Institutional Address: Centerfor American Studies

Dana Mihăilescu

Contact details

Institutional address: Centerfor American Studies

School of Foreign Languages and Literatures

University of Bucharest

7-13, Pitar Moş street, Bucharest, Sector 1, Romania

Email:

Webpage:

Work Experience

• October 2009 – present: Lecturer, Department of English/Center for American Studies, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest

• February 2008 –October 2009: Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest

• October 2004 – present: junior researcher, University of Bucharest, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Department of English - American Studies

• September 2006 – June 2007: Executive director of “Ariel” Language Center, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest

• February 2004 – February 2008: Junior Lecturer, "Dimitrie Cantemir" University, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Department of English

• Seminars and courses taught: Ethno-Racial Identity Configurations in American Literature. Cross-Cultural Encounters; Introduction to Mass Media. U.S. Mass Media and Image Culture: The Stakes of Gender, Ethnicity and Ethics;seminars in (19th and 20thcentury)American literature, American civilization; Practical courses of English.

• July 12 – July 20, 2006 and July 16 - July 23, 2005: Translator – Summer schools organized by “Le Centre International de Formation Européenne / Institut Européen des Hautes Études Internationales”, Nice, France and held at "Dimitrie Cantemir" University, Bucharest (2006 topic: “Perspectives de l’entrée de la Roumanie dans l’Union Européenne”; 2005 topic: « La Nouvelle Europe élargie: perspectives et premiers résultats»)

Education

2004-2010, January 30

• PhD in Philology, Magna Cum Laude, University of Bucharest (PhD dissertation: Ethical Dilemmas and Reconfigurations of Identity in Early Twentieth Century Eastern European Jewish American Narratives; advisor: Prof. Rodica Mihăilă; committee: Prof. Stephen Whitfield (Brandeis University); Prof. Victor Neumann (University of West, Timişoara); Prof. Ştefan Avădanei (Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi).

2003-2004

• MA in American Studies, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest, 2004 (MA dissertation: Ethnic Identity Dilemmas. The Jewish Immigrant Margin vs. American Mainstream Impositions; advisor: Assoc. Prof. Mihai Mîndra)

1999-2003

• BA in English major / French minor, School of Letters, University of Craiova, 2003 (BA dissertation: The Levels of Silence in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury; advisor: Assoc. Prof. Aloisia Şorop)

Awards

• October 2010: Romanian Association of American Studies Graduate Student Award for best PhD dissertation in American Studies submitted between 2008 and 2010.

Scholarships and Fellowships

• October 2002 - February 2003, "Charles de Gaulle - Lille 3" University, Lille, France: study grant within the Socrates European Commission Exchange Programme. Areas of study: English and French.

• Raphael Patai Fellow at the Conference “Modern Jewish Culture: Unities and Diversities,” June 24-26, 2008, Wroclaw, Poland.

• August 2008 – June 2009 – Fulbright Junior Visiting Researcher, American Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts[Advisor: Prof. Stephen J. Whitfield]

Research Projects

• October 2011 – October 2014: Researcher in PN-II-RU-TE-2011-3-0149 project “Cross-Cultural Encounters in American Trauma Narratives: A Comparative Approach to Personal and Collective Memories”, director: Assoc. Prof. Roxana Elena Oltean; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)

• October 2011 – October 2013: Researcher in PN-II-RU-TE-2011-3-0159 project “Women’s Narratives of Transnational Relocation”, director: Assoc. Prof. Sabina Draga; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)

• September 2007 – September 2010: Junior Researcher in the project “Romanian Cultural Space in Transatlantic Perspective. From Post-Communism to Post-Accession”, project director: Prof. Rodica Mihăilă; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)

• September 2007 – December 2010: Junior Researcher in the project “Cultures of Diasporas: The Margin and the Mainstream in Jewish-Romanian and Jewish-American Literatures”, Project director: Assoc. Prof. Mihai Mîndra; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)

Summer Schools / Training / Research

• August 25th – September 5th 2006 Budapest: “The European Union and the New Transatlantic Challenges”. Organizers: L’Institut Européen d’Hautes Études Internationales, Nice and Hungarian New Atlantic Initiative

