June 27, 2013
CEU's Medieval Studies Department boasts an alumni body of successful, well-placed professionals within the discipline.
This fact is not lost to Professor Gabor Klaniczay. Speaking before department alumni earlier this month, he noted their key positions in universities, archives and museums.
"Everywhere, there are our alumni," he said. "[They are] the greatest, most important asset of our department."
Professor Klaniczay spoke at the kickoff of the department's "20 Years of Medieval Studies at CEU" reunion. Nearly 100 alumni, faculty and students participated in the two-day event, which featured a number of academic and social events, including lectures, roundtable discussions, contests, field trips and more.
Events included:
- Research poster presentation: More than two dozen posters of alumni's ongoing or concluded research projects were displayed in the Oktogon and voted on by the department community. Winners to be announced soon. See the full list here.
- Roundtables: Held on Friday, June 14, these discussions between alumni and faculty focused on "New Challenges to Medieval Studies" and concerned with topics such as Saints' cults, images and texts, Caucasian studies and more.
- Book exhibition: Medieval Studies alumni are prolific in writing and publishing within the discipline, as was made clear by the exhibit of Alumni Publications hosted by the CEU Library. More than 80 books and other publications written or edited by MEDS alumni were featured. See the full list here.
- Field trips: Alumni went on five trips, to the Academy of Sciences, Museum of Applied Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Hungarian National Museum and the National Széchényi Library. These excursions to the "Hidden Treasures of Budapest" relied upon the cooperation of department alumni with important positions within these institutions.
- Two-voice lecture: Concluding the June 14 discussion series was a two-voice public lecture by Patrick Geary (Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study) and Claudia Rapp (University of Vienna) on the Latin and Greek Middle Ages.
- Installation: the Gellner Room lobby was host to an impressive visual display of the renewed version of the OSA's 2005 "Contagious Middle Ages" exhibit, detailing how the Middle Ages are used (and abused) in various national narratives in Central Eastern Europe.
- See the full program here.