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Gyorgy Toth

University of Stirling, History, Heritage and Politics, Faculty Member

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My professional interests are academia, archives and outreach, international education (study abroad, exchanges and international students in the U.S.), and public history and memory.

I defended my dissertation and was awarded a PhD in American Studies by The University of Iowa in December of 2012.

My research interests (besides the fields listed) focus on the history of U.S. cultures/al forms and transnational relations (ideas and embodied practices) and their politics outside the United States in 20th century and since.
Supervisors: Dr. Kim Marra and Dr. Jane Desmond
Address: Division of History, Heritage and Politics
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of Stirling,
Room A70, Pathfoot Building,
Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland, United Kingdom

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Papers by Gyorgy Toth

Towards a Study of Collective Memory in US Transatlantic Relations: The Late Cold War

Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the u... more Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the uses of collective memory in late Cold War US Transatlantic relations. First it surveys the existing scholarly literature on the topic and critiques some selected methodological models. Next it discusses the politics of cultural memory in the United States itself. In its main body, the study focuses on the core of the use of memory in US Transatlantic relations: historical reasoning in the fields of 1) foreign policy decision-making, and 2) public or cultural diplomacy. The author argues that while the US government may not have had a centrally articulated and overarching policy for the use of collective memory in US diplomacy, such a policy can nevertheless be assembled out of its foreign policy training and the cultural diplomacy practices of the United States Information Agency, both of which continued throughout the 1990s, the first period of the post-Cold War era.

Introduction: Toward a Study of Memory Policy in Transatlantic Relations

In the spring of 2015 – the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two – even an ... more In the spring of 2015 – the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two – even an ordinary Internet search showed that recent public rhetoric had couched the ongoing crisis in Ukraine in terms of that past world conflict. It was not only sensationalist journalists, aged cold warriors or implacable Ukrainian nationalists who had been calling Russian president Vladimir Putin a modern day Hitler. Some of the highest dignitaries in the West who had made the same comparison included former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Britain’s Prince Charles, and the president of Lithuania – all public figures who knew the power of words, and who were fully aware that their reference to Europe’s darkest period would have a serious effect on the framing of the current crisis in Russian-Western relations. While they may have been intended as a rhetorical line in the sand for Russia, such uses of the past likely exacerbated the conflict rather than de-escalated it. On the other side, Russian Ukrainian separatists and the Russian media and government had consistently blamed the conflict on Western "fascists." This was their way of evoking their own narrative of the Great War in Defense of the Homeland against the Nazis and their collaborators 70 years before to mobilize their side in the current conflict. Such heated rhetoric lays bare the potential of public memory to serve as a tool of propaganda or cultural diplomacy: to move, persuade, mobilize, and commit people to a cause or policy not only nationally, but also in international relations. As important as they are, scholars, security analysts, and government officials need to look not only for short-term preventative measures but for a formulation of a coherent transatlantic memory policy to support peaceful relations in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In other words, government officials as well scholars of nationalism and memory should do more than include memory as one of the resources of international relations. They should identify what expressions of memory can be used in diplomacy, when and how – and develop models for a coherent memory policy. This book is intended to aid such efforts.Output Status: Forthcomin

Epilogue: Turning to the Wall: Concepts across Space and Time

Concepts across Space and Time T his special issue of the Review of International American Studie... more Concepts across Space and Time T his special issue of the Review of International American Studies has grappled with the power of walls as idea, rhetoric, policy, and embodied experience. Moving beyond the question of whether walls 'work,' our authors have probed what walls do, and what people do with walls in history, politics, culture, and everyday life. The Wall as RheToRic and Policy In her incisive introduction to this issue, Virginia Dominguez probes the power of the wall-a seemingly illogical idea, a solution proven ineffective by plenty of historical cases, yet enjoying support across party lines in the United States. She is fascinated with the potency "of this atavistic idea in an era of alleged globalization, when so much rhetorical energy focuses on cyberspace, the globalization of manufacturing and service jobs, and the technological advances that allow people to work from home, hold meetings for free with people in many different countries, and stay closely connected with family and friends regardless of location" (Dominguez, this issue). Yet, I venture to ask, how much of candidate and President Trump's idea of building a Mexican border wall has to do not with logic and binaries, but with offering a tangible, producerist entity to the American people? When globalization and cybersecurity are abstract worlds, a wall is solid, created, put in place, mended and maintained-something to produce, erect

Performing 'the Spirit of '76': US Historical Memory and Countercommemorations for American Indian Sovereignty

