Together with foundation of CEPODS, the Department of Discourse Theory of the Hungarian Association of Political Sciences was established on 25 January 2005. In accordance with the statutes of the Association, office-holders were elected: Zoltán SZŰCS as president, Gábor PÁL as vice-president.
The main function of the Department is the diffusion of the current results of discourse theory in Hungary, ranging from translations to establishing connections between the various Hungarian research groups and schools.
Subsequently, we invited researchers from other disciplines. On 10 May 2005 we received a young literary historian, Gábor VADERNA (Eötvös Loránd University) and on 6 December a famous historian gave a talk about the relevance of discourse theory in the humanities. This autumn we will meet a number of young social scientists and historians.
There were three mini-courses, initiated by the Department, about works of Ernesto LACLAU, Chantal MOUFFE and Kari PALONEN. In addition, one of the panels of the 12th national conference of the Association of Political Sciences was organised by the members of the Department ("The interpretations and valuations of governance"). Next year we would like to organise further courses and a panel at the 13th conference of the Association of Political Sciences as well.
Our aim is to establish an English-language yearbook, once the necessary financial and professional background (English-speaking copy-editor, professional peer-review, etc.) is available.
Links:
www.mptt.hu