Anja Bozic | Slovenia
Topic at CEU: Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder and his Letters: Between History and Convention
Supervisors: Marcell Sebők, Endre György Szőnyi

Eylül Cetinbas | Turkey
Topic at CEU: A Bride of Christ and an Intercessor of Muhammad: Comparative Saints Cults of St Catherine and Rabia of Basra
Supervisors: Gabor Klaniczay, Günhan Börekci

Mónika Gácsi | Hungary
Topic at CEU: Looking at the Past through Medieval Glass
Supervisors: József Laszlovszky, Alice M. Choyke

Erzsébet Kovács | Hungary
Topic at CEU: Roman and Late Antique Cuisine
Supervisors: Volker Menze, Gerhard Jaritz

Gergely Szoboszlay | Hungary
Topic at CEU: Role of Private Towers in the 13th century's Urban Transition
Supervisors: József Laszlovszky, Katalin Szende, Béla Zsolt Szakács

Antonia-Oana Avram | Romania
Topic at CEU: The role of travel literature collectors in 16th century: ideologies, knowledge and the construction of otherness
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