When they light the candles on the 200 th year birthday cake, we will be there to blow them out."... more When they light the candles on the 200 th year birthday cake, we will be there to blow them out." Unnamed leader of the American Indian Movement, February 1976. 1 At a June 1976 Congressional hearing, the United States Senate reviewed a list of potential domestic terrorist organizations. In addition to the usual suspects such as the Weatherman and the Puerto Rican independence movement, the list included an organization called the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM had become infamous for their confrontational demonstration tactics that involved the takeover of tribal and U.S. government property, and armed standoffs with federal forces. However, the immediate impetus for the Ford Administration to officially designate AIM as a terrorist group was their fear that these Indian militants might disrupt the summer 1976 official commemorations of the Bicentennial-the 200 th anniversary of the 1776 issuing of the American Declaration of Independence. Even more than their image as gun-toting Indians, what made AIM a threat to the U.S. government were their creative and media savvy use of sites and anniversaries of American national memory to make statements about historical grievances and the pressing need for justice for American Indians. Approaching its topic from the intersection of History, Memory Studies and Performance Studies, this article will advance the concept of counter-commemorations in its investigation of the ways in which Native American activists used U.S. national historical memory to make interventions for expanded Indian sovereignty rights in the Late Cold War. In their efforts to educate the public and influence policy, American Indian activists held counter-commemorations in which they performed Native critiques of the Anglo-centered view of the American past, and used media attention to push for historical and social justice for Native Americans. Drawing on public and declassified government documents, AIM-related archival collections, newspaper

Memory unravelling

Memory in Transatlantic Relations, 2019

IASA Statement of Support for the Struggle Against Racialized Violence in the United States

Review of International American Studies, 2020

The International American Studies Association is dismayed to see the explosion of anger, bittern... more The International American Studies Association is dismayed to see the explosion of anger, bitterness and desperation that has been triggered by yet another senseless, cruel and wanton act of racialized violence in the United States. We stand in solidarity with and support the ongoing struggle by African Americans, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, migrants and the marginalized against the racialized violence perpetrated against them. As scholars of the United States, we see the killing of George Floyd and many before them as acts on the continuum of the history of the powerful committing racialized violence against the powerless in the United States from before the birth of that country to the here and now of the present day. This continuum stretches from the transatlantic slave trade, the genocide of the indigenous population, the denial of rights and liberties to women, through the exploitation of American workers, slavery and Jim Crow, to the exclusion and inhumane treatment...

Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory

Comparative American Studies An International Journal, 2020

This special issue of Comparative American Studies, 'Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory,'... more This special issue of Comparative American Studies, 'Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory,' aims to open a period of reflection on and discussion of the historical role and memory of Red Power as a movement for Native North American rights that not only shook the U.S. domestic scene, but also built transnational alliances and ultimately advanced a global Indigenous human rights régime. The articles in this issue offer evaluations and reinterpretations of the struggle's historical importance, its international dimension, but also its limitations.

The Case for a Native American 1968 and Its Transnational Legacy

Review of International American Studies, 2019

Partly as a result of compartmentalized academic specializations and history teaching, in account... more Partly as a result of compartmentalized academic specializations and history teaching, in accounts of the global upheavals of 1968, Native Americans are either not mentioned, or at best are tagged on as an afterthought. “Was there a Native American 1968?” is the central question this article aims to answer. Native American activism in the 1960s was no less flashy, dramatic or confrontational than the protests by the era’s other struggles – it is simply overshadowed by later actions of the movement. Using approaches from Transnational American Studies and the history of social movements, this article argues that American Indians had a “long 1968” that originated in Native America’s responses to the US government’s Termination policy in the 1950s, and stretched from their ‘training’ period in the 1960s, through their dramatic protests from the late 1960s through the 1970s, all the way to their participation at the United Nations from 1977 through the rest of the Cold War. While their ...

‘Red’ nations: Marxists and the Native American sovereignty movement of the late Cold War

Cold War History, 2019

This article constructs a history of the mutual personal engagement of Native American sovereignt... more This article constructs a history of the mutual personal engagement of Native American sovereignty activists and Marxist entities in the 1970s and 1980s. Native American diplomacy attempted to reconfigure the geography of American Indian sovereignty into a fully independent Native America in alliance with revolutionary Marxism and its 'red' nations around the globe. Marxist-Native solidarity in Europe was enabled by older continental European fantasies about Indians, and sanctioned by some Eastern Bloc governments. However, as the case of Nicaragua shows, Indian-Marxist alliances could not be sustained because of the difficulties of reconciling U.S. patriotic anti-Communism, the Marxist revolutionary project, and the indigenous rights struggle.

