Late Modern

The essays in this thematic section focus on East European modernization that has accelerated since 1989 and may be arguably described as postcommunist Americanization.  The introduction by Gyula Zeke discusses the feasibility of criticizing modernization and lays the course for future analysis.  Starting out from the vanishing skills of conserving fruits, jam, and pickles, Noémi Saly’s essay arrives at a surprisingly modern definition of the conservative word view.  The linguist Ádám Nádasdy uncovers the genealogy of the meanings of the world “modern” and its derivations in the Hungarian language.  Eszter Babarczy’s philosophical paper questions the relevance of the category “postmodern” from the perspective of the history of ideas.  Tibor Kuczi’s sociological essay discusses how the conceptual framework prevailing in the modern (American) social sciences became paradigmatic in the rest of the world.  The loosely structured writing of Zsolt Nagy describes some of the material products and institutions that have emerged during the recent Americanization of Hungary.  Finally, Csaba Pléh’s study explores the relationship between personality and the computer.