György Szőnyi

Gy. E. Szönyi (1952), is professor of English and former director of the Institute of English & American Studies at the University of Szeged, Hungary. Since 1988 he has also been directing the Hungarian and Central European International Studies Centre of the same university, while since 2006 he has been part time professor of cultural and intellectual history at the Central European University, Budapest.

He is a cultural- and literary historian with special interest 1/ in the Renaissance, 2/ the role of the occult in early modern and postmodern literature/culture, 3/ in cultural theory, especially in cultural symbolization and the relationship of words and images, 4/ in Hungarian Studies.

He graduated from the University of Szeged majoring in English and Hungarian (1977, dr. univ. 1981, PhD 1993, habilitation 2000, doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 2004), later also pursued studies in Polish philology at the University of Budapest.

His recent monographs include Gli Angeli di John Dee (Rome: Tre Editori, 2004); Pictura & Scriptura. 20th-Century Theories of Cultural Representations (in Hungarian, Szeged, 2004); John Dee's Occultism. Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004).

He has also edited among others: "Lights and Shadows on the Frontier of Europe. Studies in Late-Renaissance Hungarian Culture," special issue of Hungarian Studies 10.2 (1995); European Iconography East & West. Selected Papers (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996); The Iconography of Power: Ideas and Images of Rulership on the English Renaissance Stage (with Rowland Wymer, Szeged: JATEPress, 2000); "Not of an age, but for all time": Shakespeare across Lands and Ages. A Festschrift for Holger Klein (with Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, Wien: Braumüller Verlag, 2004); "The Voices of the English Renaissance," special issue of The Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 11.1 (2005); The Iconology of Gender (with Attila Kiss, Szeged: JATEPress, 2008). Since 1998 he has been editor in charge of the series Ikonológia és műértelmezés [Iconology and Interpretation] and Papers in English and American Studies (both published in Szeged by JATEPress). He is on the editorial board of Aries and Aries Monography Series (E. J. Brill) and several other national and international journals. He is board member of the European Society for the Study of English and the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.

Important scholarships: IREX (USA, 1984, 1 month); Fulbright (USA, 1986/87, 10 months; 2004, 5 months); Mellon (Germany, 1995, 3 months; USA 2001, 3 months); Alfried Krupp Senior Fellow, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study (1998/9, 10 months); during 2009 he served as Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the Department of English, Communication, Media and Film of Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (12 months).

Guest lecturerships / guest courses: University of Warsaw (1980-82); Elon University (USA, 1987, 5 months); University of Hull (1993, 1 month); University of Vienna (1996, 2 weeks); University of Turku (2000, 1 month); University of Milan (2002, 1 week); University of Kansas (2004, 5 months); University of Salzburg (2005, 2006, 2x1 week); University of Warsaw (2008, 2 weeks).