Benjamin Borbas | Hungary
Topic at CEU: English participation in the Lithuanian campaigns of the Teutonic Order
Supervisors: Jozsef Laszlovszky, Balazs Nagy

Benjámin studied archaeology and history at the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, where he first graduated with a bachelor degree in History, then obtained his master’s at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern European History in 2017. Both of his theses concerned his main field of interest, the warfare of the Teutonic Knights. His BA thesis examined the feigned retreat of the Lithuanians at the battle of Grünwald, and his MA thesis dealt with the English participation in the Lithuanian campaigns of the Teutonic Order. In 2015, Benjámin spent six months at the University of Konstanz, Germany as an Erasmus student and conducted short research trips in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin. At CEU, he will study the diplomatic, military and economic cooperation between England and the Teutonic Order.

Andy Chen | USA
Topic at CEU: Patron Saints and Imperial Power in Early and Middle Byzantium
Supervisor: Gabor Klaniczay, Istvan Perczel

Andy completed her BA in classics, linguistics, and medieval studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017. Her previous research topics include body marking practices in classical reception; the militarisation of the Michaeline cult in Apulia; western influences in the twelfth-century Byzantine novel Rhodanthe and Dosikles; and the creation of sacred space in early- to middle-Byzantine military religion. Her research interests are primarily in martyrdom, warrior saints, imperial power dynamics, diplomacy, and sacred space.

Emy Joy | India
Topic at CEU: Syrian Christians and Identities: A Study on the Influence of Theology, Rituals and Practices on the Identity Formation of the Community
Supervisor: Istvan Perczel

Tea Klaric | Croatia
Topic at CEU: Medieval history of child apprenticeship in the Dalmatian town of Trogir from the second half of 13th till the second half of 14th century
Supervisor: Gerhard Jaritz

Gustavo Montagna von Zeschau | Argentina
Topic at CEU: Invincible Bishops: Practices and Representations of Episcopal Military Action in Medieval Lotharingia
Supervisor: Daniel Ziemann

Gustavo obtained his BA degree in History at the University of Buenos Aires. As an undergraduate student he participated in various research projects ranging from the continuities and transformations in literary and discursive genres to the construction of bishop’s figure in episcopal narratives from the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Besides his active participation in national conferences, Gustavo is an active collaborator of the biannual “International Congress of Fictions and Narratives in Antiquity, Late Antiquity and Middle Ages,” at the University of Buenos Aires and he authored book chapters published by the universities of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. His general research interests concern medieval warfare practices and representations, as well as to the figure of bishops in medieval Germany and Lorraine. His research at CEU will focus on the way in which the bishops of Utrecht, Liege and Trier were represented in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when they participated in war. Special attention will be paid to the narrative reconstruction of battles’ spatiality in diverse primary sources from the dioceses concerned.

Ya Ning | China
Topic at CEU: The Kingdom of Medieval Hungary and the Latin European Communication Network about Mongol Empire in Thirteenth century
Supervisors: Balazs Nagy, Jozsef Laszlovszky

Maria Paula Rey | Argentina
Topic at CEU: Political and Territorial Identities in the Angevin World: Gerald of Wales and the “Angevin Empire”
Supervisor: Gabor Klaniczay

Maria Paula has a six years degree in History from the University of Buenos Aires, and she is currently finishing an MA in Conceptual History at the National University of San Martín (Argentina) with a dissertation on the historiography of the “Angevin Empire.” She has participated in several funded projects at the University of Buenos Aires and the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina studying the political and juridical aspects of the Middle Ages. She holds a Teaching Assistant position at the University of Buenos Aires, where she teaches history of political ideas. Her wider research interests include the political, juridical and territorial realities of the “Angevin Empire” in the twelfth century. At CEU she will focus on the work of Gerald of Wales and the way in which political and territorial identities were shaped and understood in twelfth-century England.

David Rockwell | UK
Topic at CEU: Interplay between economic developments and legal thought in early Byzantium
Supervisor: Volker Menze

David Rockwell studies the legal, economic and social history of late antiquity and early Byzantium. After studying Classics at the University of California at Berkeley, David obtained law degrees from Cambridge University and Harvard Law School. Following more than 25 years of practice at a major Wall Street law firm, David has returned to academic life to pursue his interests in the ancient and medieval worlds. He looks forward to working with, and learning from, colleagues of all ages while at CEU.

