CEU Podcasts

In this interview, Michał Machalski discusses his recent thesis research into rulers, subjects, and loyalty in 13th Century Poland’. The thirteenth century in Poland was a period of intense turmoil and fragmentation, with many of the nobility battling for supremacy, and for the right to be King, while the Teutonic Knights made increasing incursions into Polish lands.In this complex and fractured period, Michał looked at aspects of loyalty between the rulers from the local Piast dynasty and their subjects; how this loyalty was expressed, enacted, enforced, rewarded, and when lacking, how disloyalty was punished. Although loyalty within the church was beyond the scope of his research, Michał explains how senior Bishops became arbiters of loyalty and guarantors of oaths. Michał shows how through declarations and demonstrations of loyalty, the Polish society was held together and enabling Kazimierz III the Great to gain the throne and unite Poland. This podcast is part of a series of interviews covering central Europe in the medieval period for MECERN and CEU Department of Historical Studies.Image - Duke of Wroclaw & Krakow Henryk IV Probus, from Codex Manesse 1305-40 (27668147667)

The Collaborative Seminar Cultures of Hate and Oppression was coordinated to address the complexities of these topics that are of urgent global importance in our era of continuing discrimination, forced migration, socially sanctioned violence, and war.2026

Pillanatképek - nyitott akadémia a második világháború történetéről.Az MTA II. világháború története albizottság előadássorozata.A magyar szélsőjobboldal és a Horthy-korszak kutatójaként számos alkalommal hívtak művelődési intézményekbe és iskolákba, hogy tartsak előadást az érdeklődő nagyközönségnek és diákoknak a Horthy-kori antiszemitizmusról és holokausztról. Ismeretterjesztő kiadványok, kiállítások és a két világháború közti időszakot bemutató tankönyvfejezet szakértőjeként is szembesültem a kérdéssel: mit és hogyan érdemes bemutatni e témákkal kapcsolatban? E tapasztalatokat igyekszem összegezni az előadásban. Azt, hogy milyen megközelítések, tartalmak átadása "működött" és mi volt kontraproduktív az ismeretterjesztés és oktatás során. Mi volt túl sok és vajon miért? Milyen hasonlatok, illusztrációk és feladatok váltak be a gyakorlatban, s melyek nem. Egyáltalán: lehet-e ma még úgy tanítani történelmet, mint ahogy mi tanultuk anno? Kell-e? És miért?

Adinel Dincă is Associate Professor at Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca. In this interview he talks about his major research project “Restory – Recovering Past Stories for the Future: A Synergistic Approach to Textual and Oral Heritage of Small Communities”. While this project focuses on the little known group of Transylvanian Saxons, it includes partners from all over Europe. The project aims to rediscover local experiences and micro histories by working along-side local galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, to share them with the localities that the stories came from.Adinel breaks down how the endeavour was developed, how the several elements of the project function and how the partners are working together. He also points out that the research is particularly interested in the local stories of good resource management, whether this is through primary education to build better human resources, or through re-use and re-purposing of physical resources for pragmatic and symbolic aims.This podcast is part of a series of interviews covering central Europe in the medieval period for MECERN and CEU Department of Historical Studies.The Restory project is funded by the European Research Executive Agency through the Research and Innovation Actions, Cluster 2 - Culture, Creativity, Inclusive Society, Pillar 2 of Horizon Europe (call HORIZON-CL2-2023-HERITAGE-01-04: Cultural heritage in transformation – facing change with confidence; Project nr. 101132781). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The Collaboration Code is a podcast that explores engaged research and collaborative projects between academic and civil actors. The first guest of the series is Yuki Seidler, manager of CEU's Science for Society Hub. The episode deals with the changing role of universities and engaged research as a way to respond to the challenges academia is facing. We talk about how social sciences navigate their way in an increasingly impact-focused environment and how NGOs and universities can help each other to reach real changes in the world. We touch upon the importance and difficulty of opening up the university to larger groups of people, the new ways of knowledge creation, and the future vision for the 21st century's higher education.The podcast was recorded at Central European University. The theme music was composed by Dominik Hollósi for The Collaboration Code.

In this episode of Protecting Academia at Risk, we look at what happens when the boundaries between science, politics, and ideology are deliberately blurred and who benefits from that blurring.Featuring Andrea Pető, Dina Gusejnova, Nadia Kiss, Bernhard Kleeberg, Alina Drăgolea, and Elena Trifan, the conversation moves from the attacks on gender studies to the deeper structural mechanisms that allow entire fields to be silenced, renamed, defunded, or quietly erased.We discuss how academic freedom is weaponized, how objectivity is hijacked, and why pretending to be “apolitical” has become its own political stance. From Hungary to Romania, Berkeley to Kyiv, we trace the multiple ways academic work can disappear and the small, powerful strategies of resistance that allow it to survive.We also talk about, off-campus dissent, the role of social media for scholars, and the visibility strategies Ukrainian researchers have developed under war and displacement. It’s an episode about activism inside academia, the politics of knowledge, and the micro-gestures that keep critical scholarship alive.If you want to hear more about these themes, listen to our podcast series “Protecting Academia at Risk”. Episodes available here, on Substack and Apple Play

In this episode, we have a special guest Professor Achim Kemmerling and we talk about what it means to protect knowledge when mobility is not an option.Professor Achim Kemmerling leads Research-at-Risk, an initiative at the Brandt School that reimagines how universities in safer contexts can support scholars working under authoritarian regimes or in resource-poor environments. From Myanmar to Afghanistan, his work traces the fragile infrastructures that sustain teaching and research under threat and often outside official recognition or accreditation.We discuss why most existing programs remain trapped in the language of excellence, why mobility has become a default but insufficient response, and what solidarity looks like when it is built from below. You can find more about this iniative on this link: Scholars at riskIt’s a conversation about bureaucracy and hope, about academic freedom that survives not through exile alone but through connection, care, and persistence.Follow us on social media:Facebook LinkedInSubstack