Lívia Szélpál - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Lívia Szélpál
Image versus Reality in Peter Farrelly's Green Book
Americana: E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary, 2019
My paper aims to focus on the interplay between reality and imagination the film addresses and in... more My paper aims to focus on the interplay between reality and imagination the film addresses and intends to first scrutinize the genre of the white savior narrative—mostly with the background information of New York Times writer Wesley Morris, who characterized Green Book as a “racial reconciliation fantasy” that is common to many contemporary Hollywood films (Morris 2019). Secondly, it aims to focus on the controversy behind other racial issues represented in Green Book. Many critics accused the film of ignoring the very object it was titled after, namely the Negro Motorist Green Book (henceforth, NMGB as a differentiation from the movie Green Book). This was a travel guide for colored peoples was compiled by Victor Hugo Green (1892-1960) and his wife, Alma Green (1889-1978), and came out during the Jim Crow era in the United States (“The Green Book” The New York Public Library Digital Collections). The atlas guided primarily African-American travelers to find so-called “safe” hotels and restaurants in the region in which they aimed to travel. At that time, the guidebook was also one of the less known symbols of racial oppression and also a means for the Civil Rights Movement; its aim was to be a crucial lifesaving pack for black people in avoiding uncomfortable situations and was important for their physical protection against lynchings in the Deep South. Besides NMGB there were many other travel guides for black people, for example the Travelguide, Cook’s Negro Travel Guide, Grayson’s Guide, Hankley & Harrison’s Hotel and Apartment Guide, and The Negro Traveler (Kennedy 19). However, the NMGB are the most known among them due to its visibility and availability in the digital collections of the New York City Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Thirdly, the presentation deals with (3) the function of the NMGB in constructing black political identity by analyzing selected editions of the series published from 1937 to 1966 and digitized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. The key argument of this paper is to highlight that Green’s travel-guide maps the territorial limits of African American freedom and it was also a guide of black self-reliance, an important symbol of the civil rights movement.
Coelsch-Foisner, Sabine; Marinovich-Resch, Sarolta; Endre Szõnyi, György; Kérchy, Anna (szerk.) What Constitutes the Fantastic?, 2009
This paper explores central tenets of this genre merging science fiction and the historical novel... more This paper explores central tenets of this genre merging science fiction and the historical novel by asking `What if history had developed differently?' While exploring the leanings of alternative history towards fantasy scenarios and dystopia (`nightmare fiction'), her study of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1962)
The Major Influence of Thomas Nast’s Political Cartoons on 19th Century American Politics
AMERICANA E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary 19 (1). , 2023
Muckrakers were investigative journalists of the Progressive Era (1890-1920) who exposed corrupti... more Muckrakers were investigative journalists of the Progressive Era (1890-1920) who exposed corruption in politics and the public sphere and worked not only for the sake of sensation but also to call the public’s attention to serious social issues and push the government into reforms. President Theodore Roosevelt first mentioned muckrakers as a pejorative description of those journalists working for the yellow press who focused only on the negative sides of society rather than looking at the advantages of the era. Accordingly, muckrakers were those writers and journalists who, instead of discussing nobler and loftier topics, “rake muck,” i.e., wrote about the filth of politics and business life such as corruption, exploitation, and dishonesty (Bollobás 2015, 194). In my interpretation, Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was a forerunner of the muckrakers – ahead of his time – since he had already fought against the interconnection of political and economic life in the 1870s, at the peak of the Gilded Age, using his humorous drawings as a weapon in his crusade against corruption.
