Replika presents the monologue of a middle rank-positioned woman in a small city who was born during the war, and laid off in the `90s, a short time before her retirement was due. The monologue is revealing about how social factors interfere with our lives: in this case, how the dismissal caused grave psychic and somatic symptoms. The story also offers a glimpse of an East-Central European crisis in depth.
 

By drafting the professional trajectories of some Hungarian composers in the 19th and 20th century, in the first essay Miklós Hadas outlines the perspectives of Eastern European social sciences, differentiating between four models of modernizing national arts and sciences on the semi-peripheries. Referreing to Béla Bartók's oeuvre as a model-case, Hadas asserts that a scholar can be capable of contributing to the construction of a paradigm of universal validity starting out from `differentia specifica' of his indigenous topic.

The subsequent essays are organized around a provocative article written by two Hungarian sociologists, György Csepeli and Antal Örkény, and an American political scientist, Kim Lane Scheppele who claim that social science research in Eastern Europe is basically done from Western (mainly American) funds and under the leadership of Western scholars who employ Eastern counterparts as apprentices or informants whatever their reputation is in their home country. The essay uses strong metaphors (AIDS viruses, contamination, colonization) to intice a much needed debate on the status of social sciences in Eastern Europe.

Three responses follow the article. Rudolf Andorka completely disagrees with Csepeli and his co-authors and argues that there are significant improvements in the conditions for pursuing social scientific research in post-socialist societies and cites abundant examples of successful cooperation between Western and Eastern European sociologists. Zuzana Kusá mostly agrees with the arguments presented in the essay and makes corroborative remarks based on her own experience and institutional perspective. She points out that Slovak sociologists have ceased to exist as an intellectual community; and discusses how macropolitical interests can still interfere in sociological research.

Alaina Lemon and David Altshuler criticize the opening article for its generalizations and inaccuracies. They argue that the main thesis - on the exploitation of Eastern social scientists by their Western colleagues as mere data-collectors - is inadequate to describe the practice of ethnographic fieldwork. Lemon and Altshuler emphasize the reciprocal theoretical influence: numerous fields in “Western “ social sciences and humanities are indebted to the work of Eastern European scholars. At the end, the authors of the first essay respond to their critics, and acknowledge some of the generalizations they made for the sake of the argument and clarify their points with more detailed examples.
 

The thematic section explores the different ways in which we use pictures and images, and the role of private photos in creating and supporting self-identity. In one of the last interviews with Vilém Flusser, the scholar talks about the changed position of pictures at the end of the twentieth century. He believes that instead of asking “what pictures show", nowadays we have to inquire what perspectives these images are shown from. Analyzing two of her early family photographs, Annette Kuhn discusses the importance of the monopolization of the pictures' meanings. She gives examples of how family photos can become the source of family conflicts, conflicts of memory, and those of identity. In the third article Zoltán Gayer analyzes how someone's self-identity may become visible in his or her private photographs. Gayer compares the self-identity of Hungarian tourists made visible in their photographs taken before and after the political changes.
 

This group of articles addresses the development of capitalist structures in Hungarian agriculture. The value of the contributions lies in the close-up view that each case study provides of the restructuring process: that is the dismantling and fundamental transformation of the old structures and the building of new ones. These close-ups help readers understand the complex, unclear organisational and ownership schemes that have been developed by those former co-operatives which chose to transform themselves into one form of private company or another.

Where the management pulled together, reacted in time, were first to use the opportunities, won sooner (Nigel Swain: `Aranyszõlõ'), or later (Monika M. Váradi: `Harmónia'), while others almost missed the boat (KatalinKovács: Homokvár). The studies also reveal how failure can be overcome and, at worst, the ruins of a once intact farm can provide a starting point for those who build up their enterprise from below (Anna Hamar: Farming enterprises coming from “nowhere"). These articles also show the diverse interests and views in the ranks of ordinary co-operative members (Swain: `Aranyszõlõ') as well as among managers (Váradi: `Harmónia', Kovács: Homokvár). The closest perspective on ordinary villagers is provided by János Bali. Apart from a valuable ethnographic description of the roots and practices of raspberry-growing in a village community, he casts light on the down side of this stage in restructuring, when a former secondary source of income suddenly became the main one, reducing the consumption of the family to an extremely low level. The direction of change revealed from the case studies is contrasted with statistical data in the background study by KatalinKovács and Zsuzsa Bihari.
 

In Hungary's current transition, several gay and lesbian grass roots movements and civil organizations have become visible - these social practices make lesbian and gay theories relevant in Hungary. The present thematic section in Replika provides an introduction to gay and lesbian theories focusing on American, Northern European and Hungarian examples. The essays collected here study the construction, reproduction, and subversion of lesbian and gay identities and identitity politics within different terrains, and demonstrate the complexity and contradictions of the question which evade easy generalizations.

In the introduction, Csilla Kalocsai attempts to define the broad and shifting field of lesbian and gay theory. She traces how gay and lesbian studies have emerged in Western Europe, and follows the different paths of theory and activism in Western Europe and America. In the first article, Judit Takács addresses the medical, psychiatric and social scientific productions of the category of homosexuality, and illustrates her points with a few Hungarian examples.

The two following essays describe the shifts in American lesbian and gay identitity politics. Diana Fuss defines identity politics as a historical and cultural construct, and although she claims that identity politics have an encouraging effect on lesbian and gay community formation, she also challenges the presumptions that constitute the concepts of identity and politics. The second American author, Lisa Duggan analyzes the new potentials of American queer theories and politics. Providing space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and sometimes heterosexual people, queer thinking transgresses gendered and sexual borders, and creates flexible identities and provisional coalitions.

In the last essay, Henning Bech explores the disappearance of the social and cultural conditions that have historically constituted the framework for modern homosexuality, and offers a Northern European example for the disappearance of the “modern homosexual" as a result of these changes. Bech introduces the term homo-genisation to describe the new social and cultural context of postmodern society.
 

With Béla Zolnai's study, the e-way column closes its series presenting the works of Hungarian authors on the history of communication. Visible Language, first published in 1926, examines the “emotional elements" in the printed text which are of crucial importance in the sphere of thought transmission. In the second article, The Use of the Internet in University Education, László Turi shares his experience in contributing to the creation of Hungary's first virtual university called Uniworld. Discussing the everyday life of the virtual university, Turi reflects on the most frequent problems, and compares it with the “virtual branches" of foreign universities.Szerzõink