• August 4th – August 18th 2010 Osnabrueck, Germany: “International Osnabrueck Summer School on the Cultural Study of the Law – Synergies: Law, Language and Culture,” Department of English and American Studies, Osnabrueck University

• August 20th – September 3rd 2010 London, Great Britain: Research at British Library, funded by EUFISCSU-CNCSIS project no. 280 / 2007, titled “Cultures of Diasporas: The Margin and the Mainstream in Jewish-Romanian and Jewish-American Literatures”, Project director: Assoc. Prof. Mihai Mîndra

• May 30th – June 3rd 2011 Dubrovnik, Croatia: Participant in Feminist Critical Analysis Course, Witnessing the Past, Remembering the Future, organized by The Center for Gender and Politics of the Belgrade University (Political Science Department), Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and the Department of Gender Studies of the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest

Publications

Books

• co-editor, with Rodica Mihăilă. Romanian Culture in the Global Age. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2010. 305 pp. ISBN 978-973-737-848-4. MLA-indexed. [

Book chapters

• “Struggling for Recognition: Romania’s Mainstream and Ethnic Minorities with Konrad Bercovici.”The Margin and the Mainstream in Romanian Culture. ed. Mihai Mîndra. Peter Lang (Nationalisms across the Globe series). forthcoming 2011.

• “Frames of Life and the Will to Memory through the Lenses of Exile: Eastern European -U.S. Encounters in Norman Manea’s Vizuina/The Lair.” East-European Cultural Space from Post-Communism to Post-E.U. Accession: Transatlantic Perspectives and History in the Making.Eds. Rodica Mihăilă and Roxana Oltean. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2011. in press.

• “Lower East Side Fiction and the Displacement of Unified Jewishness.” E pluribus unum or E pluribus plura? Unity and Diversity in American Culture. [EAAS Biennal Conference Volume (Oslo Conference 2008)]. Eds. Hans-Jürgen Grabbe, David Mauk, Ole Moen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2011. 221-239. ISBN 978-3-8253-5857-0.

• “Images of Romania in Contemporary North American Narratives.” [part1], [part2]Romanian Culture in the Global Age. Eds. Rodica Mihăilă and Dana Mihăilescu. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2010. 265-289. ISBN 978-973-737-848-4.

• “Performing the Gendered Self. The Stakes of Affect in Miriam Katin’s We Are On Our Own.” American Visual Memoirs after the 1970s: Studies on Gender, Sexuality and Visibility in the Post-Civil Rights Age. Ed. Mihaela Precup. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2010. 139-154. ISBN: 9787-973-737-779-1.

• “The ‘Frightened Smile’ of Elie Wiesel’s Narrative Imagination: Jewish Identity and Diaspora.” Exile and The Narrative/Poetic Imagination. Ed. Agnieszka Gutthy. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 41-50. ISBN13: 978-1-4438-1746-2 / ISBN: 1-4438-1746-5. <

• “Jewishness: A Lens towards Post-Communist Romania and Democratic America in Norman Manea’s Memoir.” Transatlantic Dialogues. Eastern Europe, the U.S. and Post-Cold War Spaces of Transition, eds. Rodica Mihăilă and Roxana Oltean. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2009. 210-224. ISBN: 978-973-737-680-0.

• “East-European Traditions in Early 20th Century Jewish-American Fiction: The Case of Tsdokeh in Anzia Yezierska.” Herménéutique et bricolage: territoires et frontières de la tradition dans le judaïsme. Ed. Mădălina Vârtejanu-Joubert. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008. 241-254. ISBN: 978-3-03911-456-6.

• “Shifting Pillars of the Jewish Community from the Old to the New World. The Case of Early 20th Century Jewish-American Writings.” New/Old Worlds. Spaces of Transition. Eds. Rodica Mihăilă and Irina Pană. Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2007. 370-381. ISBN: 978-973-637-159-2.

