- Nicoleta Stanca is Associate Professor at Ovidius University Constanta. She has published five book-length studies: D... moreNicoleta Stanca is Associate Professor at Ovidius University Constanta. She has published five book-length studies: Defiance of "Magdalenes." Female Challenges in Recent Irish Fiction (2023), Irish-Romanian Cultural Connections. Travellers, Writers and Ambassadors (2019), Mapping Ireland (Essays on Space and Place in Contemporary Irish Poetry) (2014), The Harp and the Pen (Tradition and Novelty in Modern Irish Writing) (2013), Duality of Vision in Seamus Heaney’s Writings (2009), articles in academic journals and book chapters on Irish-American identity, literary studies and popular culture. She has been a co-editor of conference volumes, the most recent being: Ideology, Identity and the US: Crossroads, Freeways, Collisions (2019). She is a member of ESSE and EAAS and an alumna of the Multinational Institute of American Studies, New York University (NYU). She has done research as a volunteer at the Embassy of Romania în Dublin in June 2022.edit
The translation process either human or automated is faced with ambiguity that hinders the clarity of the message. It pollutes translation. It renders the target text tainted lacking the clarity conditioned to convey the exhaustive... more
The translation process either human or automated is faced with ambiguity that hinders the clarity of the message. It pollutes translation. It renders the target text tainted lacking the clarity conditioned to convey the exhaustive meaning and intention of the source text .As a consequence, receptors may fail to grasp the precise meaning contained in the linguistic structure. The automated translation process impacts conveying the target meaning, disambiguating it leads to overcoming the discursive obstacles, which reflect the ambiguity residue. The Interpretative Theory in Translation adopted a distinct simplistic approach to produce a clear translation. It focuses on the content contained rather than on the containing form. This paper aims at checking the validity of the interpretive model to be applied to Automated Translation. To what extent the interpretive theory can serve as a model of disambiguating automated translation to reflect the research question to answer? Hypothesizing that the fundamentals of the theory can constitute precious guidance to disambiguating automation in translation is the research core on which this paper gravitates.
Research Interests:
The article is based on research did in the National Archives of Ireland in June 2022 and it aims to portray the Romanian society seen through the Irish lenses, as it comes out from files preserved through indirect diplomatic connections... more
The article is based on research did in the National Archives of Ireland in June 2022 and it aims to portray the Romanian society seen through the Irish lenses, as it comes out from files preserved through indirect diplomatic connections because there were no official relations between the two nations in the 1940s and 1950s. The files identified cover interesting aspects of the Romanian society in relation to the Irish one reflected by three events: the aid received by the Ursuline Sisters of Sibiu from the Irish Red Cross, the visit of the Queen Mother of Romania, Queen Helen, welcomed in Ireland on a private visit and the match played by the Romanian youth football team against the Irish B team in Dublin. The attitude of the Irish public and officials ranges from suspicion on account of the undemocratic regime in Romania at the time to sympathy and acceptance shown to a small nation in distress.
Research Interests:
This article analyzes elements of nation branding, i.e., cultural activities employed by the Embassy of Romania in Ireland in the recent context of the term of the current Romanian Ambassador (2021-2023). It will be proved that the... more
This article analyzes elements of nation branding, i.e., cultural activities employed by the Embassy of Romania in Ireland in the recent context of
the term of the current Romanian Ambassador (2021-2023). It will be proved that the Embassy operates between tradition and novelty, keeping already established connections in Ireland and forging new ones. Also, the formal institution representing Romania has been working with “informal ambassadors” (the diaspora, associations, churches, businesses, schools,
art institutions, etc.) for the benefit of bilateral relations.
the term of the current Romanian Ambassador (2021-2023). It will be proved that the Embassy operates between tradition and novelty, keeping already established connections in Ireland and forging new ones. Also, the formal institution representing Romania has been working with “informal ambassadors” (the diaspora, associations, churches, businesses, schools,
art institutions, etc.) for the benefit of bilateral relations.
