Gender Studies ~ University of Szeged

About us

Critical and interdisciplinary in approach, the Concentration "Gender through Literatures and Cultures in English" in the Bologna MA Program was launched in September 2009. It seeks to address many of the current social, cultural and professional issues from the perspective of gender and sexuality. It is run by a multidisciplinary Faculty with a profile of teaching and research that covers literary criticism, popular cultural studies, media studies, discourse analysis and lavender linguistics. Our courses explore the experiences of women and men and probe the explanatory power of concepts of gender and sexuality as developed within various feminist approaches. The programme provides students with essential knowledge of the intersection of cultural representations and social structures and political power in the US, UK and Irish contexts. We also seek knowledge of post state socialist gender and sexuality relations in Hungary, probing the limits and potentials of travelling concepts in the transnational flows of feminist knowledge production. Our students will understand how beliefs and assumptions about women and men, about sex and sexualities shape social institutions and activities and vice versa as well as how they are necessarily inflected with other dimensions of our daily existence, such as race, class or ability. They can also have the opportunity and continue their gender studies research in the two PhD programmes in the Institute of English and American Studies in the field of literature and cultural studies or in English applied linguistics. We also hope to prepare our graduates for careers and jobs offered by various government institutions of equal opportunity on local and regional level, by local and transnational civil organizations such as NANE or Amnesty International, or jobs in the media and electronic journalism, museums and art galleries that support alternative cultural performances and enterprises.

Why don’t you come and join us?

Whether you are a current or prospective student, or one of our previous students, or an interested visitor, we appreciate your curiosity and interest and invite you to visit our website.

Best regards,

Erzsébet Barát
Convener of the Programme

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 is going to come to a successful end in 2010 when the old type of five-year MA programme runs 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?” (Pető, Andrea (ed.) Teaching Gender Studies in Hungary. Budapest: Ministry of Youth, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity, 2006: 13-21.) 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.

The Structure of the MA Programme

The structure of the MA Porgramme (120 credit):

1. Foundation courses: 5 courses (20 credit)
Theories of Histories of Culture and Literature; Theories of British and American Literature and Culture; Approaches to English Linguistics; The Social Uses of Language; Research Methods in the Information Society

2. Orientation to Concentrations: 3 courses (15 credit)
The Multimediality of Culture; English Grammar: A Systemic-Functional Perspective; Gendering Theory: Theories of Gender.

3. Gender Studies Concentration: 10 courses (50 credit)
Five out of the ten courses are mandatory lectures and three of them are seminars students can select in accordance with their MA thesis research, depending on Faculty’s research interests., plus two compulsory seminars: Thesis Writing Seminar and Advanced Research Methods. The five lectures are:
Introduction to gender Studies; Gender, Race, Class; Subjectivity and the Female Body, Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism; Histories of Women’s Writing in English.

Some of the gender related seminars are:
The Female Grotesque.Risk, Excess and (Post)modernity; Reading and Theorizing the Female Gothic; Gender and Society; Debates of Feminist Scholarship: The Gender Perspective; Gender and Poetry: 20th c. Western Women’s Tradition; Gender and Modern Comedy; Language and Gender; Challenging gaze in Popular Culture; Feminism and Masculinity; Gender and the Victorian Social Landscape in the US; American women, painting and painted, in the 19th century.

4. Electives: 3 courses (15 kredit):
One of the three courses must be related to the thesis (taken from any of the three Concentrations in the MA programme) and two could be any course cross-listed from other MA programmes in the University.

Projects

The Gender Studies Research Group is currently running two projects:

LANGUAGE, IDEOLOGY, MEDIA: GENDER/SEXUALITY RELATIONS IN HUNGARY

This is an annual interdisciplinary conference that was first launched in September 2005. It has turned out to be the only regular research forum for feminist scholarship concerned with Hungarian cultural practices of gender and sexuality.
For details see our conference archive files HERE.

LINEE

"Languages in a Network of European Excellence" (2007 - 2010) is a scientific network co-funded under the 6th framework programme of the European Commission. It is part of Priority 7 and the topic "Linguistic diversity in a European knowledge-based society". Two of the members of our Research Group, Iren Annus (member) and Erzsebet Barat (task force leader) are responsible for the activities of the Gender Task Force in the project. To visit the official website of the network CLICK HERE.

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

H-6722 Szeged
Egyetem u. 2
Room 3303, Ady tér Building
Phone: +36 62 544 526
Fax: +36 62 544 259
e-mail: zsazsa at lit.u-szeged.hu

If you want to take a peek at where we are, see the map below and look for Egyetem utca, or click on the bigger map option and browse the Google map for specific directions and/or snapshots of the University.

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