2009-10 Endeavor Visiting Scholars
Judit Bodnar
Dr. Bodnar, a native of Hungary, received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University in 1997. Her present research focuses on the city and current urban restructuring, the political economy and culture of globalization and uneven development, and issues of conceptual and institutional transfer. Her current teaching interrogates the emergence of the structure and infrastructure of modernity and capitalism, their transformation, globalization and comparative thinking. She is Associate Professor in the Departments of Sociology, Anthropology and History at the Central European University in Budapest.
Petra Hanáková
Dr. Hanáková hails from the Czech Republic and received her Ph.D. in Film Studies from Charles University in Prague in 2006. Her current research addresses the possibilities of visual studies in analyzing images of national identity. Her teaching expertise is in the history of film theory, reading of theoretical texts, poststructuralist theory, gender studies, and relations between film and visual culture. She is Assistant Professor in the Film Studies Department, Faculty of Arts, at Charles University in Prague.
The Mellon Visiting Scholar Program and the Endeavor Visiting Scholar Program, made possible with the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, are independent but related initiatives designed to foster cutting edge research on contemporary Europe, to promote the diffusion of new ideas through teaching, to bridge differences in American and European academic cultures, and to create networks that connect Europe’s most promising scholars with colleagues in Chicago. Over the next four years, 18 European scholars will research and teach in Chicago for two quarters. The Mellon program typically hosts scholars from Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg who teach courses of their own design, while Endeavor scholars hail from Eastern Europe and teach in the College’s core curriculum.
These two programs add to the depth and breadth of the University of Chicago’s commitment to Europe, and will further nourish and expand the already vibrant links between Chicago and Paris. For example, in the autumn preceding their Chicago residency, Mellon and Endeavor scholars participate in a two-day orientation session at the University of Chicago’s Center in Paris. The Center in Paris will also serve as the site of major capstone conferences in both programs (Endeavor in 2012; Mellon in 2013). After their residency at the University of Chicago, Mellon and Endeavor Scholars may teach in one of the many undergraduate programs of study offered at the University’s Center in Paris.
Inquiries may be addressed to Michael Jones, mrjones@uchicago.edu.