Violetta Zentai, Ph.D.
Education
2001 Ph.D., Anthropology Department, Rutgers University, NJ
1989 University doctorate degree (M.A.), Dept. of Social Geography, Budapest
University of Economics
1983 Graduation (B.A.), Budapest University of Economics, Fields of studies:
political economy, sociology
Fellowships, Research Grants
2002 Consumer Cultures in Hungary. Research Grant from the National Fund for
Scientific Research, Hungary (2 years)
1998 Junior Visiting Fellowship, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna
1998 HESP Curriculum Development Grant, Open Society Institute
1997 Cambridge Colleges Hospitality Scheme, Girton College
1995/1996 Research Support Scheme, CEU-OSI, Budapest
1994/1995 Dissertation Fellowship, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research
1992/1993 Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Center for Critical Analysis of Contemporary
Culture, Rutgers University
1990-1992 Graduate Fellowship, Graduate School, Rutgers University, NJ
1989/1990 Soros Fellowship for Graduate Studies, Soros Foundation, New York-Budapest.
Employment
2000 – research coordinator, Center for Policy Studies, Central European University
2000 - tutor, Invisible College, Budapest
1998 - tutor, Social Theory College, Budapest University of Economics
1997- Recurring visiting lecturer, Janus Pannonius University, Pécs
1995-1997 Director of Anthropology Program, Janus Pannonius University, Pecs
1994-1997 Associate professor of anthropology; Janus Pannonius University, Pecs
1994-2000 Recurring visiting lecturer; ELTE University, Budapest, Historical
Anthropology Program
1994- Program manager; Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiatives,
Open Society Institute, Budapest
1984-1989 Research fellow; Center for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of
Sciences
1983-1984 Research assistant, Agricultural Investment Company, Budapest
Teaching activity
Courses developed and taught (1994-2000)
Modern Anthropology and Cultural Criticism; The Historical Dialogue of Elite
and Popular Culture; Recent Currents in European Ethnology; Political Anthropology;
Forms of Cruelty; America - Imagined in Europe; Culture and Consumption; Historical
Understanding of Consumer Society; Critical and Social Debates on Wealth; Forms
and Meanings of Money; Negotiating Capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe;
Cafés and Department Stores. Gendered History of Public and Private Spaces;
Women and Men in East European Transition; Introduction into Gender Studies.
Curriculum development
1998 „Negotiating Capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe". A comparative
curriculum development project in cooperation with young scholars from universities
of Poznan (PL), Brno (CZ), Pecs (HU) and Cluj (RO); awarded with Curriculum
Development Competition Grant, HESP, Open Society Institute, Budapest;
1997 „Cultural Anthropology" undergraduate program curriculum for a would-be
Faculty of Social Sciences at Budapest University of Economics
1994 Cultural Anthropology Program at Janus Pannonius University, Pécs. Undergraduate
curriculum together with Péter Niedermüller (awarded with HESP, Soros Foundation,
Hungary support)
Tutorial work
2001 "19th Century Roots of Consumer Society". Social Theory College,
Budapest University of Economics
2001 "Material Culture and Social Hierarchy". Invisible College, Budapest
2000 "Theories of Culture". Individual tutorial classes. Invisible
College, Budapest.
1999-2000 Theories of Consumption. Series of reading seminars in Social Theory
College of Budapest University of Economics (with Miklós Vörös).
Designing and organizing international workshops, seminars
2001 "Reshaping Globalizaton: Multilateral Dialogues and New Policy Initiatives",
International Conference, October 17-19, 2001, Central European University,
Budapest.
2000 "Cultures of Late Capitalism". A course for CEU Summer University
2000, Budapest, co-director
1998 „Culture as Entitlement: Navigating Political and Economic Fields in the
Post-Welfare-State Europe", Invited sessions at AAA Annual Meeting, December
1998, Philadelphia; co-organizer
1998 "Forms of Inclusions and Exclusions in the New Europe". Course
for CEU Summer University 1998, Budapest, co-director
1997 "Anthropology of /in the City". International summer course,
Tempus Joint European Project (see below), coordinator and instructor
1996 "Women and Men in East-European Transition", Cluj, Romania, international
summer school and workshop; co-director
1994/1995 "History and Memory", Central European University, Budapest,
standing seminar; member of program committee
Managing international academic cooperation
1996-1998 Principal coordinator of "European Ethnology" Tempus Joint European Project (two Hungarian and six EU departments of ethnology and anthropology; student and staff mobility, summer school, ECTS policy)
Other professional activity
1994- Editor; Café Bábel (interdisciplinary critical quarterly in Hungarian)
1989-1991 Co-Editor of "Tér es Társadalom" (Space and Society), interdisciplinary
journal for urban studies in Hungarian
Recent talks (1998-2001)
March 2002 – "Governing the Local and Shaping the Global". Lecture
at a workshop "Globalization and Women". University of Bergen, Norway.
March 2002 – "Social Debates in Hungary on the Emerging Shopping Mall Culture."
Paper presented at a workshop " Envisioning Cities in the 21th Century".
Humboldt University, Berlin.
May 2001 – "Interpretations of 19th Century Roots of Consumer Society."
Introductory lecture to a workshop. Social Theory College, Budapest.
