As part of the DEAGENCY project, I study the roles of the dead in contemporary rural Hungary.
I am an associate professor at the Department of European Ethnology – Cultural Anthropology, University of Pécs, where I’ve been teaching since 2006. My main fields of research are the various forms of vernacular religion, from death-related beliefs and practices to contemporary discourses on witchcraft and religiosity under communism. I was previously involved as a post doctoral researcher in the ERC project “Vernacular religion on the boundary of Eastern and Western Christianity: continuity, changes and interactions” at the Institute of European Ethnology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences between 2015–2018, and in the ERC project, the Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe at University College Cork between 2018–2019.
Selected list of publications (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5898-1396):
2025 ‘Individual Views and Global Trends: The Conceptualisation of the Dead. A Case Study’. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore Vol. 96. Pp. 79–98. https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2025.96.hesz
2021 ‘Secret Police Informer Files as Sources for the Study of Vernacular Religion under Communism.’ In: The Secret Police and the Religious Underground in Communist and Post-communist Eastern Europe. James A. Kapaló – Kinga Povedák eds. New York–Abington: Routledge. Pp. 211–233.
2020 ‘Uncertainty and the Conceptualizations of Life after Death in a Transylvanian Catholic Village Community.’ In: Faith, Doubt and Knowledge in Religious Thinking. Éva Pócs – Bea Vidacs eds. Budapest: Balassi. Pp. 145–164.
2017 ‘Talking Through Witchcraft – On the Bewitchment Discourse of a Village Community.’ In: Witchcraft and Demonology in Hungary and Transylvania. Gábor Klaniczay – Éva Pócs, eds. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Houndmills in Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 349–393.
2016 ‘The story of a Funeral Home. Ritual Modernization and its Reception in a Transylvanian Village Community.’ Revista Română de Sociologie (Romanian Journal of Sociology) XXVII: (1-2) pp. 39-53. http://www.revistadesociologie.ro/sites/default/files/04-agnes_bun.pdf
2012 Élők, holtak és adósságok. A halottak szerepe egy erdélyi faluközösségben (The Dead, the Living, and their Debts. The Role of the Dead in a Village Community; Budapest: L’Harmattan.
2012 ‘Hidden Messages – Dreams of the Dead as Indirect Communication.’ In: Expressions of Belief: Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life. Marion Bowman – Ülo Valk eds. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., Pp. 140–160.
2007 ’The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore. Vol. 37. Pp. 19–34. http://www.folklore.ee/Folklore/vol37/
FIELDS OF RESEARCH:
Vernacular religion
Anthropology of death
Religiousity under communism in Hungary
Gossip