Shadow Memorial Diplomacy: The Ronald Reagan Centennial Year in Central and Eastern Europe

Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, 2019

This article examines the use of the memorialization of Reagan in transatlantic relations – speci... more This article examines the use of the memorialization of Reagan in transatlantic relations – specifically in the commemorations of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Year in 2011 in Central and Eastern Europe. Extrapolating from the case of Hungary, the article argues that because of the contemporary political status of its drivers and its oblique message, the Reagan Centennial’s campaign in Central Europe can be called “shadow” memorial diplomacy, which in 2011 used the former president’s memory to articulate and strengthen a model of U.S. leadership and foreign policy parallel to and ready to replace those of the then Obama administration. This study can serve as an international extension of previous scholarship on the politics of the memory of Ronald Reagan within the United States, as well as a case study of the use of memory in international relations.

Knights Across the Atlantic

Liverpool University Press, 2017

The Knights of Labor became the first national movement of American workers between 1869 and 1917... more The Knights of Labor became the first national movement of American workers between 1869 and 1917. They also established branches of their movement across the world. This book explores the history of the Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland, where between 1883 and the end of the century they organised upwards of 50 individual assemblies (branches) and 10,000 members across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It treats the Knights as an important but under-recognised part of the great changes taking place within the British labour movement at the end of the nineteenth century, whether in terms of the growth of labour politics (and ultimately the Labour Party) or the transformation of the trade unions from the movement of a minority of wage earners to a majority of them. This book looks at the approaches that British and Irish Knights took to politics, industrial relations, race, culture and gender, drawing on and making comparisons with the well-established historiography of the...

Make Yourself a Home: Hungarian Immigration and Life in Canada during the Great Depression

Focusing on Hungarian immigration to Canada between 1924 and 1931, this páper aims to describe th... more Focusing on Hungarian immigration to Canada between 1924 and 1931, this páper aims to describe the immigrant experience and life during the Great Depression by juxtaposing family history research with critical scholarly works. Interdisciplinary in nature, the materiál of the article is organized around the motif of homemaking, and this theme is examined from the perspective of history, folklore studies and ethnography, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. In addition to critical scholarship on Hungarian and Central European emigration to North America, this essay relies on data gathered by the author in the spring of2000 and on twofield trips in late 2001-early 2002 with sociál science methods including printed questionnaires and archival documents, on-the-spot participant observation, and elicited flashbacks documented in fieldwork notes. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations in the subtitles of this study are taken from answers in the questionnaires and have been retained in their originál language and grammatical form to reflect the linguistic and cultural idiosyncrasies and the rich connotations displayed by the sources:

Towards a Study of Memory in US Transatlantic Relations: The Late Cold War

AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA, 2016

Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the u... more Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the uses of collective memory in late Cold War US Transatlantic relations. First it surveys the existing scholarly literature on the topic and critiques some selected methodological models. Next it discusses the politics of cultural memory in the United States itself. In its main body, the study focuses on the core of the use of memory in US Transatlantic relations: historical reasoning in the fields of 1) foreign policy decision-making, and 2) public or cultural diplomacy. The author argues that while the US government may not have had a centrally articulated and overarching policy for the use of collective memory in US diplomacy, such a policy can nevertheless be assembled out of its foreign policy training and the cultural diplomacy practices of the United States Information Agency, both of which continued throughout the 1990s, the first period of the post-Cold War era.

The Children of the Empire: Anti-Imperialism in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden

The radical story of the Native American liberation movement, 50 years on

"Memory Unravelling: The 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising in U.S.-Hungarian Relations"

Of the recent transformations in the Transatlantic alliance between the United States and various... more Of the recent transformations in the Transatlantic alliance between the United States and various European countries, the conflict in the Ukraine in particular has once again exposed the potential of cultural memory to serve as a tool of political rhetoric or propaganda for mobilization for either side of a conflict. Our panel aims to put into dialogue scholars from 4 different countries on both sides of the Atlantic, trained in fields as diverse as Geography, American Studies, and International Relations in order to interrogate the continuities and ruptures in the uses of cultural memory in Transatlantic relations from the Cold War through the Global War on Terror. Our panelists share a concern with the built environment (memorials) and performances of memory (commemorations), and aim to map and analyze their politics, accounting for the role of not only the state actors, but also of some of the non-governmental forces contending to shape the meanings of the past for the battles of the present.

