysyn (Toronto), Liberalism, Populism, and Nationalism Among the Ukrainian Catholic Clergy of Austrian Galicia. The Case of Father Mykhailo Zubryts'kyi (1856-1919)

• Wednesday 13 October 2010
  Roundtable 'Making Scientific Facts'
  Moderator: Egbert Klautke (London)
  Raluca Musat (London), Fieldnotes on Peasants: Sociological Fieldwork in Interwar Rural Romania
  Sarah Marks (London), The Brain in East Germany. The Curious Career of Karl Leonhard
  Convenor: Philipp Müller

2009/10

• Wednesday 24 March 2010NB: 5.00pm
  Zsolt Hunyadi
  Marriage Strategies of the Medieval European Lesser Nobility from the Perspective of a Historian

  Followed by a wine reception and book launch in the Masaryk SCR.

• Wednesday 17 March 2010
  Forum for Early Modern Central Europe
  Michael Rowe (King's College London)
  Cultures of Monarchical Representation in Late Eighteenth-Century Europe

• Wednesday 3 March 2010
  Roundtable:
  "It is Not Only Rock'n'Roll". Researching Music

  Klaus Nathaus (Bielefeld)
  Importing Copyrights and Meanings: Popular Music in Germany,1950-80

  Eric Gordy (London)
  Writing About Music is Like Thinking About People: On the Need for Multiple Levels of Analysis

  Discussant: Titus Hjelm (London)

• Wednesday 24 February 2010 NB. Starts at 6.15pm
  Laszlo Strausz (London)
  Cinematic Images of History in Rumanian and Hungarian Contemporary Film

• Wednesday 3 February 2010
  Stefan Berger (Manchester)
  National Pasts and National Identities - an Unholy Alliance

• Wednesday 27 January 2010
  Forum for Early Modern Central Europe
  Dr Zsolt Hunyadi (University of Szeged)
  The Aristocracy and the Petty Nobility in Late Medieval Hungarian Society: '...sub una et eadem libertate..'

  Hacer Topaktaş (University of Ankara)
  Diplomatic Relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski (1764-1795)

• Wednesday 20 January 2010
  Paulina Bren (New York)
  What was 'Normal' about Normalization? Reflections on Late Communism in Czechoslovakia

• Wednesday 13 January 2010
  Richard Butterwick (London)
  Throne and Altar in the Last Decades of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

• Wednesday 16 December 2009 NB: 4.30pm Start
  Zbig Wojnowski (London)
  Ukrainian Travels in Central Europe in the 1960s

• Wednesday 11 November 2009
  Fedor Gál (Prague)
  Good Morning Slovakia! A Documentary of the November 1989 Revolution (jointly organised with CEPSI)

• Wednesday 28 October 2009
  Egbert Klautke (London)
  Conservative Democracy and the German Character: Willy Helpach and the Demise of National Psychology

2008/09

• Wednesday 10 June 2009
  Claudia Mueller (Leeds)
  "Meant to 'Increase the Political Efficiency of Tourism" - GDR tourists in other Socialist Countries, 1961-1989

• FEMCE Wednesday 6 May 2009
  5.15 pm, Pearson Lecture Theatre, UCL Main Quad (North-East Entrance) (Please note time and venue)
  Professor Derek Beales (University of Cambridge)
  How Did Joseph II Govern?

• Wednesday 18 March 2009
  James A. Kapalo (London)
  Clerical Agency and the Construction of Gagauz National Consciousness in Bessarabia

• FEMCE Wednesday 4 March 2009
  NB. Room 433, SSEES
  Dr Piotr Stolarski (University of Aberdeen)
  'Licensing God's Dogs: Dominicans and Episcopal Authority in Poland-Lithuania, 1594-1648'

  Robert Gray (UCL-SSEES)
  'Enlightened Intentions? The Impact of Land Reform in Hungary under Maria Theresa and Joseph II'

• Wednesday 25 February 2009
  Robin Okey (Warwick)
  'Trends in Nationalism Studies'

• Wednesday 28 January 2009
  Anna Menge (Oxford)
  'The Hindenburg Myth. Politcs and Public Perception in Germany'

• Wednesday 14 January 2009
  Trevor Thomas (London)
  'How Far was the Habsburg Monarchy in the Decade Before 1914 Capable of Structural Reform Sufficient to Ensure its Future?'

• Wednesday 3 December 2008
  Sarah Marks (UCL SSEES)
  '"Scientifically securing the existence of the nation": evolution, eugenics and Czechoslovak national character, 1918-1938'

• FEMCE, Wednesday 26 November 2008, 5.15pm, Room 431
  Robert Maniura, Birkbeck College, University of London
  'Appropriation and Identity: Poland and the East in the Early Fifteenth Century'.

  Richard Butterwick (UCL SSEES)
  'The Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791 - The Lost Foundation of Polish Liberalism'

• Wednesday, 19 November 2008
  Rob Gray (London)
  'The problems of peasant tenancies in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Hungary'

• Wednesday, 12 November 2008
  Titus Hjelm
  'Laughter and Redemption: Humour in the Sociology of Peter L. Berger'

  Tim Beasley-Murray
  'The Politics of Laughter, Melancholy and Catharsis: Bakhtin, Benjamin and Aristotle'

• Wednesday 22 October 2008
  Kaja Sirok (University of Nova Gorica)
  'Visualizing the past: monuments and commemoration in border areas' (co-hosted by Ceelbas)

2007/08

• Wednesday 7 May 2008
  Trevor Thomas (London)
  Was the Habsburg Monarchy Reformable before 1914?
  CANCELLED

• Wednesday 12 March 2008
  Professor Marek Nekula (Regensburg)
  National Discourse in Prague's Public Space

