Budapest Workshop Geography and State building in Central Europe: National and Transnational Prespectives

Workshop Overview
Bringing together scholars from a number of countries, this two-day workshop provides a
unique opportunity to gather and discuss new approaches to the study of geography and
state building in Central and East Central Europe. Engaging in recent methodological and
theoretical developments in the field, papers Will explore how nations have been variously
constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed geographically. Conscious of the political
dimensions inherent within the production of geographical knowledge, papers Will also
explore the role that geographers themselves have played as active participants in the
state-building process.
Each session Will have three presenters. There Will be 25 minutes allotted for each paper,
with an additional 30 minutes for critical discussion,
The workshop Will also include an optional guided field trip on Thursday, September 5, to
the Eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. We Will Visit some parts of the Tiszántúl
region in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok and Békés counties. The trip's stops Will include the town
of Martfű modeled in the early 1940s on Howardian garden cities around the newly built
factory of the Czech Bata Corporation, which, after being nationalized during the
communist regime, became Hungary' s largest shoe manufacturer in a predominantly
agricultural region. We Will Visit the town of Tiszaföldvár to illustrate how the regular
floodings of the Tisza River and, later, river regulations have impacted the development of
rural settlements along the river throughout the centuries and the way historical military
conflicts in Hungary's Great Plains region resulted in consecutive waves of depopulation
and repopulation over the last 500 years, enabling the emergence of a peculiar social
setting. Finally, the journey Will end in the town of Szarvas, a prosperous rural town with a
significant Slovakian community, which experienced its heyday in the 19th century—and
where Tibor Mendöl, the pioneer of urban geography in Hungary, spent his school years
before attending the university and Eötvös Collegium in Budapest.
There is no workshop fee. However, presenters Will be responsible for their own travel and
accommodations.

Details