• “Jewish-American Rewriting of the Rags-to-Riches Myth: The Case of Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska.” Conference on British and American Studies. Ed. Marinela Burada. Braşov: Braşov University Press, 2006. 143-150. ISBN (10) 973-635-756-2; ISBN (13) 978-973-635-756-5. <

• “From Duality to Doubleness: Assimilation and the Jewish-American in Mary Antin’s Writings.” Conference on British and American Studies. Ed. Marinela Burada. Braşov: Braşov University Press, 2005. 269-278. ISBN (10) 973-636-660-4; ISBN (13) 978-973-635-660-5. <

Articlesin peer-reviewed journals

• “Sides of the Nagging Wife Stereotype in Early Twentieth Century Jewish American Narratives.” Journal of Jewish Identities 3.2 (July 2010): 47-76. [Project Muse Database: < ISSN: 1939-7941.

• “The National/Ethnic Struggle in Early 20th Century Jewish-American Life Stories. M.E. Ravage and Michael Gold.” LiCuS. Journal of Literary Theory and Cultural Studies. Published by the University of Zagreb4.6 (2009):103-113. ISSN: 1846-1778. <

• “Jewish Men and the Early Twentieth-Century American Code of Masculinity through Ethnic Lenses.”Atenea. Special Issue on Men and Masculinity. Published by University of Puerto Rico at Malaga28.1 (June 2008): 87-102. ISSN 0885-6079.[ Ebsco Database:

• “Jewish Stereotypes in Critical Focus: From Christian Archetypes to Representation Practices.” Australian Journal of Jewish Studies XXI (2007): 201-222. ISSN: 1037-0838. [Extended Academic ASAP Database]

• “Jewish Stereotypes between Shtetl Culture and Mythic America: The Birth of Contingent Jewish Identity in Anzia Yezierska’s Prose.”University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies IX.3 (2007). Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2008. 122-128.

• “Early 20th Century Polemics over Ethnicity. The American Taste for Assimilation and Eastern-European Jews.”University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies VII.4 (June 2005): 107-115.

Book / Exhibition reviews

• “Legacies of a Traumatic Past in Romanian Jews’ Artworks. Review of Exhibition Crossroads: Jewish Artists during the Holocaust.” Images. A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture (Brill Press), 2011. In press. [Ingenta Brill / EBSCOHOST databases]

• Review of Dancing in the Dark by Morris Dickstein. Vingtième Siecle. Rêvue d’histoire. Presses de Sciences-Po. 2/2011 (110): 213-214. ISSN: 0294-1759
E-ISSN: 1950-6678. ISBN: 9782724632071.
ISI-AHRI-indexed journal. <

•“Writing Visually for Another Crack in the Wailing Wall: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes. A Review.” [Inter]sections 4.13 (Winter/Spring 2011): 12-14.

Conferences

• ‘“Kilroy Was Here”: Identity-in-the-Making in Thomas Pynchon’s V.’, International Conference of the English Department The Secret and the Known, University of Bucharest, June 2004.

• “Dilemmas of Jewish-American Identity Formation in Anzia Yezierska’s Encounter with the Limits. A Bridge to Otherness”, English Department Conference Mapping the Future, "Al. I. Cuza" University, Iaşi, March 2005.

• “Early 20th Century Eastern-European American-Jews and the Struggle between Nationalism and Ethnicity. Comparative Outlook on the Life Stories of M. E. Ravage and Michael Gold”, MESEA Conference Ethnic Life Writing and Histories, University of Navarra, Pamplona, May 2006.

• “East-European Traditions in Early 20th Century Jewish-American Fiction: The Case of Tsdokeh in Anzia Yezierska”, International Colloquium organized by Sergiu Al-George Institute of Oriental Studies Herménéutique et bricolage: territoires et frontières de la tradition dans le judaïsme, University of Bucharest 27-28 October 2006.

• Presentation of PhD project structure, “The Contingency of Double Identity. The East European in Early 20th Century Jewish American Prose Narratives” at the Heidelberg Spring Academy, Heidelberg, 16-20 April 2007.

• “Jewish Stereotypes between Shtetl Culture and Mythic America: The Birth of the Contingent Jewish Identity in Anzia Yezierska’s Prose”, International Conference of the English Department, University of Bucharest,31 May – 2 June 2007.