Társadalmi Nemek Tudománya Interdiszciplináris e-Folyóirat, 2024
Zadie Smith The Wife of Willesden (2021) című színdarabjában Geoffrey Chaucer A bathi asszonyság ... more Zadie Smith The Wife of Willesden (2021) című színdarabjában Geoffrey Chaucer A bathi asszonyság előbeszéde és meséje című történetét gondolja újra, amely Chaucer XIV. század végén írott Canterbury mesék című művében található. Mivel a darab magyarul még nem érhető el, a tanulmány céljai között szerepel Smith írói stílusának bemutatása a magyar olvasóközönségnek. A színdarab bevezetőjében önreflexív módon elmeséli az adaptáció születését, amely egy véletlen félreértésből keletkezett egy Twitter-bejegyzés és gyenge reptéri Wi-Fi-kapcsolat révén, miként lett ez a helyzet kreatív alkotómunkafolyamattá a Covid19-pandémia idején. A tanulmányban azt vizsgálom, hogyan alakult át Chaucer eredeti története Smith szövegévé, s milyen korabeli társadalmi viszonyról árulkodik a Smith által megváltozott történet főszereplőjének, Alvitának az élete. A modern kori Kilburn városrészben, egy kocsmában meséli el történetét Alvita. Önmagához és a férfiakhoz való viszonyát, identitását gondolj újra: mit akar(hat) az élettől egy nő és mi a nő szerepe a házasság intézményében. A színdarab vegyes kritikákat kapott, amely eltérő kritikai értelmezésekre a tanulmányomban is kitérek.
Breaking Stereotypes in American Popular Culture: Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the Croatian Association for American Studies Authors, 2023
This study reports the results of a joint research exploring identity and diversity across cultur... more This study reports the results of a joint research exploring identity and diversity across cultures by focusing on the Croatian, Hungarian, and American contexts. Its primary aim is to raise awareness of stereotypical preconceptions and cross-cultural similarities and differences between Americans and Hungarians and Americans and Croats in order to broaden understanding and help break the stereotypes that may lead to discrimination and bias. The study is divided into two parts. The first part of the analysis investigates stereotypical representations of American culture from the Hungarian perspective and vice versa. It provides the historical context to the topic, discusses
FOCUS: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies
is considered to be one of the greatest American playwrights, whose work served to define the mor... more is considered to be one of the greatest American playwrights, whose work served to define the moral, social and political realities of the contemporary U.S. (Bigsby 1). His plays continue to be popular among readers and audiences across the world, and he remains a defining voice in American literature. Miller dramatized his social conscience into political action by bringing together the public and the personal in his writings. Among the central points of his plays are issues of personal responsibility, the human psyche in the complexity of family relationships, class and race relations, the failure of the American Dream, and the burden of the past disclosed in the present. Miller believed that one of the purposes of contemporary theatre was to face the past and to manifest repressed memories (Bollobás 556). Besides his writings, his legacy also includes his public activities. He always believed in civil liberties, the rights of artists, the freedom of speech, and expression of one's views. Moreover, he was committed to progressive causes and democratic rights. His oeuvre was shaped by the major events of his lifetime-the Depression, World War II, McCarthyism and the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the Cold War anxieties of the Reagan era (Dreier). Miller valued his public responsibility as an active citizen and an advocate of human rights, therefore he set an example with his ardent resistance to the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s and his open rejection of the Vietnam War (Dreier). Moreover, he took the position of president of PEN International 1 (1965-69), an organization representing writers, 1 As the PEN International website states, the organization PEN International was founded in London, UK, in 1921. The association was one of the world's first NGOs and amongst the first international organizations supporting human rights. It was the first worldwide international body of authors, and the first organization to specify that freedom of expression and literature are integral (PEN International).
