Moderator/s:
Gabriella Lukacs, University of Pittsburgh
Erica Edwards, University of Pittsburgh
Panelists:
Zsuzsanna Szelényi, Founding Director, CEU Democracy Institute Leadership Academy
Ms. Szelényi is a former politician from Hungary, foreign policy specialist, author and Founding Director at the CEU Democracy Institute Leadership Academy. She is conducting research on how autocratic politics is influencing and shaping the future of the European Union. In the framework of the Democracy Institute Leadership Academy, her team develops a curriculum supporting pro-democracy activists in Central and Eastern Europe. Her book, Tainted Democracy, Viktor Orbán and the Subversion of Hungary, was listed among the best books in 2023 by Foreign Affairs.
Stefano Bottoni, Università degli Studi di Firenze (UNIFI)
Dr. Bottoni, PhD in Modern and Contemporary History (University of Bologna, 2005), is an Associate Professor at the SAGAS Department of the University of Florence. Between 2009 and 2019, he was a senior research fellow at the Research Center for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was visiting fellow at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (Potsdam, 2012), and Fellow of Imre Kertész Kolleg (Jena, 2015). His current research focuses on the historical legacies of illiberal rule in contemporary Hungary. He is the author of Orbán, Un despota in Europa (Roma, Salerno Editrice, 2019) and Obsessed with Power: Orbán's Hungary, published in Hungarian by Magyar Hang Könyvek in 2023.