“When the Reds Met the Greens: The Alliance between the Radical American Indian Sovereignty Movement and the European Environmentalists in the Late Cold War.”

Freedom in Their Eyes: the 1956 Hungarian Refugee Students in the United States

Teaching Documents by Gyorgy Toth

Transatlantic American Studies Workshop: Sources and Approaches

The first University of Alberta (Canada) – University of Iowa (USA) Video Mini-Symposium on Native North American Identities in History and Culture

The first University of Alberta – University of Iowa Video Mini-Symposium on Native North Ame... more The first University of Alberta – University of Iowa Video Mini-Symposium on

Native North American Identities in History and Culture

The University of Alberta: Friday March 9, 2012, 3 PM, Room 145, TELUS Centre
The University of Iowa: Friday March 9, 2012, 4 PM, room 2520-D, University Capitol Center

University of Iowa moderator: Steven Williams, PhD Candidate, American and American Indian & Native Studies

University of Alberta moderator: Dr. Sharon Romeo, History

Panel presentations:

“Precursors to the Construction of Canadian ‘Indian’ Status and “Other” Categories: Protections through Definition.” Melanie Niemi-Bohun, the University of Alberta

“The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act and the Meskwaki Nation.” Eric Zimmer, The University of Iowa

“Borderlands Metis Identity: Nationalizing the Borderlands.” Katie Pollock, the University of Alberta

Comments: Dr. Jacki Rand, Associate Professor of History and American Indian & Native Studies, The University of Iowa

Towards a Study of Collective Memory in US Transatlantic Relations: The Late Cold War

Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the u... more Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the uses of collective memory in late Cold War US Transatlantic relations. First it surveys the existing scholarly literature on the topic and critiques some selected methodological models. Next it discusses the politics of cultural memory in the United States itself. In its main body, the study focuses on the core of the use of memory in US Transatlantic relations: historical reasoning in the fields of 1) foreign policy decision-making, and 2) public or cultural diplomacy. The author argues that while the US government may not have had a centrally articulated and overarching policy for the use of collective memory in US diplomacy, such a policy can nevertheless be assembled out of its foreign policy training and the cultural diplomacy practices of the United States Information Agency, both of which continued throughout the 1990s, the first period of the post-Cold War era.

Introduction: Toward a Study of Memory Policy in Transatlantic Relations

In the spring of 2015 – the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two – even an ... more In the spring of 2015 – the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two – even an ordinary Internet search showed that recent public rhetoric had couched the ongoing crisis in Ukraine in terms of that past world conflict. It was not only sensationalist journalists, aged cold warriors or implacable Ukrainian nationalists who had been calling Russian president Vladimir Putin a modern day Hitler. Some of the highest dignitaries in the West who had made the same comparison included former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Britain’s Prince Charles, and the president of Lithuania – all public figures who knew the power of words, and who were fully aware that their reference to Europe’s darkest period would have a serious effect on the framing of the current crisis in Russian-Western relations. While they may have been intended as a rhetorical line in the sand for Russia, such uses of the past likely exacerbated the conflict rather than de-escalated it. On the other side, Russian Ukrainian separatists and the Russian media and government had consistently blamed the conflict on Western "fascists." This was their way of evoking their own narrative of the Great War in Defense of the Homeland against the Nazis and their collaborators 70 years before to mobilize their side in the current conflict. Such heated rhetoric lays bare the potential of public memory to serve as a tool of propaganda or cultural diplomacy: to move, persuade, mobilize, and commit people to a cause or policy not only nationally, but also in international relations. As important as they are, scholars, security analysts, and government officials need to look not only for short-term preventative measures but for a formulation of a coherent transatlantic memory policy to support peaceful relations in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In other words, government officials as well scholars of nationalism and memory should do more than include memory as one of the resources of international relations. They should identify what expressions of memory can be used in diplomacy, when and how – and develop models for a coherent memory policy. This book is intended to aid such efforts.Output Status: Forthcomin

