The School of English and American Studies (SEAS) of the Faculty of Humanities of Eötvös Loránd University was founded in 1886 as the Department of English Language and Literature and it is located at Rákóczi út 5 in Józsefváros, Budapest, Hungary. Along with the Department of English of the University of Vienna, the School of English and American Studies is one of the biggest English departments in Central Europe.
In 1886, ÃÂgoston Trefort, the Hungarian Minister of Religion and Education from 1882 to 1888 and the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1885 to 1888, requested and commissioned Arthur Patterson to teach English language at the Hungarian Royal University.
In 1898, Arthur Yolland was appointed lector and later a teacher at the Hungarian Royal University.
In 1924, Antal Szerb, prominent Hungarian author, obtained a degree in teaching English and German languages at the Department of English Language and Literature.
In 1937, Miklós Szenczi established the lectorate that was financed from his own salary from 1941.
From 1945, László Országh taught at the department for a short period.
In 1947, the Institute of American and English Studies was established.
In 1947, Miklós Szenczi was appointed the Director of the Department of English Language and Literature. However, he was removed from his position in 1949 for political reason. In the same year, Miklós Szenczi was the appointed director of the institute. However, in 1948, the short-lived institute was dissolved for political reasons.
Tibor Lutter was appointed Head of the Department of English in 1949 and he led the department until 1956. In 1957, Miklós Szenczi was reinstated as head of the department.
In 1990, the department was relocated to Ajtósi Dürer sor in Városliget, Zugló, Budapest.
After the end of communism in Hungary, as of 1989, the Russian language was no longer an obligatory subject at Hungarian primary and secondary schools. Therefore, the demand for English education increased significantly. In response, the Centre for English Teacher Training was established in 1990.
In 1990, Péter Medgyes founded the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language-Hungary in order to facilitate communication among teachers and share useful methods and techniques in teaching English.
In 1994, the School of English and American Studies was founded to accommodate a modern institutional structure for the specialist fields taught in the institution and to be able to process the increasing number of students.
The early 2000s saw several changes at Eötvös Loránd University. The Faculty of Teachers' Training College (in Hungarian: Tanárképzà  Fà Âiskolai Kar) was dissolved while SEAS continued teacher education. First, a separate department was created for teachers' education led by Zsuzsanna Tóth. However, this separate department was dissolved and later the Department of English Language Pedagogy was founded.
In 2007, the School of English and American Studies was relocated to the Trefort Campus (Józsefváros) in Rákóczi út 5. This way, all the institutes of the Faculty of Humanities could be housed at the Trefort Campus.
In 2011, SEAS celebrated the 125th anniversary of foundation of its legal predecessor by publishing a book entitled 125 éves az angol szak.
In 2013, anti-semitic stickers were placed by vandals on the doors of the instructors. The SEAS also expressed their concert with antisemitic provocation.
In 2017, the SEAS expressed its solidarity with Central European University.
On 16 September 2022, Tibor Frank, founding member and twice former director of SEAS and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, died after a short illness.
In 2023, Imre Salusinszky, Australian journalist, political adviser, and English literary academic, was a visiting scholar at the Department of English Language Pedagogy.
The management consists of the director and two deputy directors.
There are 5 departments at the School of English and American Studies.
There are one bachelor and two masters programs at SEAS.
The following festschrifts have been published:
The following is a list of the researchers based on Google Scholar.
The School of English and American Studies organises four to five conferences annually: