Zsuzsanna Lénárt-Muszka - CV

Zsuzsanna Lénárt-Muszka, PhD

Curriculum Vitae

May 2026

 

Research interests

The portrayals of motherhood, womanhood, and embodiment in contemporary North American (US & Canadian) short fiction.

 

Teaching experience

  • 2024- : assistant professor, North American Department, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen, Hungary

 

Qualifications, education

  • 2016-2020: Doctoral School of Literature and Cultural Studies, North American Studies, University of Debrecen, title: PhD
    • Dissertation defense: 8 November, 2021, certificate no.: 180/2021/PHD, qualification: summa cum laude
    • Title of dissertation: Mothers in the Wake of Slavery: The Im/possibility of Motherhood in Post-1980 African American Women’s Prose
  • 2015-2017: teacher of English, MA, University of Debrecen
  • 2007-2012: BA in English Studies, University of Debrecen; Business English and translation specialization; MA in American Studies, University of Debrecen

 

Awards

  • 2025: Petőfi S. János publication award for a monograph (in Hungarian) on the afterlives of slavery in contemporary African American mothertexts (Lehetetlen választások. Kortárs afroamerikai anyaszövegek és a rabszolgaság utóélete, Balassi, 2024)
  • 2024: The University of Debrecen's Publication Support Program
  • 2023: Publication Award of the Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen
  • 2018: Universitas Grant in the category of Recognition of Student Academic Achievement

 

Grants, scholarships, and projects

 

Memberships and positions in professional associations

  • Research centers:
  • 2024- : Center for International Migration, University of Debrecen, secretary, course co-ordinator
  • 2023- : Gender Studies Centre (part of AtGender), University of Debrecen, member
  • 2021- : Canadian Studies Centre, University of Debrecen, member

Other academic organizations:

  • 2024- : International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship (IAMAS), member
  • 2022- : American Hungarian Educators Association (AHEA), member
  • 2021- : Central European Asociation for Canadian Studies (CEACS), member
  • 2018-: Gender Studies Network of the Society for the Study of English, member
  • 2018: Workshop of the journal Alföld, member
  • 2016- : European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) and Hungarian Society for the Study of English (HUSSE), member
  • 2016- : European Association for American Studies (EAAS) and Hungarian Association for American Studies (HAAS), member
  • 2011-2012: Hatvani István College for Advanced Study, member
  • 2009-2010: Talent Management Program (DETEP)

 

 

Academic experience

  • Editorial board membership

2025- : assistant editor at HJEAS Books, a book series launched by the Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies published by Sciendo

2024 - : editorial member of Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, a peer-reviewed, Scopus-indexed journal

 

  • Editing

Edited volume:

Contemporary Maternal Subjectivities on the Page and on the Screen, Sciendo, 2027 (with Zsófia Orosz-Réti)

Edited issue:

Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, special issue: Uniquely Canadian Narratives, 2026

(Co-)edited thematic blocks:

    • Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, Johnson-Reed: Critical Reflections on the Global Legacy of US Immigration Quotas, 2026 (with Balázs Venkovits)
    • Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, Motherhoods around the World, 2027 (with Zsófia Orosz-Réti)
    • Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, Distinctly Canadian Voices, 2027

 

  • Peer reviewer

Journal articles:

Mississippi Quarterly, World Literature Studies, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice,  Journal of Narrative Theory, Edited collections: Demeter Press

 

  • Conference organization

Organizing international conferences

  • 2024: co-organizer: “Looking Back and Ahead: Exploring Uniquely Canadian Cultural Narratives”, Debrecen University Symposium, 2024, University of Debrecen
  • 2024: co-organizer: “Johnson-Reed 100 Years Later”: Critical Reflections on the Global Legacy of US Immigration Quotas, 1924-2024, University of Debrecen

Other

  • 2024: organizing and chairing the panel Representations of Motherhood in Canada at the conference Looking Back and Ahead: Exploring Uniquely Canadian Cultural Narratives (Debrecen)
  • 2019: organizing and chairing the panel Black Women’s Experiences of Trauma at the HAAS 13 conference (Debrecen)
  • 2018- : (co)-organizing the Young Researchers Workshop of the Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen
  • 2022- : co-ordinating the collaboration between the American Corner Debrecen and the Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen ; organizing the “IEAS goes to AC” workshop series
  • 2022-: launching and co-organizing the video essay competition of the North American Department for BA students in Europe
  • 2017-: co-organizing DEBate, the English-language debate competition of the University of Debrecen; serving on the jury

 

  • Other tasks and committees
    • Writing Center of the Institute of English and American Studies; 2020-2023: tutor; then: faculty advisor, organizer
    • annual complex testing and assessment of the English language proficiency of Stipendium Hungaricum PhD students at the Institute of English and American Studies (Debrecen, Hungary) (2018-2023)
    • 2017-: test-maker, examiner, and co-coordinator of the English Yardstick Exam of the Institute of English and American Studies; co-developer of the diagnostic test DEtect
    • Member of the Institute Council, 2021-
    • PR and recruitment coordinator of the Institute, 2021-2024