Epilogue: Turning to the Wall: Concepts across Space and Time

Concepts across Space and Time T his special issue of the Review of International American Studie... more Concepts across Space and Time T his special issue of the Review of International American Studies has grappled with the power of walls as idea, rhetoric, policy, and embodied experience. Moving beyond the question of whether walls 'work,' our authors have probed what walls do, and what people do with walls in history, politics, culture, and everyday life. The Wall as RheToRic and Policy In her incisive introduction to this issue, Virginia Dominguez probes the power of the wall-a seemingly illogical idea, a solution proven ineffective by plenty of historical cases, yet enjoying support across party lines in the United States. She is fascinated with the potency "of this atavistic idea in an era of alleged globalization, when so much rhetorical energy focuses on cyberspace, the globalization of manufacturing and service jobs, and the technological advances that allow people to work from home, hold meetings for free with people in many different countries, and stay closely connected with family and friends regardless of location" (Dominguez, this issue). Yet, I venture to ask, how much of candidate and President Trump's idea of building a Mexican border wall has to do not with logic and binaries, but with offering a tangible, producerist entity to the American people? When globalization and cybersecurity are abstract worlds, a wall is solid, created, put in place, mended and maintained-something to produce, erect

Performing 'the Spirit of '76': US Historical Memory and Countercommemorations for American Indian Sovereignty

When they light the candles on the 200 th year birthday cake, we will be there to blow them out."... more When they light the candles on the 200 th year birthday cake, we will be there to blow them out." Unnamed leader of the American Indian Movement, February 1976. 1 At a June 1976 Congressional hearing, the United States Senate reviewed a list of potential domestic terrorist organizations. In addition to the usual suspects such as the Weatherman and the Puerto Rican independence movement, the list included an organization called the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM had become infamous for their confrontational demonstration tactics that involved the takeover of tribal and U.S. government property, and armed standoffs with federal forces. However, the immediate impetus for the Ford Administration to officially designate AIM as a terrorist group was their fear that these Indian militants might disrupt the summer 1976 official commemorations of the Bicentennial-the 200 th anniversary of the 1776 issuing of the American Declaration of Independence. Even more than their image as gun-toting Indians, what made AIM a threat to the U.S. government were their creative and media savvy use of sites and anniversaries of American national memory to make statements about historical grievances and the pressing need for justice for American Indians. Approaching its topic from the intersection of History, Memory Studies and Performance Studies, this article will advance the concept of counter-commemorations in its investigation of the ways in which Native American activists used U.S. national historical memory to make interventions for expanded Indian sovereignty rights in the Late Cold War. In their efforts to educate the public and influence policy, American Indian activists held counter-commemorations in which they performed Native critiques of the Anglo-centered view of the American past, and used media attention to push for historical and social justice for Native Americans. Drawing on public and declassified government documents, AIM-related archival collections, newspaper

Memory unravelling

Memory in Transatlantic Relations, 2019

IASA Statement of Support for the Struggle Against Racialized Violence in the United States

Review of International American Studies, 2020

The International American Studies Association is dismayed to see the explosion of anger, bittern... more The International American Studies Association is dismayed to see the explosion of anger, bitterness and desperation that has been triggered by yet another senseless, cruel and wanton act of racialized violence in the United States. We stand in solidarity with and support the ongoing struggle by African Americans, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, migrants and the marginalized against the racialized violence perpetrated against them. As scholars of the United States, we see the killing of George Floyd and many before them as acts on the continuum of the history of the powerful committing racialized violence against the powerless in the United States from before the birth of that country to the here and now of the present day. This continuum stretches from the transatlantic slave trade, the genocide of the indigenous population, the denial of rights and liberties to women, through the exploitation of American workers, slavery and Jim Crow, to the exclusion and inhumane treatment...

Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory

Comparative American Studies An International Journal, 2020

This special issue of Comparative American Studies, 'Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory,'... more This special issue of Comparative American Studies, 'Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory,' aims to open a period of reflection on and discussion of the historical role and memory of Red Power as a movement for Native North American rights that not only shook the U.S. domestic scene, but also built transnational alliances and ultimately advanced a global Indigenous human rights régime. The articles in this issue offer evaluations and reinterpretations of the struggle's historical importance, its international dimension, but also its limitations.

The Case for a Native American 1968 and Its Transnational Legacy

Review of International American Studies, 2019

Partly as a result of compartmentalized academic specializations and history teaching, in account... more Partly as a result of compartmentalized academic specializations and history teaching, in accounts of the global upheavals of 1968, Native Americans are either not mentioned, or at best are tagged on as an afterthought. “Was there a Native American 1968?” is the central question this article aims to answer. Native American activism in the 1960s was no less flashy, dramatic or confrontational than the protests by the era’s other struggles – it is simply overshadowed by later actions of the movement. Using approaches from Transnational American Studies and the history of social movements, this article argues that American Indians had a “long 1968” that originated in Native America’s responses to the US government’s Termination policy in the 1950s, and stretched from their ‘training’ period in the 1960s, through their dramatic protests from the late 1960s through the 1970s, all the way to their participation at the United Nations from 1977 through the rest of the Cold War. While their ...

