Culture Talks by György Endre Szőnyi

The English Department is proud to invite you to

three exciting public lectures

by

prof. dr. habil. György Endre Szőnyi, Ph.D., D.Sc.

professor emeritus of English, University of Szeged
visiting professor of cultural/intellectual history, Central European University

The Development of Gothic Architecture in England
April 4, 2023, 10.40 am, P003

The Gothic style was invented by French monks in the 12th century and from there it spread all over Europe, creating interesting national idioms of the international style. The English story is rather peculiar. While at the beginning the imitation of French gothic was dominating, in the last phase (15th-early 16th century) a special English Gothic, the so called perpendicular style emerged. What is the meaning of this difficult word? How did it come to life? My video-illustrated lecture will show not only the best examples of English Gothic but I will also explain some technical details which made its appearance possible.

Whose Contemporary Was/Is Shakespeare?
April 4, 2023, 4.10 pm, P200

This BA level informative talk raises the question, how and why is Shakespeare still appealing today - we can say with Jan Kott's famous book title from the 1960s: he is our contemporary. At the same time it is also interesting to look at the genesis of the English Renaissance theatre in whose world Shakespeare was fully integrated. I will touch upon the early modern dramatic traditions, the development of the theatre buildings, and the influence of Aristotle's poetics as well as the medieval spectacles.

The Development of Esoteric Fiction from Romanticism to the Present
April 5, 2023, 6 pm, P005

As even modern psychologists and scholars of religious studies claim: we are magical beings. The lure of the occult is as strong as ever and literature has always been catering for the demand. In my talk I will briefly survey the development of esoteric fiction (strongly associated with the Gothic, the fantastic, the uncanny); how it became rather
independent in the twentieth century; and how it started merging again with fantasy writing in the 21st century up to the present. For the latest developments I will touch upon two trilogies which recently also inspired rather successful television series: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Deborah Harkness' All Souls Trilogy (aka The Discovery of Witches).

GYÖRGY E. SZŐNYI is professor emeritus of English (University of Szeged) and visiting professor of  cultural/intellectual history (CEU, Budapest/Vienna). His interests include cultural theory, the Renaissance, the  Western Esoteric traditions, and conventions of symbolization – early modern and (post)modern.

Important monographs:

Pictura & Scriptura. 20th-Century Theories of Cultural Representations (in Hungarian, Szeged: JATEPress, 2004); Gli angeli di John Dee (Roma: Tre Editori, 2004); John Dee's Occultism (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004, 2010).

Forthcoming:

The Multimediality of Culture and the Emblematic Way of Seeing (Turnhaut: Brepols, 2023).

In the making: The Enoch Readers. A Cultural History of Angels, Magic, and Ascension on High; The Lure of the Occult: Western Esotericism in Modern Fiction (planned in Hungarian).

Professor Szőnyi held various scholarships (Mellon, Fulbright), taught for two years at the University of Warsaw, spent about two years with research and teaching in the USA, and for a year had a visiting professorship at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (UK).