Vera Benczik

Vera Benczik received her Ph.D. from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, where she also earned an M.A. in Assyriology. She now serves as Assistant Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of American Studies at Eötvös Loránd. A specialist in science fiction, fantasy literature, and film, Benczik teaches twentieth-century Canadian and American literature, focusing on works by H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Walter Miller, Ursula Le Guin, and Margaret Atwood. Her current publications take up the topic of how science fiction and fantasy narratives depict space before and after apocalypses or dystopias. Thus she focuses on doubled and displaced cities, echoes, cataclysms, urban wastelands, concerning trauma, nostalgia, and cultural anxiety. At Notre Dame, she completed her monograph study of these issues and interacted with scholars across the disciplines whose research intersects with her own.

Visiting Scholar for the 2016-2017 academic year.