November 2000 – "Ironic Nostalgia and Nostalgia for Irony". Lecture
at workshop "The Memory of Socialism". Institute for European Ethnology,
Humboldt University, Berlin.
September 2000 – "Who is Afraid of Cultural Anthropology in Post Socialist
Transition?" paper presented at Conference "Representing Anthropology
and Anthropological Representations in Eastern Europe", Cluj, Romania
July 2000 – "Contemporary Currents in Consumology". Lecture at SUN
2000, Central European University, Budapest.
November 1999 - "Markets and Shopping Malls: Consuming Practices and Debates
in Transition"?; "Friends and Enemies of Feminism in Central and Eastern
Europe". Lectures for students of University College, London, special program
at Masaryk University, Brno.
October 1999 - "Culture as Hard Currency? The Market of Explanation for
Post-Socialist Change. Workshop "Die Wende als Wende?", Internationales
Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna.
June 1999 - "Multiethnic Communities and Public Policy". Workshop
for "Public Policy" Course, CEU SUN, Budapest.
January 1999 - "Losers and Winners of Capitalist Transformations"
and "Shopping Malls and Markets". Lectures at Institute of Cultural
Anthropology, Adam Miczkiewicz, Poznan
December 1998 - „The Rhetoric of Victimization in Transitional Societies".
Lecture at AAA Annual Meeting, December 1998, Philadelphia
October 1998 - „Exchange of Values and Circulation of Meanings: Social Discourses
on Wealth and Money in Current Hungarian Transition", presentation at Junior
Fellows Seminar at IWM, Vienna
July 1998 - „The Rhetoric of Victimization in Transitional Societies",
lecture at "Forms of Inclusions and Exclusions in the New Europe".
Course for CEU Summer University 1998, Budapest,
September 1998 - "Gender in Teaching Anthropology", lecture at the
Inaugural Gender Studies Conference of Network Women's Program (OSI), Belgrade
Civic activity
1994- Chair of board and spokesperson, MONA (Foundation for the Women of Hungary);
fund-raising, program development and management
Recent projects developed for MONA:
2001 "The House of Equal Opportunity." A concept paper for a consortium
of women's organizations in Budapest.
2000 "Roles, Rules, Ratios." Men and Women in Politics. International
symposium. Budapest, November 3-4, 2000.
1999 Designing a comparative research project on women in local governments
in Slovenia and Hungary
1997 Preparing a proposal for training women executives and officials in local
governments awarded with Phare Democracy Program grant
Selected publications
(2002) A fogyasztói társadalom értelmezései. (Interpretations of Consumer Society)
ed. with Miklós Vörös: Budapest: Balassi Kiadó. forthcoming.
(2001) Exchange of Values and Circulation of Meanings: Social Imagination on
Money and Wealth in Post-Socialist Hungary. Ph.D. thesis. Rutgers University
(2001) "Loss or Overproduction of Culture?" Europäische Ethnologie
zur Jahrtausendwende. ed. K. Köstlin, P. Niedermüller, H. Nikitsch. Band 23.
(2000) Rhetoric of Victimization in Post-Socialist Transition. Caitele Tranzitelei
1998/1999 (2-3): 107-111.
(2000) Közrosszról, metakritikáról és liberalizmusról. (On Public Failure, Meta-criticism,
and Liberalism) 2000. április: 16-18.
(1999) Gyôztesekbôl és vesztesekbôl elkövetôk es áldozatok. (From Losers and
Winners to Victims and Perpetrators). 2000. szeptember: 10-20.
(1999) The 'West' Envisions the West. Images of the West in the Leading Progressive
Hungarian Literary Journal in the Inter-War Period. Ethnologia Europeae 29(1):69-84.
(1999) From Losers and Winners to Victims and Perpetrators. Working Papers Series.
Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. www.univie.ac.at/iwm
(1997, eds.) Feischmidt Margit, Magyari-Vincze Eniko, Men and Women in East
European Transition. Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj.
(1997, ed.) Politikai antropológia. Szöveggyujtemény. (Political Anthropology.
A Reader). Osiris-Láthatatlan Kollégium, Budapest.
(1996) A fogyasztás kultúrája és a történelem (Culture of Consumption and History),
Replika 18: 139-159.
(1996) Contested Images of the West in Hungary Between the Two World Wars. RSS
Research report.
(1993) Carl Schorske: Fin-de-Siecle in Vienna. Café Bábel, Winter : 87-89.
(1993) The West Envisions the West. The Portrait of the Leading Progressive
Hungarian Literary Journal in the Inter-War Period. Paper presented at CCACC
seminars, Rutgers University.
(1992) Egyéni szuverenitás és társadalmi rend. A Chicagói Iskola városképe [Modern
Subjectivity and Social Order. Metropolitan Visions of the Chicago School of
Urbanism], Tér és Társadalom 3-4: 250-263.
(1989) Lokális környezetvédelmi konfliktusok [Local Environmental Conflicts].
University doctorate dissertation (M.A.). Budapest: Budapest University of Economics.
(1988,eds.) Kovács, K., Városon innen, falun túl... [Not Yet a Town, No Longer
a Village. A Monograph].Aszód: Petôfi Múzeum.p. 265.
(1987) Enyedi, Gy., Environmental Policy in Hungary. In: Environmental Policies
in East and West. London: Taylor Graham.pp.213-235