The Department of History was honored to host Professor Thomas Laqueur (University of California, Berkeley) as part of a new initiative to invite distinguished scholars to teach Master Classes in Historiography. Professor Laqueur taught a course on "Mortality, History and Culture", which addressed the issue of mortality in a truly encompassing manner both temporally and spatially, from Diogenes to the 21th century, from Mexico to Azerbaijan. The scope of the discussion being considerably aided by the diversity of CEU students. The topic of mortality was approached in a holistic manner as it was related to politics, society and culture but was never reduced to them either.
Professor Laqueur and his students also visited the largely unknown Jewish Cemetery, just next to the quite well-known Kerepesi Cemetery, where Sarolta Huttl gave a tour to class (the cemetery was closed to the public just a day after the visit). On the same day Professor Laqueur gave a lecture entitled "Let the Dead Bury their Own Dead" at OSA in which he discussed the impossibility of human society heeding Marx’s injunction. On the last day of class, Professor Istvan Rév joined the class, giving a lecture on Stalin’s death and a tour of the Szabadság Tér after class.