Dr. Judit Ágnes Kádár

Keynote Title
“Beyond Otherness: Intersectionality, Ethnic Positioning and Fluid Identities in the Context of Postcolonial Blended Heritage Fiction”

Keynote Abstract
Among the conference themes, the reconceptualization of the established notions of boundaries is probably one of the broadest and most exciting ones. This particular presentation addresses aesthetic marginality, the New Mexico Frontier as a detrimental, contested and subversive space, the strategic value in pronouncing oneself marginal in the sense of cultural vacuum and hybridity, and agency reclaimed in the literary text. We shall observe a rather unexplored area of marginality, hybridity and Indigeneity: mixed heritage authors and visual artists of the Southwest, and their way of transcending the colonial paradigm and deflecting the binaries of race in the context of Laguna Pueblo related encounters and individuals born into a blended Euro-American and Indigenous heritage. On the one hand, the journey and spaces travelled through by the first group or their ancestors; on the other, the Native American tradition that is exposed to ethnocultural exchange are merged and challenged in narratives by Leslie M. Silko, Scott Momaday and Paula Gunn Allen. Laguna is a unique pueblo in New Mexico that has experienced the most cultural exchange due to the railroad and has given wonderful literary and visual arts expression of turning “conflicting bloods” into a “syllogistic mixed blood” asset. There is a general pattern of return to Indigenous spiritual roots and spaces (“wishful thinking of reconciliation”?) in these prose texts, reconnecting with tradition and at the same time evoking the special mixed perspective the characters possess. Furthermore, we can observe the reframing the notion of centre, too, from a colonial (national) centre to a spiritual one at the core of these individuals’ attachment to land and community. The dynamics of mobility and stability is an essential element in these novels that take us to the wonderful Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, far from the Heart of Empire, and close to the heart of blended-heritage people.


Brief bio: Judit Ágnes Kádár is the Director of International Relations at the University of Physical Education, Budapest. She taught American and Canadian culture studies at Eszterházy University, Eger for 25 years. She published Critical Perspectives on English-
Canadian Literature (1996) and Going Indian: Cultural Appropriation in Recent North American Literature (2012), co-edited Americana E-journal on mixed heritage and contributed to
The Routledge Companion to Native American Literature (2016). She has received some research grants (FEFA, FEP, FRP/CEACS, JFK, Fulbright) and worked as a guest lecturer at GCSU (GA, US), and at UNM (NM, US). She is a language examiner, interpreter and the head of the foreign language portfolio developing project of UPE. She has worked for internationalization at two HEIs. She was the country representative of CEACS, worked as the educational expert of the Central Bank of Hungary, and served as the co-chair of the International Committee of the Hungarian Rectors’ Conference. As for research, she deals with the psychological implications of Indigenization in US and Canadian literature. Currently she explores mixed heritage narratives and identity negotiation in the Southwest US literature. Her new book entitled Dawn Runners, “Blood Trails”: Ethnic Positioning in Southwestern Mixed Heritage Writing is to be published by Lexington Books in 2021.

Üdvözlettel:
Dr. habil. Kádár Judit
igazgató/ Director

Testnevelési Egyetem / University of Physical Education
Nemzetközi Kapcsolatok Igazgatóság / International Relations Center