Dana Radler
A graduate of the Faculty of Foreign Languages (English-Romanian section) at the Bucharest University in 1994, Dana Radler continued her studies in the area of International Relations (MA in 2004).
She completed a PhD in Cultural and Literary Studies at the same university (2015) with a monograph on "Memory and Fiction in John McGahern's Works", a prominent contemporary Irish writer. Her research covers cultural and literary studies, more specifically culture, memory and gender as constructs or de-constructs and re-constructs of modern societies. Dana currently teaches at the Bucharest University of Economics, Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication, where she focuses on business English for a variety of undergraduate students. In 2018, she was a joint guest editor of the 1st issue of the journal SYNERGY, including a collection of 9 articles and 1 book review examining the connections between Eastern and Western cultural and literary areas. She co-edited a bilingual volume on the French-Romanian writer Panait Istrati (2021). Starting with 2017, she is the co-convenor of the panel EAST MEETS WEST ACROSS BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES at the annual International Conference "Synergies in Communication" of the Department of Modern Languages & Business Communication. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0059-0832
She completed a PhD in Cultural and Literary Studies at the same university (2015) with a monograph on "Memory and Fiction in John McGahern's Works", a prominent contemporary Irish writer. Her research covers cultural and literary studies, more specifically culture, memory and gender as constructs or de-constructs and re-constructs of modern societies. Dana currently teaches at the Bucharest University of Economics, Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication, where she focuses on business English for a variety of undergraduate students. In 2018, she was a joint guest editor of the 1st issue of the journal SYNERGY, including a collection of 9 articles and 1 book review examining the connections between Eastern and Western cultural and literary areas. She co-edited a bilingual volume on the French-Romanian writer Panait Istrati (2021). Starting with 2017, she is the co-convenor of the panel EAST MEETS WEST ACROSS BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES at the annual International Conference "Synergies in Communication" of the Department of Modern Languages & Business Communication. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0059-0832
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his works, Ion D. Sîrbu published the novel “Dansul ursului” [The Dance
of the Bear], apparently a children’s book, in 1988. The key protagonists,
Buru the Bear and the Gary the donkey are both lively alter egos of the
writer. At the surface, the narrative builds on characters whose life is
upset by World War II, while in fact the main theme concerns physical
and intellectual freedom. This paper draws on studies referring to
repression under the communist regime (Mareș, 2011), the novelist’s
personal correspondence (2020, 1998, 1994) and his confessions (2009),
to examine whether, and how, the imaginary has its roots in one’s
personal experience. What happens to humans, domestic and wild
animals when they lose the routine and values of their existence? Who
are Gary and Buru, in fact? Is this work truly “a novel for children and
grandparents”1 as the subtitle states? While interest in Sîrbu’s
personality and works does not fade, this particular narrative opens as a
combination of multiple connections, resistance and learning.
In the Romanian interwar landscape, Henriette Yvonne Stahl’s first novel has raised interest yet its reception was more or less favourable, since the themes were mainly thought as feminist, apparently aligned to similar concerns of other female writers of the time.
The current paper aims to look at the life of protagonists and their actions presented in Stahl’s debut novel, Voica (1924), considered as one of the valuable works of the writer. In addition, the narrative techniques significantly tinge key-protagonists or traits of the secondary ones. The present analysis starts from the following questions: how do interpersonal relationships impact actions in this novel? How does identity shape individuals from distinct social classes and backgrounds: the rural/urban area or the cohabitation space in between rural and urban? What is the route of generations (child, adult, elder) and the relationships inside and outside the family? What is the position of the narrator towards events and protagonists presented in her work? The current paper aims at exploring her fiction in close relationship with a volume standings out as her memoir (Cristea 1996).
Stahl’s first novel presents a writer passionate about the life of peasants whom she had met in the village Fălăștoaca, where Iordache (Dumitru in the novel) was from, the man her family was close to during the First World War. While comparing it to her testimonies published in 1996, the narrative shifts events to the area of Neajlov-Arges, and the main characters massively adopt traits of the real individuals whom the writer, adolescent at the time, had met once. Placed within a classical structure, yet displaying obvious realist influences, the novel comes out as a balanced whole, presenting impressionistically-infused, slightly idealized descriptions, well-shaped protagonists and predominantly dramatic experiences. If the novelist had looked at her own work as a social piece, the results of the present analysis confirm that Voica constitutes a social and psychological novel, a distinct combination of the time.