‘Red’ nations: Marxists and the Native American sovereignty movement of the late Cold War

Cold War History, 2019

This article constructs a history of the mutual personal engagement of Native American sovereignt... more This article constructs a history of the mutual personal engagement of Native American sovereignty activists and Marxist entities in the 1970s and 1980s. Native American diplomacy attempted to reconfigure the geography of American Indian sovereignty into a fully independent Native America in alliance with revolutionary Marxism and its 'red' nations around the globe. Marxist-Native solidarity in Europe was enabled by older continental European fantasies about Indians, and sanctioned by some Eastern Bloc governments. However, as the case of Nicaragua shows, Indian-Marxist alliances could not be sustained because of the difficulties of reconciling U.S. patriotic anti-Communism, the Marxist revolutionary project, and the indigenous rights struggle.

Shadow Memorial Diplomacy: The Ronald Reagan Centennial Year in Central and Eastern Europe

Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, 2019

This article examines the use of the memorialization of Reagan in transatlantic relations – speci... more This article examines the use of the memorialization of Reagan in transatlantic relations – specifically in the commemorations of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Year in 2011 in Central and Eastern Europe. Extrapolating from the case of Hungary, the article argues that because of the contemporary political status of its drivers and its oblique message, the Reagan Centennial’s campaign in Central Europe can be called “shadow” memorial diplomacy, which in 2011 used the former president’s memory to articulate and strengthen a model of U.S. leadership and foreign policy parallel to and ready to replace those of the then Obama administration. This study can serve as an international extension of previous scholarship on the politics of the memory of Ronald Reagan within the United States, as well as a case study of the use of memory in international relations.

Knights Across the Atlantic

Liverpool University Press, 2017

The Knights of Labor became the first national movement of American workers between 1869 and 1917... more The Knights of Labor became the first national movement of American workers between 1869 and 1917. They also established branches of their movement across the world. This book explores the history of the Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland, where between 1883 and the end of the century they organised upwards of 50 individual assemblies (branches) and 10,000 members across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It treats the Knights as an important but under-recognised part of the great changes taking place within the British labour movement at the end of the nineteenth century, whether in terms of the growth of labour politics (and ultimately the Labour Party) or the transformation of the trade unions from the movement of a minority of wage earners to a majority of them. This book looks at the approaches that British and Irish Knights took to politics, industrial relations, race, culture and gender, drawing on and making comparisons with the well-established historiography of the...

Make Yourself a Home: Hungarian Immigration and Life in Canada during the Great Depression

Focusing on Hungarian immigration to Canada between 1924 and 1931, this páper aims to describe th... more Focusing on Hungarian immigration to Canada between 1924 and 1931, this páper aims to describe the immigrant experience and life during the Great Depression by juxtaposing family history research with critical scholarly works. Interdisciplinary in nature, the materiál of the article is organized around the motif of homemaking, and this theme is examined from the perspective of history, folklore studies and ethnography, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. In addition to critical scholarship on Hungarian and Central European emigration to North America, this essay relies on data gathered by the author in the spring of2000 and on twofield trips in late 2001-early 2002 with sociál science methods including printed questionnaires and archival documents, on-the-spot participant observation, and elicited flashbacks documented in fieldwork notes. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations in the subtitles of this study are taken from answers in the questionnaires and have been retained in their originál language and grammatical form to reflect the linguistic and cultural idiosyncrasies and the rich connotations displayed by the sources:

Towards a Study of Memory in US Transatlantic Relations: The Late Cold War

AUC STUDIA TERRITORIALIA, 2016

Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the u... more Probing the intersection of Memory Studies and International Relations, this article traces the uses of collective memory in late Cold War US Transatlantic relations. First it surveys the existing scholarly literature on the topic and critiques some selected methodological models. Next it discusses the politics of cultural memory in the United States itself. In its main body, the study focuses on the core of the use of memory in US Transatlantic relations: historical reasoning in the fields of 1) foreign policy decision-making, and 2) public or cultural diplomacy. The author argues that while the US government may not have had a centrally articulated and overarching policy for the use of collective memory in US diplomacy, such a policy can nevertheless be assembled out of its foreign policy training and the cultural diplomacy practices of the United States Information Agency, both of which continued throughout the 1990s, the first period of the post-Cold War era.