Research Interests:
The reader must not identify Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with James Joyce in every respect. For instance, Stephen is represented at Clongowes as a timid boy, conscious of his smallness and weakness.... more
The reader must not identify Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with James Joyce in every respect. For instance, Stephen is represented at Clongowes as a timid boy, conscious of his smallness and weakness. Conversely, young Joyce was keen on hurdling and cricket, won cups in sports competitions and earned the nickname “Sunny Jim” due to his cheerful disposition. This paper will trace autobiographical elements in the novel with the purpose to prove that they are meant not as mere recordings of particular autobiographical experiences but as instances of universality. Hence, the choice of the novel title, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Research Interests:
This article draws the portrayal of the church support for Romanians as depicted in articles from the most important Irish newspaper, The Irish Times (1992-2020). The articles analyzed show: the help of the Church of Ireland for the... more
This article draws the portrayal of the church support for Romanians as depicted in articles from the most important Irish newspaper, The Irish Times (1992-2020). The articles analyzed show: the help of the Church of Ireland for the Romanian people in the aftermath of the 1989 fall of the communist regime; the interest that the Irish society showed for the Orthodox Church in the context of an increase in the number of immigrants from Romania, a predominantly Orthodox country; the efforts of the churches in Ireland to establish an interfaith dialogue for the benefit of the Romanian immigrants; the focus that remarkable Orthodox priests, such as Father Irineu Crăciun and Father Godfrey O'Donnell, benefitted from in the Irish press due to their constant work for the benefit of the Romanian community in Ireland
Research Interests:
The present study presents and analyzes the Russian administration installed in Dobrogea after the occupation of the region by the Tsarist troops at the beginning of June 1877 and until November 1878, when most of the region (Constanța... more
The present study presents and analyzes the Russian administration installed in Dobrogea after the occupation of the region by the Tsarist troops at the beginning of June 1877 and until November 1878, when most of the region (Constanța and Tulcea counties) was taken over by Romania following the decision of Berlin Congress (July 13, 1878). Romanian documents, due to the Dobrogea research team, led by Colonel Stefan Fălcoianu before the installation of the Romanian administration and army in the province, have been used. Russian sources from the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire archive are also highlighted.
Research Interests:
The article aims at discussing the case studies of the Romanian Orthodox churches in Dublin and the unique Romanian Orthodox monastery in Shannonbridge, Ireland. The general context is that of a growing Romanian diaspora in Ireland, hence... more
The article aims at discussing the case studies of the Romanian Orthodox churches in Dublin and the unique Romanian Orthodox monastery in Shannonbridge, Ireland. The general context is that of a growing Romanian diaspora in Ireland, hence the necessity of such “informal ambassadors”, in the sense of institutions that are both keepers of
Romanianness and mediators for better integration in Irish society. We will also offer an overview of the collaboration between the Romanian churches and the Embassy in Dublin for the benefit of the Romanian diasporic community.
Romanianness and mediators for better integration in Irish society. We will also offer an overview of the collaboration between the Romanian churches and the Embassy in Dublin for the benefit of the Romanian diasporic community.
Research Interests:
Sebastian Barry’s novel The Secret Scripture (2008) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize before being named the 2008 Costa Book of Year and winning the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait... more
Sebastian Barry’s novel The Secret Scripture (2008) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize before being named the 2008 Costa Book of Year and winning the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The novel is an exquisite example of trauma narrative in Irish recent fiction. Almost one hundred years old and still in the mental hospital where she was committed as a young woman, Roseanne revisits the tragedies and passions of her life
through her secret journal. Raised in rural Ireland in the 1930s, her life is marked by civil war and a troubled family life. When she marries Tom McNulty, she believes she has found love and security, but her dreams are shattered. Through her journal and that of the doctor in charge of her, the reader is gradually revealed how the process of trauma healing could be achieved.
through her secret journal. Raised in rural Ireland in the 1930s, her life is marked by civil war and a troubled family life. When she marries Tom McNulty, she believes she has found love and security, but her dreams are shattered. Through her journal and that of the doctor in charge of her, the reader is gradually revealed how the process of trauma healing could be achieved.