 

  • Teaching; mentoring with gifted students
    • Supervising students for the National student researchers' conference, in the Hatvani István College of Advanced Study and DETEP: Fazekas Fruzsina (2022- ), Valicskó Sára Viktória (2023- ), Takács Jázmin Tiara (2026-)
    • Thesis supervision: teacher training 5, BA 8, MA 3
    • Courses taught: BA 10, teacher training 6, American Studies MA 1, MA in English teacher training 1, MA in Instruction in English as a foreign language 1, , PhD 1, university-wide electives: 3
    • Courses developed: Canadian Short Fiction (MA), 21st-Century North America Through Short Fiction (BA), Black Women’s Writing (BA), Mentoring Part-time Instructors: Teaching Toolkit (PhD), Debating Skills/Vitakészség, érveléstechnika (BA-MA-teacher training), (Hi)Stories of Migration (BA-MA-teacher training)
    • Other:

 

      • RRF grant: Vitakészség, érveléstechnika and Debating Skills
      • E-learning course: All Eyes on EYE. Elearning.unideb.hu. With Dr. Ildikó Csépes, Dr. Balázs Venkovits, Dr. Fruzsina Szabó. 2022.
      • E-learning course: Útmutató a sikeres és önálló nyelvtanuláshoz: Kézikönyv és módszertani kisokos a DE hallgatóinak és munkatársainak (2021). Elearning.unideb.hu. With Dr. Fruzsina Szabó. English version: Boost Your Englsih, 2024.
      • E-learning course: Vita és innováció: Bevezetés a vitamódszer használatába a tanórán és azon kívül (2019. Moodle. With Dr. Balázs Venkovits.

 

 

Conference presentations

 