Antonia-Oana Avram | Romania
Topic at CEU: Placing identities: The otherness of the Levant in 15th century pilgrims' travel accounts
Supervisor: Marcell Sebok, Gerhard Jaritz

Antonia-Oana received her BA in History at the University of Bucharest in 2018, where her undergraduate thesis studied the construction of national identity in Elizabethan England in the works of English promoters of colonization. At CEU she will study perceptions as a historical problem focusing on the ways in which fifteenth-century European travel accounts about the Levant played a role in creating and disseminating national stereotypes and identities. Her current research interests revolve around the history of ideas, intellectual history, power relations, travel literature and cartography in the Early Modern period.

Michal Machalski | Poland
Topic at CEU: Concepts of Fidelity in the Earliest Central European Historiography: A Comparative Study in the Mentalities of Regional Elites
Supervisors: Balazs Nagy, Katalin Szende

Michał received his BA in History at the University of Wrocław. His undergraduate thesis focused on depiction of fidelity in Gallus Anonymus’s Gesta principum Polonorum. During his studies he participated in an international research project “Constantinople-Kucukcekmece: The Destination Port of the Way from the Varangians to the Greeks, a Centre of “Byzantinization” of the Rus’ Community,” organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences. His main research interest remains in Central European narrative sources and in the way they reflect the cultural and social development of the region. At CEU Michał will focus on the mentalities and political imagination of Central European elites by examining concepts of fidelity depicted in the earliest surviving Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian narrative sources.

Iskander Rocha Parker | Mexico
Topic at CEU: Comparative analysis between Lodovico Lazzarelli’s version and Marsilio Ficino’s version of the Corpus Hermeticum
Supervisor: Endre Gyorgy Szonyi

Iskander obtained his BA in Classic Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), completing a thesis about The Hermetic Celestial World in De Vita Coelitus Comparanda. He actively participated in the International Congress of Philosophy in Mexico organised by the Mexican Association of Philosophy, presenting his research on the Liber Alchimiae.  Before his studies at CEU, he taught Spanish and Latin language and literature in a secondary school. Iskander’s main research interests include Hermetism and its reception during the Renaissance.

Halit Serkan Simen | Turkey
Topic at CEU: The Changing Power Relations in the Late Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire: The Transformation of the Patrimonial Empire and the Role of Timar Appointments
Supervisor: Günhan Börekçi

Serkan obtained his BA degree in History from Middle East Technical University (METU). His field of interest lies in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ottoman history, focusing on the network and power relations of pasha households and the transformation of the patrimonial structure of the Empire. As an undergraduate, he examined the “Decline Paradigm” in the context of the advice literature, which emerged during the General Crisis of the seventeenth century. Serkan’s current research focuses on the competition of elite pasha households between 1580 and 1594 and the role of appointment (tevcihat) as a tool for the consolidation of power. His other interests include military history, Ottoman historiography, ideology and imperial institutionalization, foundation period of the state and Anatolian civilizations in antiquity.

Lili Toth | Hungary
Topic at CEU: The Painted Textile from Riggisberg Against the Background of Hellenistic Judeo-Christian Art
Supervisor: Bela Zsolt Szakacs, Gyorgy Gereby

Lili obtained her BA degree in art history and religious studies at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest. Her research focused on a Late Antique painted textile artifact decorated with Old Testament scenes. She spent a semester in the University of Florence in 2016, and in 2018 she worked as a research assistant with the International Archeological Institute of Tel Aviv University. She participated in the 2018 CEU Undergraduate Conference in History. Her research interests include the iconography and the common roots of the Classical, Jewish and early Christian art. Her research at CEU will focus on how Roman iconography influenced Hellenistic Jewish and ancient Christian artistic language. She is interested in the study of ancient and modern languages and she is a member of an art colony as a practicing artist.

Jordan Voltz | USA
Topic at CEU: Medieval Hungary and Modern Memory: The Politics of Tragic National Narratives Hypothesis
Supervisors: Gabor Klaniczay, Marcell Sebok

Eva Bardits | Hungary
Topic at CEU: A Portrait of Christ (Christian Museum, Esztergom, Inv. No. 55.348.)
Supvervisors: Bela Zsolt Szakacs

Eva graduated with a BA in Art History from Eotvos Lorand University in 2017. Formerly she spent a semester at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts studying painting and completed an internship at Varfok Gallery in Budapest in 2016. Her research has dealt with the works of Petrus Christus and Gerard David, especially those in Hungarian collections. Her current research interest remains in early Dutch painting, but might broaden to include other related developments such as the Northern Renaissance and late Gothic Hungarian art.