Starting from Rimbaud’s illuminating pensée “Love has to be reinvented” (Felman 2007: 5), this paper aims to explore the identity of females in My Brother, the Man, drawing on identity and trauma as devised by Penny Brown (1992), Cathy Caruth (1995 and 1996), Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub (1992). In addition, the mixture of memory and narrative covers types of talk fiction (Kakandes 2005), the shift of focus from the subject of remembrance to the mode it takes place (Anne Whitehead 2009), and Beata Piątek who looks at how narratives impact readers (2014). Are the main characters engulfed in a dense life texture able to explore their personal dilemmas, difficult choices and detach from the flux of their own passions and desires? Or are they going to fall victims to their own inability of understanding the meaning of life, paralleled by the lack of vision and humanity manifested by secondary characters? Both male and female characters display a dominant profile, their actions and inner voices are marked by subtle or abrupt shifts, meant to stimulate a noticeable response from those they love or hate. The omniscient narrator employs a vast repertoire of techniques, meant to nuance egos and changes, moving from a classically-structured narrative to a detective story supporting inner monologues and deepened psychological impasses, occasionally bringing fictional personae closer to realist and existentialist fiction.
devoted to Panait Istrati’s biography and works. This bilingual edition in Romanian
and French brings an exciting insight into Istrati’s childhood and early formative
years, his interest for egalitarian, socialist politics, and lifetime friendships such as
those with the Russian refugee Mikhail Kazanski, the illuminating encounter and
literary guidance received from the French writer, Romain Rolland. Throughout his
life, Istrati has followed a committed type of writing meant to support intellectual
growth among those with less fortunate prospects than the upper classes of the
Romanian society. Bălan’s latest book adds to a publication about Istrati’s
experience as a photographer, “Panait Istrati – fotograf și în fotografii”, marking
the centenary of his birth over three decades ago (1984).
facets of sensuality, power and authenticity. Male and female characters portrayed by Romanian artists in the inter- and post-war decades present similar characteristics. This paper aims to explore the tache as a key plastic sign in text and painting, drawing on Øystein Sjåstad’s theory of connections between perception and reality, the result being a
continuum in different artistic media.
Olshtain, a genuine life-testimony of her childhood spent in Czernowitz and Romania before and after World War II. How is one’s identity fragmented when war cuts the existential route of a prosperous and caring family? Where is the victim and who is the heroine? This paper explores trauma, identity and gender rooted in a remediated frame which captures imprints coming closer to the reader, or remains at distance, making the narrative poignant or as diffuse as an aquarelle.
How are conflicts shaped and reconverted by the passage of time? Where does imagination start and where do facts determine the narrative? Is Memoir a piece of fiction, a well-documented and rather neutrally-written volume, or something in between? This article aims at exploring the way in which the narrator‟s identity is infused with difficult, tormenting memories of a distant past, while the writer undergoes a difficult process. To understand the process, the analysis relies on major cultural concepts: collective memory (Halbwachs), communicative memory (Assmann), remembering as remediation (Erll) and memory seen as migration (Glynn and Kleist).
perspectives, linking memory and trauma with the concepts of exile and
conflict. Personal memories ask for an understanding of what belonging
and identity represent for the Irish; immigration has hybrid and fertile
links to memory studies, psychology and psychoanalysis (Akhtar), making the immigrant both love and hate his new territory, while returning to the past or homeland to reflect and regain emotional balance. From the focus on ‘the sexy foreigner’ (Beltsiou), we rely on the idea of crisis discussed by León Grinberg and Rebeca Grinberg, Frank Summers’ examination of identity, the place of the modern polis and the variations of the narrative (Phillips), the trans-generational factor (Fitzgerald and Lambkin), the departure seen as an exile (Murray and Said) and the impact of guilt (Wills).
Such views support an analysis of McGahern’s writing which works as a blend of memories and imagination, the writer highlighting dilemmas, success and failure as ongoing human threads. They are as diverse as the people met by the novelist in his youth, many of them being workers, nurses, entrepreneurs, teachers and writers, both young immigrants in search of a better life and migrants returning to spend their retirement or holidays home.
his works, Ion D. Sîrbu published the novel “Dansul ursului” [The Dance
of the Bear], apparently a children’s book, in 1988. The key protagonists,
Buru the Bear and the Gary the donkey are both lively alter egos of the
writer. At the surface, the narrative builds on characters whose life is
upset by World War II, while in fact the main theme concerns physical
and intellectual freedom. This paper draws on studies referring to
repression under the communist regime (Mareș, 2011), the novelist’s
personal correspondence (2020, 1998, 1994) and his confessions (2009),
to examine whether, and how, the imaginary has its roots in one’s
personal experience. What happens to humans, domestic and wild
animals when they lose the routine and values of their existence? Who
are Gary and Buru, in fact? Is this work truly “a novel for children and
grandparents”1 as the subtitle states? While interest in Sîrbu’s
personality and works does not fade, this particular narrative opens as a
combination of multiple connections, resistance and learning.