Images of the American suburbia
Transnational history : an American perspective
Review of Gabriella Vöő's Kortársunk, Mr. Poe. Felfedező utak az összegyűjtött elbeszélésekben
Urban fictions of factual representation
This paper is an attempt to read the American city from an alternative point of view by focusing ... more This paper is an attempt to read the American city from an alternative point of view by focusing on the question of what images can tell about it, what are the limits of representation and what is the implied methodology of historical consciousness in urban discourse. The practitioners of the field of history, as Hayden White argues, become much more aware of the field’s linguistic nature and a work of art―whether a novel, a play, or even a movie―could only be understood, if analyzed in its historical context. These current developments raise the question of disciplinary boundaries of history, literature and visual arts, and claim a critical rethinking of their relationship in particular. Moreover, this rethinking has a strong influence on the interpretation of visual images within the field of humanities at large. To achieve these goals, my paper will follow a selection of films as referential points, namely Buried Child (dir. David Horn, 2016), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (dir. Richard Brooks, 1958), Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles, 1941), The Crucible (dir. Nicholas Hytner, 1996), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (dir. Mike Nichols, 1966). By incorporating these American films into my argumentation, the paper aims to go beyond the temporal representation of the modern city and seeks to find a new understanding of historical imagination through cinematic representation
Pécs-Baranya évszázadai 6. - Országos helyismereti konferencia, absztraktfüzet [Centuries of Pécs-Baranya 6. Local History Conference, Abstracts] Csorba Győző Könyvtár, 2021. november 25-26
Pécs, 2021
Honoring Professor Mária Kurdi
Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 2020
Review of Eger Journal of American studies, vol. VIII. 2002 and proceedings of the Hussde 1 conference, Pécs, 25-26 January 2002
The Modern American City in Citizen Kane. An Unconventional History
Events by Lívia Szélpál
![Research paper thumbnail of Művelődés és társadalom Pécs-Baranyában - Országos helyismereti konferencia [Culture and Society in Pécs-Baranya - National Local History Conference] Csorba Győző Könyvtár, 2021. május 20-21.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/79648149/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Book Reviews by Lívia Szélpál
![Research paper thumbnail of Márkus, Beáta. 2020. “Csak egy csepp német vér.” A német származású civilek Szovjetunióba deportálása Magyarországról 1944/1945 ["Just a drop of German blood:" The Deportation of German Civilians to the Soviet Union from Hungary in 1944/1945]. Pécs: Kronosz Kiadó. 469 pp.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/96717961/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](HUNGARIAN CULTURAL STUDIES: E-JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN HUNGARIAN EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION, 2022
Book review
Talks by Lívia Szélpál
![Research paper thumbnail of Pécs-Baranya évszázadai 8. - Országos helyismereti konferencia, absztraktfüzet [Centuries of Pécs-Baranya 8. Local History Conference, Abstracts] Csorba Győző Könyvtár, 2023. november 9-10.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/106528227/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](by Zoltán Erdős, Csorba Győző Public Library, Local History Collection, János Balogh, Pilkhoffer Mónika, Vivien Raposa, Lívia Szélpál, Zsolt Máté, Levente Várdai, Tamas Ragadics, and Kyra Tomay
Pécs, 2023
Image versus Reality in Peter Farrelly's Green Book
Americana: E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary, 2019
My paper aims to focus on the interplay between reality and imagination the film addresses and in... more My paper aims to focus on the interplay between reality and imagination the film addresses and intends to first scrutinize the genre of the white savior narrative—mostly with the background information of New York Times writer Wesley Morris, who characterized Green Book as a “racial reconciliation fantasy” that is common to many contemporary Hollywood films (Morris 2019). Secondly, it aims to focus on the controversy behind other racial issues represented in Green Book. Many critics accused the film of ignoring the very object it was titled after, namely the Negro Motorist Green Book (henceforth, NMGB as a differentiation from the movie Green Book). This was a travel guide for colored peoples was compiled by Victor Hugo Green (1892-1960) and his wife, Alma Green (1889-1978), and came out during the Jim Crow era in the United States (“The Green Book” The New York Public Library Digital Collections). The atlas guided primarily African-American travelers to find so-called “safe” hotels and restaurants in the region in which they aimed to travel. At that time, the guidebook was also one of the less known symbols of racial oppression and also a means for the Civil Rights Movement; its aim was to be a crucial lifesaving pack for black people in avoiding uncomfortable situations and was important for their physical protection against lynchings in the Deep South. Besides NMGB there were many other travel guides for black people, for example the Travelguide, Cook’s Negro Travel Guide, Grayson’s Guide, Hankley & Harrison’s Hotel and Apartment Guide, and The Negro Traveler (Kennedy 19). However, the NMGB are the most known among them due to its visibility and availability in the digital collections of the New York City Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Thirdly, the presentation deals with (3) the function of the NMGB in constructing black political identity by analyzing selected editions of the series published from 1937 to 1966 and digitized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. The key argument of this paper is to highlight that Green’s travel-guide maps the territorial limits of African American freedom and it was also a guide of black self-reliance, an important symbol of the civil rights movement.