• Tuesday 11 March 2008
  NB 6.00pm, Room 347
  Ivan Chvatik (Director Patocka Archives, Prague) and Ludger Hagedorn (IWM Vienna). Debate on the thought and legacy of Czech dissident Jan Patocka, founder of Charter 77.
  Jan Patocka and the Idea of Europe

• Wednesday 5 March 2008
  Dr Roger Moorhouse (London)
  Of Omniscience and Obedience - The Berlin Gestapo

• Wednesday 27 February 2008
  Dr Philipp Müller (UCL SSEES)
  Laughter and Consternation in Wilhelmine Berlin: The Emergence of "The Captain of Coepenick"

• Thursday 21 February 2008
  5.15 pm, Room 433, to be followed by drinks in the Masaryk Senior Common Room
  Book Launch
  David Marples, 'Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine'

• FEMCE, Wednesday 20 February 2008
  Dr Jerzy Lukowski (Birmingham)
  Rousseau's Poland: Contract and Considerations

  Alan Ross (Oxford)
  Jan Amos Comenius (Komenský) and Saxony - a history of misunderstanding?

• Thursday 31 January 2008
  Book Launch
  Peter Pišt'anek's, 'Rivers of Babylon'
  

• Wednesday 23 January 2008
  Public Lecture sponsored by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland - Professor Andrzej Nowak (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
  The Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920 in Western Eyes
  

• Wednesday 16 January 2008
  Noel O'Sullivan (Hull)
  Visions of European Unity since 1945

• FEMCE, Wednesday 28 November 2007
  Dr Jacqueline Glomski (KCL)
  'Patronage, Poetry, and the Furnishing of a Hungarian Nobleman's House: Valentin Eck's Supellectilium fasciculus (1519)'

  Dr Gábor Borbély (Institute for Philosophical Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
  'Enlightened by Cartesianism. Hungarian Philosophy in the 17th Century'

  
  

• Wednesday 21 November 2007
  Paul Shore (St Louis University)
  'Fragile Splendours: Trials and Triumphs of the Jesuits of Royal Hungary, 1650-1773'

  
  

• Wednesday 14 November 2007
  Alan Ogden (London)
  'The Hungarian Wars of Independence 1664-1715: an illustrated lecture'

  
  

• Wednesday 24 October (5.15pm in the Masaryk Senior Common Room; a joint Masaryk Society and Centre for the Study of Central Europe event )
  The Vampire: A Discussion Panel
  Speakers:
  Prof. Martyn Rady - The Greek Vampire
  Dr Tim Beasley-Murray - Czech Decadent Literature
  Dr Rebecca Haynes - Bram Stoker's Dracula
  Dr Daniel Abondolo - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  Dr Titus Hjelm - 'It's in the Genes: Declining Religion and the Shadow of East Europe in Contemporary Vampire Film'
  

• Wednesday 17 October 2007
  Anthony Polonsky (Brandeis)
  'Poles and Jews after Jedwabne'

  
  

• Wednesday 3 October 2007
  Professor Jan Ciechanowski (London)
  'General Władysław Sikorski, 1939-1943: Soldier and Statesman'

  
  

2006/07

• FEMCE, Wednesday 16 May 2007, 5.15 pm
  Lecture Room, Warburg Institute
  Dr William O' Reilly (Trinity Hall, Cambridge)
  'Voyagers to the East: the Spanish Succession and Vienna, 1700-1740'

  Dorota Dukwicz (Historical Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw)
  'When and in What Circumstances did Russia decide upon the First Partition of Poland?'

• Wednesday 25 April 2007, 5.15 pm in the Pearson Lecture Theatre, Pearson Building in the front quad of UCL, Gower Street.
  Alan Ogden (London)
  Illustrated Lecture: 'Fortresses of Faith: The Fortified Saxon Churches of Transylvania'

• Wednesday 14 March 2007
  Robert Gerwarth (Oxford)
  'Nationalist Internationalists: Paramilitary Violence in Central Europe after the Great War'

• Wednesday 7 March 2007, 5.15 pm, in the Lecture Room, The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, WC1H 0AB
  Robert J.W. Evans(Oriel College, Oxford)
  Decennial Reflections: Confession and Nation in Early Modern Europe

• Wednesday 21 February 2007, 5.15 pm
  Mikolaj Szoltysek (Cambridge)
  "Searching the 'Other': the western family history and the mystification of Central European family forms, 18/19th centuries"

• Wednesday 31 January 2007
  Egbert Klautke (London)
  'The Rise and Fall of Völkerpsychologie in Germany, 1851-1955'

• Seminar Series 'Personalities of the Right in Central and Eastern Europe':
  Wednesday 6 December 2006
  Andreas Kossert (Warsaw)
  'Founding Father of Modern Poland or Nationalist Antisemite? Roman Dmowski, 1864-1939'

• Wednesday 15 November 2006 in the Pearson Lecture Theatre, Pearson Building in the front quad of UCL, Gower Street. (Please note venue of this lecture.)
  Sherban Cantacuzino (London)
  Illustrated Lecture: 'The Unique Phenomenon of the Painted Churches of Bucovina, Romania'

• Wednesday 1 November 2006
  4.00pm, Room 534 (Please note time and room number)
  Lisa Peschel (University of Minnesota, Southern Czech University in Budweis)
  Cabaret from a Concentration Camp: An Original Performance Text from the Terezin (Theresienstadt) Ghetto

• Seminar Series 'Personalities of the Right in Central and Eastern Europe':
  Wednesday 4 October 2006
  Martyn Rady (London)
  Ferenc Szálasi, 'Hungarism' and the Arrow Cross

For further information please contact Dr Philipp Müller at p.mueller@ssees.ucl.ac.uk.

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This page last modified Monday 23 April 2012.