Viola Lászlófi

Viola Lászlófi is a Junior Research Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine (CELAB) at Central European University (CEU), where she joined in 2022 as part of the ERC research project 'Taming the European Leviathan: The Legacy of Post-War Medicine and the Common Good.' She is simultaneously a PhD candidate in a joint doctoral program between École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest. Her academic background spans History (from both EHESS and ELTE) and Psychology (from the University of Debrecen).

Her research focuses on the intersection of medical practice, political power, and social control in state socialist Hungary, particularly examining how physicians navigated professional, political, and social autonomy under communist rule. She has conducted extensive research since 2015 on the role of medical knowledge and power structures in post-war Hungary, with particular attention to medical ethics committees, abortion policies, and the transformation of medical education.

Lászlófi's scholarly work reveals consistent trends across Cold War history, medical anthropology, and political sociology. Her publications demonstrate how medical professionals operated within and sometimes against state power structures, revealing the complex gray zones where medical ethics intersected with political surveillance. Her research shows how medical knowledge became a tool for both state control and professional resistance, highlighting the nuanced ways healthcare practitioners maintained autonomy within a totalitarian system.

As a co-editor of multiple academic volumes including several issues of the 'Sic Itur ad Astra' journal series and 'Test-történetek' (Body Histories), she has contributed significantly to Hungarian academic discourse in history, biopolitics, and cultural studies. Her work bridges Hungarian scholarship with international academic conversations, particularly through her affiliation with the Centre Alexandre-Koyré at EHESS in Paris.