  1. 2026 October: Symbols and Identities in Canada, Budapest:„Bodies in Crisis: Neoliberal Health and Embodied Precarity in Shashi Bhat’s short stories”
  2. 2024 October: Looking Back and Ahead - Exploring Uniquely Canadian Cultural Narratives (Debrecen University Symposium): “Mapping the Maternal: Narrating Embodiment in Canadian Short Fiction”
  3. 2024 June: IAMAS, Boston and online: “Maternal Embodiment and Reproductive Choices in Contemporary US Short Fiction”
  4. 2024 May: Maple Leaf and Eagle conference, Helsinki/online: “Language and Belonging in Selected Stories by David Bezmozgis and Téa Mutonji”
  5. 2023 April: EAAS Access to Equality: Reproductive Justice in the United States conference, Debrecen: “Portrayals of Reproductive Rights Abuses and Embodiment in Contemporary Black, Chicana, and Native American Fiction”
  6. 2023 March: Women and Their Body conference, Paderborn, Németo./online: „Resisting Reproductive Rights Abuses: Womanhood and Motherhood in Contemporary American Short Fiction: Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s ’The Old Doctor’s Story, ’Danielle Evans’s ’Harvest,’ and Janet Campbell Hale’s ’Claire’”
  7. 2023 January: HUSSE conference, Miskolc: „Revisiting the Ghost Trope in Black Women’s Writing: Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s ’The Old Doctor’s Story’”
  8. 2022 October: Canadian Landscapes, a Central European Association for Canadian Studies conference, Budapest: „“Gendered Emotional Landscapes in Téa Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty”
  9. 2022 June: Neo-slave Narratives, Liverpool, UK/online: „Challenging the Lenticular Logic of Representation in Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose”
  10. 2022 May: Maple Leaf and Eagle conference, Helsinki/online: “Against the Disfigurement of Black Girlhood: Rebellious Teenagers in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones and Téa Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty”
  11. 2022 April: AHEA (American Hungarian Educators Association) conference, online: „Embodiment, Violence, and Intertextuality in Anna Szabó T.’s Szabadulógyakorlat.”
  12. 2022 March: Southeastern American Studies Association Conference, Birmingham, AL, USA/online: “The Regenerative Potential of Motherhood in Contemporary Black Women’s Writing.”
  13. 2022 January: HUSSE conference, Budapest/online: „The Ailing Maternal Body as a Site of Unknowability and Violence in Willa C. Richards’s ’Failure to Thrive’”
  14. 2021 December: Társadalmi innováció és egyetem a 21. században (Social Innovation and the University in the 21st Century), Debrecen/online: „Vita és innováció: a vitamódszer iskolai alkalmazása a társadalmi innováció szolgálatában” (Debating and Innovation: Using Debating in the Classroom in the Service of Social Innovation”)
  15. 2021 November: Alice Munro 90: Central European Interpretations konferencia, Budapest/online: „Ineffable Motherhoods: The Limits of Narratability in Alice Munro’s ’My Mother’s Dream’ and Willa C. Richards’s ’Failure to Thrive’”
  16. 2021 September: Contemporary Women Writing Race: Textual Interventions and Intersections Symposium konferencia, Loughborough, UK/online: „The Gendered, Racialized, and Embodied Aspects of Reproductive Technologies in Danielle Evans’s ’Harvest’”
  17. 2019 June: The Postmillennial Sensibility in Anglophone Literatures, Cultures and Media II. conference, Kosice, Slovakia: “Harvesting (from) the Black Female Body: Egg Donation and Motherhood in ’Harvest’ by Danielle Evans”
  18. 2019 June: HAAS conference, Debrecen, Hungary: “’From our own lips’: Narrative Authority and/as Healing in Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose”
  19. 2019 May: Tavaszi Szél conference, Debrecen, Hungary: “A vitamódszer alkalmazásának hatása a társadalmi innovációra: a vitázás elsajátításának és oktatásának összefüggései különböző kompetenciák és attitűdök fejlődésével” (“Using Debating in the Classroom and Its Impact on Social Innovation”)
  20. 2019 May: Tavaszi Szél conference, Debrecen, Hungary: “’Why I has the child say it back’: Trauma, Motherhood, and Memory in Dessa Rose by Sherley Anne Williams”
  21. 2019 January: HUSSE conference, Veszprém, Hungary: “Embodiment and Maternal Identity in Slavery: Sherley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose”
  22. 2018 November: International Migration: Practice, Analysis, Discourse – Research and Methodological Innovation conference, Debrecen, Hungary: “Módszertani innováció a társadalmi problémák megvitatásában” (“Methodological Innovation in Discussing Social Problems”)
  23. 2018 May: HAAS conference, Budapest: “The Black Maternal Body in the 21st Century: The Politics of Media Representation”
  24. 2018 May: In/Equalities—Narrative and Critique, Resistance and Solidarity conference, Budapest: “Mothers, Mentors, and Cultures of Solidarity in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Sapphire’s Push”
  25. 2018 March: Interdisciplinarity in the Carpathian Basin – A conference organized by Márton Áron College for Advanced Study, Debrecen, Hungary: “A fekete női test kulturális reprezentációi: kortárs társadalmi viták” (“Cultural Representations of the Black Female Body: Contemporary Debates”)
  26. 2018 March: Fiatal Irodalmárok Fóruma, Debrecen, Hungary: “Az anyává válás traumája a kortárs afroamerikai prózában” (“The Trauma of Becoming a Mother in Contemporary African American Prose”)
  27. 2017 October: The American Short Story: New Horizons conference, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany: “Race, Class, and the Politics of Egg Donation in ‘Harvest’ by Danielle Evans”
  28. 2017 September: V. Hungarian Interdisciplinary Conference on Humor, Piliscsaba, Hungary: “Disenfranchisement, Self-reflexivity, and Identity Positions: Humor in African American Literature”
  29. 2017 March: Fiatal Irodalmárok Fóruma, Debrecen, Hungary: “A rabszolgaság hagyatéka: Az anyai test reprezentációi az afro-amerikai irodalomban” (“The Legacy of Slavery: Representations of Maternal Bodies in African American Literature”)
  30. 2017 May: Gendering the Urban Imaginary: Fantasy, Affect, Transgression conference, Debrecen: “Urban and Emotional Landscapes in Edward P. Jones’s ‘Spanish in the Morning’”
  31. 2017 May: VI. Interdisciplinary Doctoral Conference, Pécs, Hungary: “Transgression, Shame, and Rebellion: The Politics of Breastfeeding in African American Literature”
  32. 2017 HUSSE conference, Eger, Hungary: “The Abnormal Body in Push by Sapphire”
  33. 2011 Hatvani István Szakkollégium workshop, Debrecen, Hungary: “Állatszimbolika Ralph Ellison A láthatatlan című regényében” (“Animal Symbolism in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man”)
  34. 2011 Hatvani István Szakkollégium Students’ Conference, Debrecen, Hungary: “Állatszimbolika Ralph Ellison A láthatatlan című regényében” (“Animal Symbolism in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man”)

 

Other lectures held/workshops led

  1. 2026 January: The Art of Less: Flash Fiction and the Limits of the Short Story, University of Gdansk, Poland
  2. 2024 March: Short Story Day at the American Corner, Debrecen
  3. 2022-2023: organizing and co-ordinating the Institute’s Researchers’ Night event; in 2024, representing the Canadian Studies Centre’s event at Researchers’ Night
  4. 2023 April: iTOLC Academy, leading a workshop for ESL teachers on the use of debating in the classroom
  5. 2019 April: Workshop of Comparative Literature and Culture (Komparatisztikai Műhely), Debrecen, Hungary: “Az anyaság lehetetlensége: hiány és tabu az afroamerikai női irodalomban” (“The Impossibility of Motherhood: Lack and Taboo in African American Literature”)
  6. 2018 February: Workshop of Comparative Literature and Culture (Komparatisztikai Műhely), Debrecen, Hungary: “A fekete női test ábrázolásának problémái a freak show-tól Beyoncé-ig” (“Representing the Black Female Body from Freak Shows to Beyoncé: Some Problems”)

 

Last update: 2026. 05. 09. 10:39