• “Performing the Gendered Self. The Stakes of Affect in Miriam Katin’s We Are On Our Own”, Paris Graduate Conference in American Studies, EHESS, April 18-20, 2008.

• “Lower East Side Fiction and the Displacement of Unified Jewishness”, EAAS Conference E Pluribus Unum, Oslo, 8-13 May 2008.

• “Jewishness: A Lens towards Post-communist Romania and Democratic America in Norman Manea’s Memoir”, RAAS Fulbright Conference The Sense of America.Histories into Text, Bucharest, 22-24 May 2008.

• “The ‘Terrified Smile’ of Elie Wiesel’s Narrative Imagination”, NEMLA 40th Anniversary Convention, Boston University, 26 February – 1 March 2009.

• “Shoah, Gender and Memory: The Stakes of Affect in Miriam Katin’s We Are on Our Own”, ACLA Conference, Harvard University, 26-29 March 2009.

• “The Stakes of Emotional Memory in Mary Antin’s Promised Land: Towards an Ethics of the Vulnerable,” English Department Conference Expressions of the Self, "Al. I. Cuza" University, Iaşi, 24-26 September 2009.

• “Images of Romania in Contemporary North American Narratives,” Romanian Culture in the Global Age Workshop, Annual Conference of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Cultures, University of Bucharest, 30-31 October 2009.

• “Ethnic Life Stories in America: Specifics of Romanian Jewish Immigrants' Narratives.” Cultures of Diaspora: The Margin and the Mainstream in Jewish-Romanian and Jewish-American Literatures International Workshop, University of Bucharest, 15 May 2010.

• “Frames of Life and the Will to Memory through the Lenses of Exile: Eastern European -U.S. Encounters in Norman Manea’s Vizuina,” East-European Cultural Space from Post-
Communism to Post-E.U. Accession: Transatlantic Perspectives and History in the Making Workshop, Annual Conference of the English Department, University of Bucharest, 14 June 2010.

• “The Struggle between Descent and Dissent in Early Twentieth Century U.S.: Anzia Yezierska’s Reconfigurations of Charity in Arrogant Beggar,” RAAS-Fulbright ConferenceThe American Tradition of Descent/Dissent: The Underground, the Countercultural, the (Anti) Utopian, Ovidius University, Constanţa, 7-9 October 2010.

• “Prose Pictures, Imagination and the Stakes of Emotional Memory in Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” Toni Morrison Society Conference “Toni Morrison and the Circuits of Imagination,” Paris, 4-7 November 2010.

• “On the Performative Lure of War Memories: Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story”.” Tales of War: Expressions of Conflict and Reconciliation,Annual Conference of the English Department, University of Bucharest, 4 June 2011.

• “Gendered Spaces of Holocaust Traumas in Anca Vlasopolos’s No Return Address.”Women and Holocaust in Central Europe: New Perspectives and Challenges, Conference organized by Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Science (Warsaw), Kurt and Ursula Schubert Institute of Jewish Studies (Olomouc), Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences (Bratislava), and Department of Gender Studies, Central European University (Budapest), Warsaw, 17-19 November 2011 (

Interviews

• Interview with Radu Florescu / Interview with Norman Manea. Cultura românească în perspectivă trans-atlantică. Dialoguri româno-americane. Eds. Maria-Sabina Draga-Alexandru and Teodora Oprescu-Şerban. Bucharest: Bucharest University Press, 2009. 69-72; 125-130.

Translations

• Co-translator of The Encyclopedia of Bucharest's Places of Worship (Bucharest: Universalia, 2006)

Language Expertise

• November 24th,2007: TOEFL ibt Score: 119 (out of 120)

• December 2001, Bucharest: Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English, Grade A

Affiliations

RAAS (Romanian Association of American Studies) [I am the postgraduate representative of Romania in the European Association of American Studies]

ESSE (European Society for the Study of English)

MESEA (Multiethnic Society of Europe and the Americas) [2006]

NEMLA (Northeast Modern Language Association) [2008-2009]

ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) [2009]

Toni Morrison Society [2010]