معرفی
Judit Kis-Halas is an ethnographer and folklorist currently serving as Assistant Professor at the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary. She also holds a research position at the Institute of Ethnology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and was a Marie Curie Fellow (2020-2022) at the University of Ljubljana, where she worked on the Wise Women project examining female spiritual figures in Central European vernacular religion. From 2021-2024, she chaired the Belief Narrative Network (BNN) Committee.
Her research focuses on medical anthropology, vernacular religion, and cultural responses to disease. Key areas include historical healing practices, charms against fright illness (ijedtség), witchcraft discourse, and pilgrimage traditions. She integrates ethnographic fieldwork with historical source analysis, particularly exploring the intersection of sacred medicine and community responses to epidemics like the 18th-century plague.
Her 15 most recent publications span themes such as clerical medicine in Franciscan liturgical handbooks, vernacular approaches to plague, stability of curative charms, and witch-finders in Early Modern Hungary. These works highlight historical continuity in healing practices, symbolic border defense, and magical expertise in community contexts.
Scientific Awards:
- Marie Curie Fellowship (2020-2022) for research on Central European female spiritual figures
Her work involves interdisciplinary collaboration, including visual anthropology and folk narrative analysis, with projects funded by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (HSRF) and EU Horizon programs.
