Living in Fear of the Academics

A few weeks ago, news that the Central European University located in Budapest, Hungary had come under threat spread like wildfire around the BCB campus. Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, had launched a legislative attack on the institution, indirectly calling for it to close down. When pressured for a reason, Orban’s government claimed that the

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The Budapest Diaries

Sunday, 8:00 pm, On our Way to Budapest The train is quiet save the steady rumble of any old-fashioned locomotive. The noise laps gently at my ears, rising and falling with the heave of pistons. Night has laid its thick blanket over the window, replacing cityscape and countryside with the eerily distorted reflection of compartment’s

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Son of Saul: A Review

At the dinner for the Oscar nominees, Steven Spielberg first glances at László Nemes, then after a moment of contemplation slowly sits up and walks to the young director’s table. “I never thought we would have to wait this long for a film like this” After this first encounter something changes in recent Hungarian cinema

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Dynamics of Modernity

A week’s worth of immersion in Renaissance art requires both time for contemplation and occasion for discourse. As such, the spring term’s core course on Values of Florentine Renaissance commenced with a guest lecture by the prominent Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller. Professor Heller broached the topic of historical interpretation by briefly discussing Goethe and Hegel’s

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