Sofia Bougioukli | Greece
Topic at CEU: Palladas' Epigrams
Supervisor: Volker Menze

Sofia received her BA in Classics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2016 and in the same year she attended the 6th International Summer School in Greek Palaeography at Lincoln College, Oxford. She is the co-author of “Κατάλογος Χειρογράφων της Εταιρείας Μακεδονικών Σπουδών”, the catalogue of manuscripts in the library of the Society for Macedonian Studies, forthcoming in Μακεδονικά in 2017. Her academic interests include the literature of Late Antiquity, Greek palaeography, textual criticism and the reception of classical literature in early Christian and Byzantine times. Her research at CEU will focus on the epigrams by Palladas of Alexandria, revisiting major scholarly questions related to this Greek poet and his epigrams.

John Kee 

Topic at CEU: Interpreting and Controlling Unsettled Landscape in Three 11th-12th Century Byzantine Texts
Supervisor: Volker Menze

John received his BA in Classical Languages and Literatures at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where his interests ranged from Latin Stoicism to Pindar. Those interests have since shifted decisively eastward and later: in addition to learning Syriac at CEU, he is pursuing an MA project on representations of space in Byzantine literature during the time of the arrival of the Turks.

Anna Romsics | Hungary
Topic at CEU: The Expulsion of Medieval Creditors: the Lombard bankers, Jews and the Templars- A case study of the Languedoc region 
Supvervisors: Carsten Wilke, Katalin Szende

Anna received her BA degree at Eötvös Loránd University, with a major in History and minor in Latin. During her BA, she studied the methods of conflict management in French territories in the Early Middle Ages, and Jewish quarters in medieval European cities. Currently, she is doing her MA at CEU, focusing on town history, and as a continuation of her BA thesis, she is looking at the topography of Jewish quarters in medieval France.

Lev Shadrin 

Lev Shadrin graduated in art history from Ilya Glazunov Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Moscow. His undergraduate thesis focused on the iconography and imagery of St. George, their development in Byzantine tradition and Russian culture between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. His academic interests include manuscript research; Byzantine paleography, epigraphy and codicology; comparative analysis of late antique and early Christian art; hagiography and cults of warrior saints. He participated in archaeological excavations of Graeco-Scythian settlements at the Belyaus and Kulchuk sites on the Black Sea shore for several seasons.

Jason Snider | USA
Topic at CEU: The Role of the Teutonic Order in King Sigismund's Defense of Hungary
Supvervisors: Jozsef Laszlovszky

Jason M. Snider graduated Summa cum Laude with a B.A. in History, and a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from the State University of New York at Oswego in May 2015. He presented a paper as an undergraduate titled: “Warfare and Prayer: Principles of the Teutonic Order in The Chronicle of Prussia” at the Thirty-Fifth Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum, Plymouth, NH in 2014, and another paper as an undergraduate titled: “The Adoption of Gutsherrschaft in the Medieval Baltic Region” at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum, Keane, NH in 2015. In 2014 he received the Mahar Memorial History Award honoring one senior each year in the field of history. He is also a member of Tau Sigma, Phi Alpha Theta, Phi Kappa Phi, and Alpha Sigma Lambda academic honor societies.

Roman Tymoshevskyi 

Roman received his BA in History from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. During his studies he took part in various archeological excavations of ancient and medieval sites in Ukraine. His current research interests lie in the shaping of etchnocultural and national identity in the Late Middle Ages. His proposed research topic at CEU focuses on images of national identity in fourteenth and early fifteenth-century England.

Agota Pinter| Hungary
Topic at CEU: A Srcibe of Chaucer: The Case of CUL, MS Dd.4.24
Supervisor: Zsuzsanna Reed, Tamas Karath

Agota studied English literature as an undergraduate at Pazmany Peter Catholic University in Hungary. Her paper concentrating on the cultural background of Cambridge University Library Dd.4.24, Canterbury Tales manuscript was awarded second place at the conference of the National Scientific Students' Association. Her proposed thesis at CEU, “Book Production in Late Medieval England: The Case of Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.4.24” continues this research with regard to the person of the scribe, the possible commissioner, and codicological details, such as the scribe's possible personal mark. This piece of research, based on archival research, is expected to assist in the mapping of the network of scribes and their practice in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century London.

Armand Zacelici 

Armand earned his BA in Music Composition and MA in Musicology from the University of Arts in Tirana, Albania. After graduation he worked at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and Arts Studies in Tirana where he conducted research on Albanian urban music. His research interests rest mainly in the historical study of urban musical tradition in Central Albania. Armand’s MA project at CEU focuses on a musicological and paleographical approach to Byzantine musical manuscripts in the Central State Archive of Albania. In the future Armand intends to gain more insight into the cultural-historical context of the intersection of music and religion.

Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary