International Research Universities Network and Catholic Universities Partnership Graduate Students’ CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

The summer of 2013 marked a significant event in the history of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and particularly in the history of the two academic partnerships the university is a member of: the International Research Universities Network (IRUN) and the Catholic Universities Partnership (CUP), a network established and supported by the University of Notre Dame. Between 29 and 31 August, 2013, almost 70 graduate students currently enrolled in Masters or Doctoral studies, gathered for a three-day conference in the historic venue of Szent Adalbert Conference Centre in Esztergom, the historical capital of Hungary and centre of the Hungarian Catholic Church. The primary aim of the conference was to encourage student research and tighten the connections among members of IRUN and CUP, by sharing both scientific results and interests that may lead to further cooperation and joint projects in the future. The conference was made possible by a generous grant of the European Union and the New Széchenyi Plan by the National Development Agency of the Hungarian Government. These days, when in many countries the humanities are fighting day-to-day battles to prove not only their popularity among students, but also their relevance and significance to the globalised world of the twenty-first century, this conference and the present volume of the conference proceedings may serve as a bright beacon of hope for everyone worried about the future of such traditional disciplines. During the three days of the conference, students of twelve universities from all over Europe presented high quality scholarly research in a wide range of topics from all traditionally important disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, engaging in fruitful discussions and opening up an amazing number of vistas for further projects, proved that there is indeed a future to the academia, to universities, to the young generations of European intellectuals. The structure of the volume is fundamentally thematic, with essays organised on the basis of the broader disciplines they have originated from; thus the reader will find essays on literary studies, from traditional philological work to contemporary theoretical arguments on literature and criticism; these are followed by investigations into various areas of theoretical and applied linguistics. Historical studies offer a natural introduction to interdisciplinary studies within the social sciences, political and economic studies. The volume is rounded off by studies on philosophy, theology and psychology, and in this way it provides ample illustration from nearly the whole spectrum of disciplines that belong to the humanities and social sciences. All thirty-one articles that have been selected for inclusion in the volume have undergone meticulous editing, and in some cases careful revision by authors, both as regards content and language, to ensure that the final form of the volume will remain a source of pride for the authors even when they have reached the peaks of their academic careers in the years to come.