Recent waves of migration through Hungary have put the country and its current political regime on the front page of international newspapers. The session engages with the question of migration from a variety of different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, focusing on Hungary and Central Europe more broadly.

In correspondence with the presidential theme of the upcoming convention, the panel explores migration in its intricate interrelations with the state of “being human.” Papers focus both on the contemporary and on the long history of migration in the region, focusing on questions such as: how have authors addressed migration in their works, both from and to Central Europe, as well as within the region? How has the state of migration engendered and affected literary and cultural production? Which categories do cultural, social, and political discourses produce—such as “refugee,” “migrant,” “stateless”—and how are they negotiated in relation to the state of “being human?” In what ways does migration help refine notions of the human and grapple with the human condition? How do these forms of engagement in literature and culture put pressure on discourses about human rights?

Andrea Timár (ELTE, CEU IAS) investigates Gergely Péterfy’s Stuffed Barbarian (2014), which revolves around the friendship between the Hungarian poet, translator, and language reformer Ferenc Kazinczy (1759-1831) and Angelo Soliman, a highly cultured, multilingual ex-slave and free mason living in Vienna. This novel, asking crucial questions about acculturation, assimilation, othering, and most emphatically, about what it means to be human, puts in sharp relief, through the figure of the black-skinned Angelo both the “true barbarism” of provincial Hungarians opposing Kazinczy’s progressive ideas, and the false Enlightenment of Viennese society that eventually deprives him of his human status. I suggest, however, that the book cannot escape, and in fact, perpetuates an exclusive ideology of Bildung: its dubious narrative ethics of improbable character transparency is driven by an Enlightenment ideal that escapes the encounter with “differance”, and maniplulates readerly empathy in such a way as to make us forget about the oblivion thus maintained.

In his presentation Daniel Darvay (University of Texas Permian Basin, Babes-Bolyai University) juxtaposes two recent incidents from Hungarian media to refugees in order to raise a number of questions about the borders of the human in relation to art and visual culture, and the extent to which art factors into our conceptions of ourselves and the Other. He reveals the unhuman motivation of the human, which is, Darvay argues, key to a sharper understanding of the politics of representation in relation to migration.

Eva Serfözö (University of Orgeon) explores the intricate interrelations between crossing borders and the state of “being human” in Márta Mészáros’ latest film, Aurora Borealis. Her presentation focuses on the dynamics of uneasy mother – daughter relationship and explores the haunting of the past in the present, using Marianne Hirsch’s concept of post-memory.

Finally, Enikő Molnár Basa (Library of Congress) takes a close look at three examples in order to investigate the phenomenon of migration in Hungarian literature. Pál Závada’s Jadviga párnájapresents a Slovak community that had migrated from Upper Hungary to an ethnically Magyar region, a migration that posed no difficulties until the 20^thcentury. Peter Hunčik in Határesetalso touches on the relations of various ethnic groups as a result of migrations, but in his view the common denominator of humanism unites disparate elements of the society; only outside influences sow dissent.