The Children of the Empire: Anti-Imperialism in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden

The radical story of the Native American liberation movement, 50 years on

"Memory Unravelling: The 50th Anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising in U.S.-Hungarian Relations"

Of the recent transformations in the Transatlantic alliance between the United States and various... more Of the recent transformations in the Transatlantic alliance between the United States and various European countries, the conflict in the Ukraine in particular has once again exposed the potential of cultural memory to serve as a tool of political rhetoric or propaganda for mobilization for either side of a conflict. Our panel aims to put into dialogue scholars from 4 different countries on both sides of the Atlantic, trained in fields as diverse as Geography, American Studies, and International Relations in order to interrogate the continuities and ruptures in the uses of cultural memory in Transatlantic relations from the Cold War through the Global War on Terror. Our panelists share a concern with the built environment (memorials) and performances of memory (commemorations), and aim to map and analyze their politics, accounting for the role of not only the state actors, but also of some of the non-governmental forces contending to shape the meanings of the past for the battles of the present.

“When the Reds Met the Greens: The Alliance between the Radical American Indian Sovereignty Movement and the European Environmentalists in the Late Cold War.”

Freedom in Their Eyes: the 1956 Hungarian Refugee Students in the United States

Transatlantic American Studies Workshop: Sources and Approaches

The first University of Alberta (Canada) – University of Iowa (USA) Video Mini-Symposium on Native North American Identities in History and Culture

The first University of Alberta – University of Iowa Video Mini-Symposium on Native North Ame... more The first University of Alberta – University of Iowa Video Mini-Symposium on

Native North American Identities in History and Culture

The University of Alberta: Friday March 9, 2012, 3 PM, Room 145, TELUS Centre
The University of Iowa: Friday March 9, 2012, 4 PM, room 2520-D, University Capitol Center

University of Iowa moderator: Steven Williams, PhD Candidate, American and American Indian & Native Studies

University of Alberta moderator: Dr. Sharon Romeo, History

Panel presentations:

“Precursors to the Construction of Canadian ‘Indian’ Status and “Other” Categories: Protections through Definition.” Melanie Niemi-Bohun, the University of Alberta

“The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act and the Meskwaki Nation.” Eric Zimmer, The University of Iowa

“Borderlands Metis Identity: Nationalizing the Borderlands.” Katie Pollock, the University of Alberta

Comments: Dr. Jacki Rand, Associate Professor of History and American Indian & Native Studies, The University of Iowa

The first Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) - University of Bamberg (Germany) 2014 Transatlantic Studies Student Symposium

Teaching Evaluations

How well did the course meet its objectives overall? Suggestions for improvement?

International education profile

My new professional name card

Toth selected public scholarship

This is a list of my public scholarship (a.k.a. "impact", "applied" or "outreach"), including onl... more

Scholarly Innovations and Interventions

Native American transnationalism: From Wounded Knee to Checkpoint Charlie: The Alliance for Sover... more Native American transnationalism:
From Wounded Knee to Checkpoint Charlie: The Alliance for Sovereignty between American Indians and Central Europeans in the Late Cold War. Single-authored book. State University of New York Press, May 2016. http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6245-from-wounded-knee-to-checkpoint.aspx

Counter-commemorations:
“Performing ‘the Spirit of ’76’: U.S. Historical Memory and Counter-Commemorations for American Indian Sovereignty.” Peer-reviewed article in Amanda Gilroy and Marietta Messmer, eds., America: Justice, Conflict, War. The European Views of the United States book series of the European Association for American Studies. Heidelberg, Germany: Winter University Press, 2016, 131-150

Memory régime:
Memory in Transatlantic Relations from the Cold War to the Global War on Terror. Co-authored (up to 50% by self) with Krystof Kozák et al. Proposal accepted by Routledge, to be published in 2018.

Toth academic profile poster.ppt

This is my academic profile in a poster form - apparently, now the way to be present in the world.

Beyond Cowboys and Indians: Will the Sacred Stones Camp Turn Into Wounded Knee, 1973

For weeks now, thousands of Native American activists and their allies have been resisting the co... more For weeks now, thousands of Native American activists and their allies have been resisting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at a place in North Dakota called Camp of the Sacred Stones. As the standoff escalates, the kind of resistance that is materializing is itself rooted in the biggest American Indian protest event in history: Wounded Knee, 1973.

