Friday 13 October, 8 pm, Harris Seminar Room, Oriel College

A social to start the academic year

Join us for drinks and nibbles to celebrate the new academic year. If you would like to contribute, please letAndreaLaczikknow by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Friday 20 October, 8 pm, Buttery, Wolfson College

The Corvinian Library: Masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance at the Court of King Matthias I of Hungary

Dániel Kiss

Before its destruction by the Ottomans, the Corvinian Library was one of the great libraries of the Renaissance world. Daniel studied Classics and Oriental studies at Oxford and is currently a specialist in Latin literature and manuscripts at ELTE University, Budapest.

Friday 27 October, 8 pm, Buttery, Wolfson College

Film Night: ‘Love’ (Szerelem)

‘Love’, directed by Károly Makk, who recently passed away at the age of 91, is considered a classic of world cinema. It tells of a young Hungarian woman whose husband has been arrested by the secret police, and who eases his mother’s last months by saying that her son is in America.

Friday 3 November, 8 pm, Haldane Room, Wolfson College 

Bilingualism - An Insider’s Story

Anna Kezia Williams

A first-hand account of living in two cultures and in two languages; reflections on the meaning of belonging and home. Anna was born and bred in the UK (her mother speaking Hungarian, her father speaking English) and is a recent graduate of the University of the Arts London.

Friday 10 November, 8 pm, Harris Seminar Room, Oriel College

Journalism and feminism in 19th-century Austria-Hungary: Emília Kánya and the Családi kör

Zsuzsanna Varga

So strong was her impact on Hungarian literary culture in the 1860s and 1870s, Emília Kánya, editor of the early women’s journal Családi kör('Family Circle'), would be seen as the first Hungarian woman of letters. Zsuzsanna teaches at Glasgow University and manages the Hungarian collection of the Taylor Institution, Oxford.

Friday 17 November, 8 pm, Harris Seminar Room, Oriel College

“To rid maternity hospitals of their horror, to preserve the wife for her husband and the mother for her child” - Ignaz Semmelweis

Zsófia Lázár

By discovering the cause of childbed fever, Semmelweis indirectly saved millions of women from certain death. His reward was to be ridiculed, institutionalised, and murdered. As a prelude to the 200th anniversary of Semmelweis’ birthday, Zsófia, a politics graduate, and aspiring novelist, will help us understand his tragic but ultimately heart-warming story.

Friday 24 November, 8 pm, Buttery, Wolfson College

Csontváry, Painter of the Sun’s Path

Mónika Bangha

An illustrated talk about Csontváry’s life and art, based on the ‘Csontváry's paintings in Transylvania’ 2016 exhibition in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), where Mónika was a guide. Her writings regularly appear in Hungarian literary magazines and online forums.