Hungarian Studies Association of Canada Annual Conference 2024

The Hungarian Studies Association of Canada / Association canadienne des études hongroises / Kanadai Magyarságtudományi Társaság (HSAC) held its annual conference at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, from June 15–17, in conjunction with the 2024 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences organized by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Based on the overarching congress theme “Sustaining Shared Futures,” HSAC organized its panels under the theme “Interconnected Cultures: The Place of Hungary and Hungarians in a Sustainable World.” As with the previous year, this year’s HSAC conference was a hybrid event, with a comparable number of scholars giving in-person presentations as well as virtual presentations via Zoom. The conference unfolded against the backdrop of protests on McGill’s campus, reminding us of the need to connect our work as academics with the injustices we observe in the contemporary world. Polls of HSAC’s members and our conference presenters demonstrated our collective resiliency, as scholar after scholar elected to follow through with their determination to offer their work at McGill. The outcome of this resolve was a stimulating gathering of committed researchers who took advantage of the opportunity to share their scholarship and thereby strengthen existing intellectual connections and build new ones that will inevitably lend further vitality to our organization.The conference keynote address was given by Gina Csanyi-Robah, executive director of the Canadian Romani Alliance. She spoke on “Community Leadership: Sustaining Support and Allyship for Hungarian Roma Refugees in Canada.” Her informative talk was well received and sparked stimulating discussion. A workshop on the impact of Romani Canadians on diversity, human rights, and culture in Canada followed. A panel entitled “Interculturality and Hungarianness” subsequently built on the ideas sparked by Csanyi-Robah. The conference participants learned about the Welsh-Hungarian intercultural connection addressed in Paul Birt’s paper, while Hungarian perceptions of Native Americans were ably discussed by Katalin Kürtösi, and Julio Lucchesi Moraes offered a thought-provoking exposé on the influence of Hungarian ideas in international economics.The 2024 HSAC conference also featured a book launch of Cannibalizing the Canon: Dada Techniques in East-Central Europe, edited by Oliver Botar, Irina Denischenko, Gábor Dobó, and Merse Pál Szeredi, who were all on hand to introduce this important scholarly study and lead the group’s highly engaged discussion. The interdisciplinary character of the conference, which was bookended by consideration of diversity and human rights on the one hand and shared artistic influences on the other, proved a key aspect of the event’s success in provoking deep and fruitful exchange.The literature of Hungary received attention in a session on “Modern Hungarian Literature,” featuring Ginny Lewis’s analysis of subaltern theory in works by Zsigmond Móricz and a German author, Franz Rehbein; Maya J. Lo Bello’s reflections on cultural sustainability in Sándor Bródy’s play Lea Lyon; and Anikó Zsuzsanna Antal’s riveting paper on literary depictions of the “Angelmakers of Tiszazug,” women who poisoned dozens of men to death between 1914 and 1929. Literature received further attention in a panel focusing on the place of food and drink in sustainable culture. Gyorgyi Horvath tackled this topic head-on with her study of “Sustainability and Hungary’s ‘Freedom Fight’ through Masculine Food,” while narrative per se was the focus in papers by Bonnie Horgos, a literature review pertaining to “Hungarian Women and Alcohol Use,” and Mária Palla, whose “Food and Foodways” specifically addressed “Canadian narratives of emigration.” Dance was the central topic of a session on “the politics of identity,” where Steven Jobbitt talked about his work with a Ukrainian dance troupe and the “erasure of Kárpátalja Hungarians” brought about by their folk dance realizations, while Gdalit Neuman addressed “Yehudit Amon’s Zionist Dances in Post-Holocaust Hungary” in a manner that stimulated copious discussion on the role of dance in cultivating national spirit.Invoking the organization’s concern for environmental sustainability, shared with the congress, the HSAC conference included a panel entitled “Hungary, Hungarians, and the Question of Sustainability.” Here, András Göllner presented his work on “Pathways towards Ecologically Sustainable Communal Well-Being,” as addressed by the Bolsheviks on the one hand and the Budapest School on the other. His paper was accompanied by André Czeglédy’s discussion of the rise of consumerism in the late 1980s, when “the disestablishment of state socialism altered the social dynamics of domestic sustainability,” as well as Soma Rédey’s portrayal of the pioneering solar energy research of Mária Telkes during her years at MIT.The diversity of this year’s stimulating conference topics is further illustrated by sessions on “The Hungarian Diaspora: Canada and Beyond,” and “Hungary and the Balkans,” which looked at history from two divergent angles. In the first, Zsolt Máté ably addressed the reception by Canadians of 1956 Hungarian refugees, while Balázs Venkovits surveyed the preservation of Hungarian heritage over “100 Years of Immigration to Canada.” Erzsébet Arvay’s probing talk on “The Role of the State Office for Church Affairs during the Cold War” in conjunction with the Hungarian diaspora proved equally illuminating. A single paper constituted the panel on the Balkans, where scholar Georg Michels enlightened his audience on international Hungarian connections during the age of the Ottoman Empire.A delightful evening of food and dance organized by the Montreal General Consulate of Hungary at the Hungaria Social Club gave the local conference participants an opportunity to strengthen their scholarly and social connections, thus cementing bonds that will serve HSAC well as the organization moves forward with its efforts to retain its relevance in a rapidly changing cultural and political world. The importance of offering an arena for face-to-face engagement, while simultaneously tapping into virtual resources to draw in participants from around the world, impressed itself on this year’s conference-goers. The lively exchange of diverse ideas in an atmosphere of enthusiastic collaboration bodes well for the continued success of HSAC’s thought-provoking conferences heading into the future.