Ancient History Doctoral Programme

Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. György Németh

The academic background of the doctoral programme is provided by the Department of Ancient History. The research profile of the programme and of the department is focused on epigraphical sources that facilitate research in various fields of social, military, economic, and religious history. The academic staff places a special emphasis on social history, where a number of topics can be best investigated through the increasing corpus of inscriptions. Organizations above the level of poleis (i.e. confederacies and federal states) form an individual course of research. Greek and Latin epigraphy and ancient historiography are further fields of academic interest in the research centre.

 The PhD training is recommended for students who have studied History, Latin or Ancient Greek; who are interested in ancient Greek or Roman history; who are capable of analysing sources in Latin and/or ancient Greek; and who are able to conduct individual research primarily in the field of Greek or Latin epigraphy, papyrology, social history, and historiography. We offer courses in English, German, or French.

 The PhD programme has cooperated with international partner institutions  (Vienna, Tübingen, Cluj Napoca, Zagreb), and is constantly seeking opportunities to develop further relationships.

Archeology Doctoral Programme

Leading professor of the program: Prof Dr. László Borhy

The Archaeology PhD Program of the ELTE Institute of Archaeological Sciences was established in 1993. The doctoral degree is offered in a wide range of fields: prehistoric archaeology, roman archaeology, classical archaeology, archaeology of the migration period and the early Middle Ages, medieval archaeology and archaeometry. During the 4 years of the PhD program the students have to attend lectures and seminars, and they regularly have to give presentations about their accomplishments. The Institute is also proud of its excellent archeological library the collection of which is mostly focused on the archeology of the Carpathian Basin.

Assyriology and Hebrew-Judaic Studies Doctoral Programme

Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. Tamás Dezső

The primary goal of the doctoral programs of Assyriology and Hebrew-Judaic Studies is to prepare the PhD candidates for academic career in research and teaching. The programs help the students to understand and familiarize themselves with the latest research methodology and make them able to shape and develop their chosen discipline. 

Under the supervision of internationally renowned scholars, the PhD candidates conduct a dissertation project within their individual discipline. The highlighted fields of the program of Assyriology are as follows: the history, cultural history, art, and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia; the age and ideology of empires; Sumerian and Akkadian linguistics, philology, and historical linguistics; interpretation of literary and historical texts.

The Hebrew and Jewish studies program covers a broad spectrum of topics related to the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, approached using various historical, philological, literary and linguistic methodologies.

Particularly, our faculty has expertise in the following fields: biblical studies, hellenistic Judaism, religions in late antiquity, Jewish-Christian relations; Talmudic and midrashic literature, rabbinic religion and thought, Jewish law (halakhah); responsa-literature; linguistic and cognitive approaches to Jewish studies; Hungarian Jewish history and cultural history after the 18th century, Yiddish cultural history, Jewish sociolinguistics.

Atelier Interdisciplinary History Doctoral Programme

Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. Gábor Sonkoly

The doctoral programme of the Atelier Department was established in 1997 as a sub-programme of the History PhD School at Eötvös Loránd University. The main goal of the eight-semester-long PhD course is to prepare the PhD students that they could write and defend their theses. The programme was founded and functions in the spirit of the French Annales School. Consequently, interdisciplinary approach, meticulous methodology and the application of scientific criticism in historical research characterize our teaching. The PhD course is made of doctoral seminars, which are mainly organized about the historical phenomena and problems represented within the topics of “Historiography”, “Culture” and “Social Space”. For English and French speaking students the teaching is based on tutorial seminars about the same topics. In addition, regular lectures by visiting scholars, conferences and doctoral journées d’études help the students to broaden their academic horizon and to deepen their own doctoral research. The professors of the programme participate in several academic networks in four continents. The Atelier Department is part of the network of the École des hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris since 1988, what allowed more than fifty Hungarian students to study with a co-tutorship agreement between Budapest and Paris.

Medieval and Early Modern World History Doctoral Programme

Leading professor of the program: Dr. Balázs Nagy

The Doctoral Program of Medieval and Early Modern European History covers various periods and approaches from late Antiquity to 18th-century European and, in part, world history. The medieval section of the doctoral program accepts doctoral proposals discussing late Antiquity, early medieval and medieval topics on political and social history, history of political thought, and history of Christianity and hagiography. The early modern section includes topics from the Renaissance until the turn of the 18th and 19th century, including the social and political history of the given period, the study of European colonialism, and the position of Hungary in the Habsburg Empire.

Modern and Contemporary World History Doctoral Programme

Leading professor of the program: Dr. Ágnes Szilágyi

The programme started in 1993 with special focus on universal issues in history; even those classes that discuss the history of individual countries lay emphasis on the investigation of the international context. Topics range in time from the French Revolution to the present. We strive to go beyond the conventional Europe-centered approach, thus the history of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and recently of Central and South America is also included and accentuated in the curriculum.

 As students are selected from a large number of applicants, they have to meet certain requirements of eligibility: students are expected to possess a solid knowledge of history and to speak and understand at least two foreign languages, one at intermediate, the other at advanced level.

The staff and the students participate in the events hosted by the HAS Institute of History, the Europa Institute, the Institute of Political History and other thematically linked institutes.

Following Programs also offer international topics:

• Cultural History Doctoral Programme
  • Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. László Csorba
• Economic and Social History Doctoral Programme
  • Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. György Kövér
• Early Modern Hungarian History Doctoral Programme
  • Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. Ildikó Horn
• History of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Rule in Hungary and the Republic of Turkey
  • Leading professor of the program: Prof. Dr. Géza Dávid

Detailed description of the programs