One of several side projects involves research on nationalism and identity, with specific focus on how individuals use the internet as a medium for the articulation of national, regional, and ethnic identities.

In order to explore this phenomenon, I am studying interaction on a forum where individuals debate the past, present, and future of Transylvania. I first became interested in the topic in 2003, while teaching a course entitled "A Social Psychology of Cyberspace" in the Department of Sociology at the University of Szeged, Hungary. One of my students in that class did his research project on interpersonal interaction among Hungarians and Romanians on the topic of Transylvania.

Since then, I have been laying the groundwork for doing intensive analyses of posts in the forum from symbolic interactionist and discourse analytic perspectives. Internet websites abound with information about Transylvania.