Coelsch-Foisner, Sabine; Marinovich-Resch, Sarolta; Endre Szõnyi, György; Kérchy, Anna (szerk.) What Constitutes the Fantastic?, 2009
This paper explores central tenets of this genre merging science fiction and the historical novel... more This paper explores central tenets of this genre merging science fiction and the historical novel by asking `What if history had developed differently?' While exploring the leanings of alternative history towards fantasy scenarios and dystopia (`nightmare fiction'), her study of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1962)
The Major Influence of Thomas Nast’s Political Cartoons on 19th Century American Politics
AMERICANA E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary 19 (1). , 2023
Muckrakers were investigative journalists of the Progressive Era (1890-1920) who exposed corrupti... more Muckrakers were investigative journalists of the Progressive Era (1890-1920) who exposed corruption in politics and the public sphere and worked not only for the sake of sensation but also to call the public’s attention to serious social issues and push the government into reforms. President Theodore Roosevelt first mentioned muckrakers as a pejorative description of those journalists working for the yellow press who focused only on the negative sides of society rather than looking at the advantages of the era. Accordingly, muckrakers were those writers and journalists who, instead of discussing nobler and loftier topics, “rake muck,” i.e., wrote about the filth of politics and business life such as corruption, exploitation, and dishonesty (Bollobás 2015, 194). In my interpretation, Thomas Nast (1840-1902) was a forerunner of the muckrakers – ahead of his time – since he had already fought against the interconnection of political and economic life in the 1870s, at the peak of the Gilded Age, using his humorous drawings as a weapon in his crusade against corruption.
Társadalmi Nemek Tudománya Interdiszciplináris e-Folyóirat, 2024
Zadie Smith The Wife of Willesden (2021) című színdarabjában Geoffrey Chaucer A bathi asszonyság ... more Zadie Smith The Wife of Willesden (2021) című színdarabjában Geoffrey Chaucer A bathi asszonyság előbeszéde és meséje című történetét gondolja újra, amely Chaucer XIV. század végén írott Canterbury mesék című művében található. Mivel a darab magyarul még nem érhető el, a tanulmány céljai között szerepel Smith írói stílusának bemutatása a magyar olvasóközönségnek. A színdarab bevezetőjében önreflexív módon elmeséli az adaptáció születését, amely egy véletlen félreértésből keletkezett egy Twitter-bejegyzés és gyenge reptéri Wi-Fi-kapcsolat révén, miként lett ez a helyzet kreatív alkotómunkafolyamattá a Covid19-pandémia idején. A tanulmányban azt vizsgálom, hogyan alakult át Chaucer eredeti története Smith szövegévé, s milyen korabeli társadalmi viszonyról árulkodik a Smith által megváltozott történet főszereplőjének, Alvitának az élete. A modern kori Kilburn városrészben, egy kocsmában meséli el történetét Alvita. Önmagához és a férfiakhoz való viszonyát, identitását gondolj újra: mit akar(hat) az élettől egy nő és mi a nő szerepe a házasság intézményében. A színdarab vegyes kritikákat kapott, amely eltérő kritikai értelmezésekre a tanulmányomban is kitérek.
