1918 – Dreams of European Modernity 100 Years Later

Prof. Dr. VICTOR NEUMANN (Romania) from Center for Advanced Studies in History University of Timisoara, Director of the Art Museum, Timisoara. Victor is a political analyst and a well-known specialist in the recent cultural and intellectual histories of Eastern and Central Europe (focusing his research on inter and multiculturalism). Among his books several deal with the European imagination. “The Temptation of Homo Europaeus”, or “Conceptually Mystified: East-Central Europe Torn Between Ethnicism and Recognition of Multiple Identities”, have been translated into several languages.

ANDREA PITASI (Italy) is a professor of Sociology at D’Annunzio University, Italy. President of World Complexity Science Academy and an European Commission independent expert. He is a specialist in complex systems theory applied to strategic policy modelling for macro and supranational organizations focusing on the development-technology-demography-citizenship connection. He is also a writer, his novel titled “Hypercitizens” were published in 2017.

CSABA PLEH (Hungary) is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, member of Academia Europae, past Deputy general secretary of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Member, Standing Committee of the Humanities, European Science Foundation. Among his wide range of interests, he is a specialist in the history of psychology and cognitive science specially on the academic and practical approaches in early twentieth century Hungarian psychology.

SLAVEN TOLJ (Croatia) is a multimedia artist from Croatia. He achieved international recognition for his installations, body art, and performances presenting distinct political and social-cultural criticism. The beginning of Slaven’s work, as an artist, was determined by his experiences of the Yugoslav War, as well as the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. In the course of the late 1990s Slaven Tolj gradually extended the scope of his art, incorporating themes and issues related to political transformation and the emergence of multiculturalism and globalization. Slaven Tolj is the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Rijeka as well as the Artistic Director of Rijeka 2020, Cultural Capital of Europe.

GÁBOR DOBÓ (Hungary), MA in Literary History (University of Florence) and PhD candidate at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. Researcher at Kassak Museum as well as the co-curator of the 2015 temporary exhibition entitled ‘Signal to the World. War ∩ Avant-Garde ∩ Kassák’ and ‘Imagining a Movement: Ma in Budapest’ (2016). In his research he applies the methods of Periodical Studies on the Hungarian avant-garde magazines. He has studied at the universities of Budapest, Florence and Angers. He is a member of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM) and the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit).

ROBERT MANCHIN (Belgium) is president of Culture Action Europe. Robert Worked at the Hungarian Academy of Science as sociologist while playing in the State Philharmonic Orchestra. He studied and wrote books on youth musical protest movements and the long-term effects of music education in public schools. Spent several years teaching and doing research in American universities. Returning to Hungary before the regime change he organized samizdat publications including publishing the minutes of the transition parliament before the first free elections. Between 1990 and 2014 he fulfilled various top management positions at Gallup Organization in the US and in Europe leading a number of global research projects. As a professor at the College of Europe, developed a course to understand European social trends using survey and other data.

ESZTER BALAZS (Hungary) is a leading researcher of the Kassák Museum. and a lecturer at the Department of Communication and Media Studies at the Kodolányi János College. His fields of research are: intellectual history, cultural history, history of ideas, media and press history. Her doctoral dissertation was defended at the EHESS Paris “En tête des intellectuels”. Les écrivains et la quest de la liberté et l’autonomie littéraires (1908-1914) (with an excellent rating). Her book with Phil Casoar’s on the pictures of the 1956 revolution was recently published in Hungarian. A documentary film based on the book, received the Camera Hungaria Award.

THOMAS COOPER (US/UK) is professor comparative cultural studies at Eszterházy Károly University in Eger. After completing his doctorate in comparative literature he taught and pursued research as a fellow at the University of North Carolina, Columbia University, the University of Vienna, and the Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Studies before accepting a position as a member of the faculty in Eger. A member of the executive board of the International Association for Hungarian Studies, he has published extensively on Hungarian literature and literary history, and his translations of Hungarian prose and poetry have appeared in several collections and literary journals.

GEORGE PÓR (UK) is an evolutionary thinker, researcher in collective intelligence and strategic learning partner to changemakers and visionary leaders in civil society, business and government. He is Director of School of Commoning, Fellow of Future Considerations and founder of CommunityIntelligence, among other. He was active in the student movements in the sixties in Hungary, was teaching and doing research in France and California, where he was one of the first in the eighties to organize virtual communities and utilize network technologies.

LÁSZLÓ Z. KAVRALICS (Hungary) is an associate professor at the University of Szeged with a PhD in History. He researches information society in theory and practice, as well as information policy, strategy issues, information science, and the Internet economy. At the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, he founded and directed the Information Society Research Institute (ITTK), and directed the Information and Knowledge Management Department. He is the author of numerous studies and popular series, and besides his scientific work he is a writer of numerous short science fiction stories.