Ever heard of the “Hate Speech” Monologues?
I’m sure you have. Dr. Péter Molnár, the current European slam poetry champion, in his dutiful perseverance, recruits students who are willing to tell their truth about how they face prejudices. When I met Péter last fall at Welcome Afternoon, I was ecstatic about the idea of expressing and sharing my own spoken word…

Hungary: a land known for many things: spas, palinka, ruin bars, but most of all paprika. Since moving to Hungary, many Central European University (CEU) students will have noticed the never-ending barrage of information about paprika. It is hard to escape the peddling of paprika while walking past the stores on Vaci Út or past the dozens of paprika stalls in the Great Market Hall. Surrounded by the pyramids of paprika, an unknowing bystander, such as myself, may not understand the Hungarian obsession with this spicy pepper. Hitting the streets of Budapest, my mission was to find the answer to one burning question: Why are Hungarians obsessed with paprika?…

Somewhere about 32km away from the ancient Hungarian city of Pécs is a tiny village called Dinnyeberki. If you didn’t know about it, you’d drive right past the barely noticeable gravel road just off the main road. And you’d never find out about the idyllic eco-village of Gyűrűfű that is situated atop a gently rolling hill, overlooking a traditional Hungarian landscape that consists of a sweeping valley bordered by thick forest – all set to a soundtrack of never-ending bird song and horses’ happy neighs…

A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of sitting down with István Bart, a climate policy professional at Klíma Politika with over 15 years of experience on a global, European and national level. Climate change is virtually on every government’s agenda in our day and age and since we live in Hungary, we wanted to find out what the Orbán government’s stance on climate change is. This is what we discovered…

Every year, the International Day of Roma people is celebrated on April 8th. Roma people (often called by many all over the world pejoratively as “Gypsies”) celebrate this day as their holiday. This day was declared a holiday in 1990, as a tribute to the founding of the International Romani Union in Orpington near London in 1971…

Sexual harassment on university campuses is a serious and ongoing issue. There is no published data about harassment at CEU, but a 2015 survey of 525 graduate students at a large research university in the United States found that 38% of women and around 23% of men had experienced sexual harassment from their faculty or staff, and 57% of women and 38% of men experienced harassment from other students over the course of their graduate studies…

Vienna, just three hours away by bus and two and a half by train from Budapest, shares some common cuisines, history and now—most importantly to us—shares the Central European University (CEU). In this time of transition for the university, many details regarding the transnational move of the university, including where in Vienna the school will be located, remain to be seen…

It’s on a sunny afternoon in mid-August that I pack my pencil, a booklet and a flashlight in my backpack. My destination is a five-hundred-year-old chapel located in my hometown. The historic city of Esztergom is famous for its picturesque landscape, medieval old-town, and for the massive Basilica on the castle hill. Only a few visitors, however, know that one part of this huge cathedral hides something unique and unusual: a medieval chapel with more than a thousand carvings on its marble walls…