Professor Ágnes Somló Interview
Considering the unique historical backdrop of the institute's establishment during a communist regime, how do you believe this founding context has influenced the ethos and identity of the English department?
The institute’s establishment took place after the change of the regime (1989) thus a new, free and happy enthusiasm was typical of Hungarians during that time. When I joined the staff of the faculty in 1997, I found that it was open and ready to embrace people of all parts of society or religion and I could feel the results of those intellectual movements of the 1980’s for years. We were free to find new ideas as well as incorporating old values into our curriculum. This merging old and new was also suggested by the buildings of our Campus at Piliscsaba, which is and will remain an important part of the history of our faculty and institute as well.
As one of the institute's longstanding faculty members, how have you maintained your enthusiasm and commitment to teaching English over the years?
I had (and still have) a special subject, namely translation and especially literary translation that I established as a separate field in our curriculum. Over the years I kept on renewing the way of teaching the different fields of translation adding any new results and managed to create a special choice of studies for BA students within the Institute as well as special trainings for postgraduate students in this trade. As you see I had no time to get bored my task was always producing new challenges as well as the growing number of students.
Can you share any memorable experiences or challenges you've encountered during your time at the institute, and how have they shaped your approach to teaching?
The challenges of creating a set of special courses were present all the time but the heroic work of the first years contained the publications of the best translations born during the seminars in 4 volumes and we had a 5th one, a bilingual volume published by our onetime university publisher. This volume had an interesting story. It started in December 2002 when I was the guest editor of the winter issue of ‘Vines’, a literary Web magazine by Ishmael Reed introducing universities around the world via the writings of their students. Ishmael Reed gave a lecture at Piliscsaba in April 2002 and afterwards, he offered me the opportunity to be the first Hungarian university to be introduced in his ‘Vines’. It was a nice prelude to the volume New Voices of Pázmány University published in 2004.
In what ways do you believe your deep-rooted institutional knowledge and experience contribute to the cohesion and effectiveness of the English department's academic community?
I find it a difficult question to answer because I like to believe that my work of more than two decades had some effect on the work and fame of the department as well as my modest theoretical work published in a number of articles. I am still leading postgraduate special training for literary translators so I am working on leaving a mark not only on the department but also in a wider range on Hungary’s literary life by way of our talented students. Certainly, there are also a number of my ex-students now teaching and carrying on our projects at the institute as well as in the frame of other schools and colleges.