Published on the author's public blog:
http://beyondtheamericansector.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/beyond-cowboys-and-indians-at-sacred.html

From Wounded Knee to Checkpoint Charlie: The Alliance for Sovereignty between American Indians and Central Europeans in the Late Cold War

This is the introduction and table of contents of my book From Wounded Knee to Checkpoint Charlie... more

The 50th Anniversary Commemorations of World War Two as US Transatlantic Diplomacy

Paper abstract for the European Association for American Studies biennial conference Constanta, ... more

"“You Are Leaving the American Sector”: The History of the Indian Sovereignty Movement as Transnational Scholarship."

A few months ago, I adopted as my signature motto the same sentence in English, German, French an... more

“The Spirit of ’76: American Indians and U.S. Historical Memory in the Late Cold War.”

The Akwesasne Notes: Organ or Catalyst of Cold War Native American Transnational Protest?

Paper abstract for The Transnational American Periodical symposium in collaboration with the Netw... more

"‘Playing Indian’ for Sovereignty: The Transnational Performances of the Radical Indian Sovereignty Movement of the Late Cold War."

See document.

"Inside-Outside the Nation State: Native Status and the North American Nation State."

See document.

"Turning Normandy into Baywatch? The 50th Anniversary of World War II Commemorations as Transatlantic Diplomacy"

Paper abstract for the International American Studies Association 7th World Conference, Constella... more

Getting Your German, Getting Your Indian: Interpersonal Relations and Organizing in the Transatlantic Alliance for American Indian Sovereignty in the Late Cold War

Paper abstract for “Ordinary People”: Grassroots Organizing and Protest Movements in Twentieth C... more

The American Indian Warrior: The History and Critiques of a Transatlantic Icon

The American Indian Warrior (used in the singular to connote an abstract stereo/archetype as oppo... more The American Indian Warrior (used in the singular to connote an abstract stereo/archetype as opposed to any real Native North American person) has been an icon in the transatlantic realm for over two centuries. It is so ubiquitous that we barely notice anymore when its incarnations are featured on everything from cigarette packs to festival posters, European powwows, fashion shows, and ethnographic museums. Scholars have written about the many functions such representations have fulfilled for non-Natives in the US and various parts of Europe. After tracing the construction of the American Indian Warrior as a transatlantic icon from the 19 th through the late 20 th century, this paper will discuss the features of the figure which this iconology reworked or outright suppressed. Paradoxically precisely because of this representational suppression, certain features of the American Indian Warrior still hold potential for use for creative projects in art and culture, as well as in social and political movements. Bringing to bear tools from cultural history and Performance Studies on transatlantic visual culture, my paper will argue that critiques of the Warrior actually highlight its continued potency for new uses -while nowadays it is much less noticed than in previous decades, the icon's suggestive power is still far from being exhausted.

Transnationalizing Red Power 2017 American Indian Workshop abstract

Women's Transatlantic Prison Activism in the Alliance for Native American Sovereignty in the Late Cold War

The Frontier as “The Park”: The American West in European Theme Parks

Paper abstract for Marginalia: The Borders of the Border The 8th World Congress of the Internati... more

The Frontier as “The Park”: The American West in European Theme Parks

by Gyorgy Toth and Matteo Barbagallo

Panel and paper abstracts - for the 8th World Congress of the International American Studies Asso... more

A Transatlantic Red Underground?: Transatlantic Musical Performances for American Indian Sovereignty in the Late Cold War

The Politics of Solidarity in the Transatlantic Alliance for Native American Sovereignty in the Late Cold War

The Joys and Discontents of Building a Transnational Coalition: The Politics of Solidarity in the Transatlantic Alliance for American Indian Sovereignty in the Late Cold War

for Keynote at the "Activism: Momentum. Mobilization. Movement." Seminar

Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory

by Gyorgy Toth and Lucie Kyrova

Comparative American Studies An International Journal, 2020

This special issue of Comparative American Studies, ‘Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory,’... more This special issue of Comparative American Studies, ‘Red Power at 50: Re-Evaluations and Memory,’ aims to open a period of reflection on and discussion of the historical role and memory of Red Power as a movement for Native North American rights that not only shook the U.S. domestic scene, but also built transnational alliances and ultimately advanced a global Indigenous human rights régime. The articles in this issue offer evaluations and reinterpretations of the struggle’s historical importance, its international dimension, but also its limitations.