In the Romanian interwar landscape, Henriette Yvonne Stahl’s first novel has raised interest yet its reception was more or less favourable, since the themes were mainly thought as feminist, apparently aligned to similar concerns of other female writers of the time.
The current paper aims to look at the life of protagonists and their actions presented in Stahl’s debut novel, Voica (1924), considered as one of the valuable works of the writer. In addition, the narrative techniques significantly tinge key-protagonists or traits of the secondary ones. The present analysis starts from the following questions: how do interpersonal relationships impact actions in this novel? How does identity shape individuals from distinct social classes and backgrounds: the rural/urban area or the cohabitation space in between rural and urban? What is the route of generations (child, adult, elder) and the relationships inside and outside the family? What is the position of the narrator towards events and protagonists presented in her work? The current paper aims at exploring her fiction in close relationship with a volume standings out as her memoir (Cristea 1996).
Stahl’s first novel presents a writer passionate about the life of peasants whom she had met in the village Fălăștoaca, where Iordache (Dumitru in the novel) was from, the man her family was close to during the First World War. While comparing it to her testimonies published in 1996, the narrative shifts events to the area of Neajlov-Arges, and the main characters massively adopt traits of the real individuals whom the writer, adolescent at the time, had met once. Placed within a classical structure, yet displaying obvious realist influences, the novel comes out as a balanced whole, presenting impressionistically-infused, slightly idealized descriptions, well-shaped protagonists and predominantly dramatic experiences. If the novelist had looked at her own work as a social piece, the results of the present analysis confirm that Voica constitutes a social and psychological novel, a distinct combination of the time.
Starting from Rimbaud’s illuminating pensée “Love has to be reinvented” (Felman 2007: 5), this paper aims to explore the identity of females in My Brother, the Man, drawing on identity and trauma as devised by Penny Brown (1992), Cathy Caruth (1995 and 1996), Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub (1992). In addition, the mixture of memory and narrative covers types of talk fiction (Kakandes 2005), the shift of focus from the subject of remembrance to the mode it takes place (Anne Whitehead 2009), and Beata Piątek who looks at how narratives impact readers (2014). Are the main characters engulfed in a dense life texture able to explore their personal dilemmas, difficult choices and detach from the flux of their own passions and desires? Or are they going to fall victims to their own inability of understanding the meaning of life, paralleled by the lack of vision and humanity manifested by secondary characters? Both male and female characters display a dominant profile, their actions and inner voices are marked by subtle or abrupt shifts, meant to stimulate a noticeable response from those they love or hate. The omniscient narrator employs a vast repertoire of techniques, meant to nuance egos and changes, moving from a classically-structured narrative to a detective story supporting inner monologues and deepened psychological impasses, occasionally bringing fictional personae closer to realist and existentialist fiction.
devoted to Panait Istrati’s biography and works. This bilingual edition in Romanian
and French brings an exciting insight into Istrati’s childhood and early formative
years, his interest for egalitarian, socialist politics, and lifetime friendships such as
those with the Russian refugee Mikhail Kazanski, the illuminating encounter and
literary guidance received from the French writer, Romain Rolland. Throughout his
life, Istrati has followed a committed type of writing meant to support intellectual
growth among those with less fortunate prospects than the upper classes of the
Romanian society. Bălan’s latest book adds to a publication about Istrati’s
experience as a photographer, “Panait Istrati – fotograf și în fotografii”, marking
the centenary of his birth over three decades ago (1984).
facets of sensuality, power and authenticity. Male and female characters portrayed by Romanian artists in the inter- and post-war decades present similar characteristics. This paper aims to explore the tache as a key plastic sign in text and painting, drawing on Øystein Sjåstad’s theory of connections between perception and reality, the result being a
continuum in different artistic media.
Olshtain, a genuine life-testimony of her childhood spent in Czernowitz and Romania before and after World War II. How is one’s identity fragmented when war cuts the existential route of a prosperous and caring family? Where is the victim and who is the heroine? This paper explores trauma, identity and gender rooted in a remediated frame which captures imprints coming closer to the reader, or remains at distance, making the narrative poignant or as diffuse as an aquarelle.
