Spaces in transition

This volume of the Papers in English and American Studies is a tribute to Sarolta Marinovieh-Reseh on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday. She has been instrumental in the life and development of the Szeged English Department since the 1970s. For several years she was the head of the Department (1992-95) and she became the first director of the Institute of English and American Studies in 1995, thus tactfully and with great empathy administering the complicated process of institutional restructuring. Sarolta Marinovieh-Resch started her scholarly career with studying English Romantic and Victorian literature and soon broadened her interest towards women's writing in this period and beyond. She has written important studies on Gothic female writing and the postmodern recycling of these works. She is an internationally acknowledged author of women's writing as well as the theory of Women's Studies; her essays have been published in prestigious periodicals and collections. From the viewpoint of the evolution of English Studies in Szeged, her most important achievement has been the establishing of the Gender Studies Stream, an academic specialization offered to English majors, which at the same time created an important research circle as well. Several successful international conferences mark the activities of this teaching- and research unit.
The authors of this collection of essays represent Gender- and English Studies nationwide. Next to members of the Universities of Budapest, Debrecen, and Pees, Dr. Marinovich-Resch's own colleagues from the Szeged Institute also contribute to it. The topics range from broad theoretical issues (Mária Joó on the influence of Simone de Beauvoir in Post-socialist thinking; Andrea P. Balogh on feminist criticism in Hungary) to specific case studies, relating to Anglo-American literature and culture (Irén Annus on Mormon female bio-histories, Eva Federmayer on Douglas Sirk's Imitation o f Life, Anna Kérchy on Angela Carter, Mária Kurdi on Irish female drama, and Nóra Séllei on A. S. Byatt's Morpho Eugenia). These excellent studies are not only a testimonial to Sarolta Marinovich-Resch's influence on Hungarian scholarship, they also represent the high quality of it in English-related gender studies.