Breaking Stereotypes in American Popular Culture: Proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the Croatian Association for American Studies Authors, 2023
This study reports the results of a joint research exploring identity and diversity across cultur... more This study reports the results of a joint research exploring identity and diversity across cultures by focusing on the Croatian, Hungarian, and American contexts. Its primary aim is to raise awareness of stereotypical preconceptions and cross-cultural similarities and differences between Americans and Hungarians and Americans and Croats in order to broaden understanding and help break the stereotypes that may lead to discrimination and bias. The study is divided into two parts. The first part of the analysis investigates stereotypical representations of American culture from the Hungarian perspective and vice versa. It provides the historical context to the topic, discusses
FOCUS: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies
is considered to be one of the greatest American playwrights, whose work served to define the mor... more is considered to be one of the greatest American playwrights, whose work served to define the moral, social and political realities of the contemporary U.S. (Bigsby 1). His plays continue to be popular among readers and audiences across the world, and he remains a defining voice in American literature. Miller dramatized his social conscience into political action by bringing together the public and the personal in his writings. Among the central points of his plays are issues of personal responsibility, the human psyche in the complexity of family relationships, class and race relations, the failure of the American Dream, and the burden of the past disclosed in the present. Miller believed that one of the purposes of contemporary theatre was to face the past and to manifest repressed memories (Bollobás 556). Besides his writings, his legacy also includes his public activities. He always believed in civil liberties, the rights of artists, the freedom of speech, and expression of one's views. Moreover, he was committed to progressive causes and democratic rights. His oeuvre was shaped by the major events of his lifetime-the Depression, World War II, McCarthyism and the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the Cold War anxieties of the Reagan era (Dreier). Miller valued his public responsibility as an active citizen and an advocate of human rights, therefore he set an example with his ardent resistance to the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s and his open rejection of the Vietnam War (Dreier). Moreover, he took the position of president of PEN International 1 (1965-69), an organization representing writers, 1 As the PEN International website states, the organization PEN International was founded in London, UK, in 1921. The association was one of the world's first NGOs and amongst the first international organizations supporting human rights. It was the first worldwide international body of authors, and the first organization to specify that freedom of expression and literature are integral (PEN International).
Images of the American suburbia
Transnational history : an American perspective
Review of Gabriella Vöő's Kortársunk, Mr. Poe. Felfedező utak az összegyűjtött elbeszélésekben
Urban fictions of factual representation
This paper is an attempt to read the American city from an alternative point of view by focusing ... more This paper is an attempt to read the American city from an alternative point of view by focusing on the question of what images can tell about it, what are the limits of representation and what is the implied methodology of historical consciousness in urban discourse. The practitioners of the field of history, as Hayden White argues, become much more aware of the field’s linguistic nature and a work of art―whether a novel, a play, or even a movie―could only be understood, if analyzed in its historical context. These current developments raise the question of disciplinary boundaries of history, literature and visual arts, and claim a critical rethinking of their relationship in particular. Moreover, this rethinking has a strong influence on the interpretation of visual images within the field of humanities at large. To achieve these goals, my paper will follow a selection of films as referential points, namely Buried Child (dir. David Horn, 2016), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (dir. Richard Brooks, 1958), Citizen Kane (dir. Orson Welles, 1941), The Crucible (dir. Nicholas Hytner, 1996), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (dir. Mike Nichols, 1966). By incorporating these American films into my argumentation, the paper aims to go beyond the temporal representation of the modern city and seeks to find a new understanding of historical imagination through cinematic representation
Pécs-Baranya évszázadai 6. - Országos helyismereti konferencia, absztraktfüzet [Centuries of Pécs-Baranya 6. Local History Conference, Abstracts] Csorba Győző Könyvtár, 2021. november 25-26
Pécs, 2021
Honoring Professor Mária Kurdi
Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 2020
Review of Eger Journal of American studies, vol. VIII. 2002 and proceedings of the Hussde 1 conference, Pécs, 25-26 January 2002
The Modern American City in Citizen Kane. An Unconventional History