How are conflicts shaped and reconverted by the passage of time? Where does imagination start and where do facts determine the narrative? Is Memoir a piece of fiction, a well-documented and rather neutrally-written volume, or something in between? This article aims at exploring the way in which the narrator‟s identity is infused with difficult, tormenting memories of a distant past, while the writer undergoes a difficult process. To understand the process, the analysis relies on major cultural concepts: collective memory (Halbwachs), communicative memory (Assmann), remembering as remediation (Erll) and memory seen as migration (Glynn and Kleist).
perspectives, linking memory and trauma with the concepts of exile and
conflict. Personal memories ask for an understanding of what belonging
and identity represent for the Irish; immigration has hybrid and fertile
links to memory studies, psychology and psychoanalysis (Akhtar), making the immigrant both love and hate his new territory, while returning to the past or homeland to reflect and regain emotional balance. From the focus on ‘the sexy foreigner’ (Beltsiou), we rely on the idea of crisis discussed by León Grinberg and Rebeca Grinberg, Frank Summers’ examination of identity, the place of the modern polis and the variations of the narrative (Phillips), the trans-generational factor (Fitzgerald and Lambkin), the departure seen as an exile (Murray and Said) and the impact of guilt (Wills).
Such views support an analysis of McGahern’s writing which works as a blend of memories and imagination, the writer highlighting dilemmas, success and failure as ongoing human threads. They are as diverse as the people met by the novelist in his youth, many of them being workers, nurses, entrepreneurs, teachers and writers, both young immigrants in search of a better life and migrants returning to spend their retirement or holidays home.
Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies is published in collaboration with “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia, Romania and welcomes contributions from scholars all over the world.
Literature section is illustrated by authors with affiliation to The “A. Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology, Iași, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, and West University of Timișoara. The articles advance novel insights when inquiring into enticing subjects such as: the bodily community and its representations in the common space of the members of Viața românească literary group, analysed through Roland Barthes’s and Marielle Macéʼs theories; the remix of hajduk fiction in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century Romanian literature, conveying a modern lifestyle; the exile and nostalgia for the native lands in a comparative reading of the works of two seemingly unrelated writers: Andreï Makine and Sorin Titel, both of whom revealed to undergo a pilgrimage to reinvent themselves.
Translation studies is a perfect ground for “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia to present a paper dealing with a view on the concept of fidelity in literary translation with an analysis of the Romanian poet Mircea Ivănescu’s work on the overture of episode eleven, “Sirens”, from James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. The paper is not intended to elicit the imperfections of the translation but rather to illustrate the intricacy of the task, the problems of non-equivalence that are difficult to avoid by any literary translator.
Theatre section benefits from the original intuitions of academics from National University of Music Bucharest and Military Technical Academy, Bucharest, concentrating on modernity: the importance of the Romanian theatrical project – DramAcum, as a new type of theatre and dramaturgy, within the larger European influence of the verbatim dramatic style performed in theatres under the slogan of the in-yer-face; staging O’Neill’s Hughie by Alexa Visarion makes way for an investigation of several drama reviews that discuss the play’s first night, revealing that the performance was a successful attempt at communicating and debating the conflicted values of American pragmatism and equally a crowning of the Romanian director’s effort to unfold the “anti-materialism” and the fatalistic approach to existence of the American playwright.
Owing to University of Bucharest in Cultural studies we witness the reconstruction of the attitudes of Romanian peasants towards the vestiges of prehistoric material culture, finding out what people thought about the origin of prehistoric artefacts and what meanings were associated to them.
In the Linguistics section thanks to Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, and Lund University we are introduced to three perspectives on Romanian language: the destiny of the Latin in the East is interpreted through the pastoral character of Romanity, which led to a population mobility that influenced the language at diatopic level, with a focus on the transhumant shepherds whose travels played a linguistic levelling role, despite the territorial spread of the language; the modern French impact on the Romanian language (the redefining of the neo-Latinic physiognomy of the Romanian language) is detailed from a chronological perspective, the influence of French language being considered from a linguistic perspective, but also with a view to the various social circumstances; last but not least, we are proposed a plea in favor of a linguistic updating, namely the acceptance into the literary language of feminized denominations of professions.
Due to University of Oradea, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, and University of Craiova the Book reviews section engages: a tome written by Paul Cernat, an essential study for those interested in the phenomenon of the Romanian avant-garde; a book by Carmen Mușat, which analyzes and systemizes the relational character of literature and the discourses on literature, a plea for the theorist and his presence in the world, retaining a valid purpose; a volume proposing multiple interpretations, in which Carmen Dărăbuş traces the (evolutionary) trajectory of male characters, by highlighting the permanent capabilities of metamorphosis of the primordial pattern; a literary magazine bringing into attention of the contemporary readers the cultural activity of the Romanian intellectuals from exile, with a focus on Camilian Demetrescu.
Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies is published in collaboration with “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia, Romania, and welcomes contributions from scholars all over the world.