Announcements

• 19 January 2019

  

  29 JANUARY | 12:30 PM  
  SAGA COMMON LOUNGE

  MÓNIKA MÁTAY is an Associate Professor at Eötvös Loránd University’s Institute of History, as well as a permanent fellow at iASK (Institute of Advanced Studies) in Kőszeg.

  About the Talk:

  In 2015 my colleagues and I initiated an interdisciplinary project called Talking Houses. We decided to explore life stories which were related to a beautiful little Hungarian town, Kőszeg, lying at the Austrian-Hungarian border. Kőszeg survived World War II in very good shape. In a mysterious local urban legend, a soldier, who was in the American Air Force, saved his hometown by removing its name from the military map. Kőszeg is unique for its built cultural heritage with roots in the Middle Ages. Although Kőszeg was very lucky in 1945, that had not been the case many times in the previous centuries. The inhabitants of the city had to be adaptive and innovative in order to survive and progress.
  While detecting individual life stories we realized that the city had been overpopulated by well-educated, smart people throughout its past. Compared to other cities of that small size, Kőszeg had undoubtedly been more creative. In my lecture I examine the common influences of Austrian and Hungarian law, administration and infrastructure. I also focus on the intellectual and institutional networks which supported individuals in Kőszeg in their careers. In my analysis I shall rely on the internationally recognized network expert Albert-László Barabási’s recent findings, which he published in his latest book, The Formula (2018).

• 29 October 2018

  The Idea of ‘Asia’ in turn-of-the Twentieth-Century Philippine Pan-Asianist Action and Political Thought

  Come to the ELM COMMON LOUNGE on 8 November at 12 PM to hear from Dr Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz. She will be discussing Southeast Asia’s reformulation and practice of Pan-Asianism in the face of Western imperial consolidation and the rise of Japan.

  Please see the following poster for more information.

  

• 30 October 2018

  HISTORY TALKS: 

  Disability goes Global: The International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Historical Perspective
  Monika Baar

  ELM Common Lounge
  12 November | 12:30 PM
  Hosted by Kevin Goldstein and Mate Rigo

  1981 was designated by the United Nations the International Year of Disabled Persons, to be followed by the International Decade of Disabled Persons (1982-1993). It was the first occasion to place disability into a global context by endorsing it authoritatively as a human rights issue. It was in 1980, in preparation for the International Year that WHO produced the first classification of disability designed for universal application. This classification was based on an ideological framework which reflected the standards of the modern ‘Western world’. It focused on the individual and assumed that equality, independence, self-reliance and personal self-fulfilment are universally desirable and applicable values and that dependence constitutes a problem. The conscience of the international community was stirred during the International Year, spawning numerous governmental and non-governmental initiatives in ‘developing’ countries. These initiatives brought into sharp relief the notion that focusing on individual rights runs contrary to accepted norms and practices found in many regions of the world where the disabled person is seen as part of a larger whole: the care-giving family and kinship networks. The presentation seeks to reflect on the impact of the International Year up to the present day by raising the question how the concept of disability may be understood in a multicultural world.

  See this link for more information: http://rethinkingdisability.net/