New academic field to bring international students to Hungary

To facilitate and maintain an interdisciplinary, global network of applicants who are interested in nationalism, ethnicity and related areas is the ultimate goal of a stimulating one-term program that the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University has recenly established in Budapest.

“While the study of nationalism as an academic discipline is not yet considered as an essential field in Hungary’s top-quality higher education, it will certainly attract an increasing number of international students, who seek to engage in a theoretical and empirical study of issues of nationalism, nationhood, national identity, supranational integration, nationalist extremism, questions of ethnicity, minority protection and other topical issues which preoccupy so many serious scholars and thinkers of our age,” says Professor Tibor Frank, program director, who holds the chair of the School of English and American Studies of the illustrious institution. Considering the specificities of the East-Central European region, the study of nationalism will expose students to a variety of approaches and help them investigate phenonema which can be organically related to a series of well established scholarly fields such as history, political science, philosophy and literary studies.

Professor Frank commented that “the courses are designed to teach students what the humanities have to say about nationalism with special attention to East-Central Europe, where different forms of nation-building can be still witnessed and analysed as a result of the complex history of this region”. The program will take pressing issues into account and offer students useful and useable knowledge in this field, encouraging them to pursue a career path which is, in one way or another, related to the study of innovative approaches acquired throughout the semester.

Dr Tamás Dezsõ, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities was pleased to announce that the introduction of the new program might also prove extremely beneficial for diplomats acting in the CEE region. “The world in which we live is undergoing changes at a rapid pace, and the study of nationalism is now becoming central to these changes inside and outside academia. We are striving to make it available and accessible for a growing number of applicants, including members of the diplomatic corps accredited to Hungary. In addition to a nationwide higher educational campaign, which seeks to generate even larger international student traffic to Hungary with the co-operation of the country’s major universities, I feel confident that this initiative of the Faculty of Humanities will also help applicants from the diplomatic life better understand the economic, social and political changes in today’s world, stimulate cultural dialogue, promote development and strategic partnership between their sending states and Hungary. The Faculty of Humanities is proud to have launched its international Nationalism Studies Program, and I am optimistic that due to its interdisciplinary focus many international applicants will choose to broaden their knowledge among the 376-year-old, historic walls of the Faculty, in the throbbing heart of our beautiful capital,” concluded Dean Dezsõ.