Research Interests:
NICOLETA STANCA Dracula Redivivus: Spatial Roots and Bloodlines This article aims at reviving the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker after 125 years from its publication, paying attention to the two spaces that generated the birth of the... more
NICOLETA STANCA Dracula Redivivus: Spatial Roots and Bloodlines This article aims at reviving the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker after 125 years from its publication, paying attention to the two spaces that generated the birth of the Dracula myth: Ireland and Transylvania. Many studies have been devoted to the East European roots of the story, the gothic characteristics of the novel and the subsequent popular culture revisitations of the Dracula myth. This article brings together an interpretation of the novel through the lens of the Irish Famine, the background against which the novel may be read, and of the sources of inspiration related to the Romanian ruler, Vlad the Impaler, alongside more recent approaches to the Dracula cultural phenomenon in the Romanian space. Questions of the identity formation of the vampire, starting from Dracula, are also discussed.
Research Interests:
Everything conceivable, all that has ever been imagined, can be included in our minds and souls. As psyche means “breath”, “soul” and “mind”, it points to the relevance of psychology as a study of mental, emotional and spiritual... more
Everything conceivable, all that has ever been imagined, can be included in our minds and souls. As psyche means “breath”, “soul” and “mind”, it points to the relevance
of psychology as a study of mental, emotional and spiritual processes involved
in our identity make-up. One of the main organizers of our self and psychological
experiences is our relationship with death: our fear of abandonment and of being alone
when conceiving our own death, the fear of the loss of the others, leading to the fear of
attachment and emotional death. Pat Kinevane, a contemporary Irish playwright, deals, in his 2005 play, Forgotten, with the idea of family and social abandonment of old people in nursing homes. The interconnected stories of Dora, Eucharia, Flor and Gustus, the characters in the play, aged 80-100 years old, living in separate retirement and care facilities around Ireland, reveal these fears. Mental illness in the current explosion of anxiety is also crucial to our identity. Another play by Kinevane, Silent (2010), ends with the word silent, which indicates the insanity, invisibility and ultimately the death of the protagonist, Tino McGoldring, a homeless man tormented by the suicide of his brother. His self after the loss of his brother, wife, family, job, mind is constructed in relation to the past and the imaginary world of the Italian-American icon of the film industry of the 1920s, Rudolph Valentino.
of psychology as a study of mental, emotional and spiritual processes involved
in our identity make-up. One of the main organizers of our self and psychological
experiences is our relationship with death: our fear of abandonment and of being alone
when conceiving our own death, the fear of the loss of the others, leading to the fear of
attachment and emotional death. Pat Kinevane, a contemporary Irish playwright, deals, in his 2005 play, Forgotten, with the idea of family and social abandonment of old people in nursing homes. The interconnected stories of Dora, Eucharia, Flor and Gustus, the characters in the play, aged 80-100 years old, living in separate retirement and care facilities around Ireland, reveal these fears. Mental illness in the current explosion of anxiety is also crucial to our identity. Another play by Kinevane, Silent (2010), ends with the word silent, which indicates the insanity, invisibility and ultimately the death of the protagonist, Tino McGoldring, a homeless man tormented by the suicide of his brother. His self after the loss of his brother, wife, family, job, mind is constructed in relation to the past and the imaginary world of the Italian-American icon of the film industry of the 1920s, Rudolph Valentino.
Research Interests:
The paper discusses aspects related to assessing the English major and minor students at the Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University Constanța, Romania, participating in the online Victorian literature classes during semester one of the... more
The paper discusses aspects related to assessing the English major and
minor students at the Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University Constanța, Romania, participating in the online Victorian literature classes during semester one of the academic year 2020-2021. The assessment was conducted by Associate professor Nicoleta Stanca and Assistant professor Alina Cojocaru. The instructors started from the assumption that for evaluation they had to take into account the advantages
and disadvantages of online classes, with which both they and the students had become familiar. The greatest challenge of this alternative to face-to-face education had been to create and maintain an online class community. Thus, in order to preserve an online environment in which students should feel free to be creative and communicate with one another, two types of assessment have been introduced: a continuous one, “The British Literature Blog,” and a final one, “the Facebook/ LinkedIn Profiles.” Dr. Alina Cojocaru has been the administrator of The British Literature Blog: News, Views and Reviews from the students of Ovidius University, intended for students as an online source to complement their work in class in an active and collaborative manner. Associate
professor Nicoleta Stanca has worked on the Facebook and LinkedIn Profiles for fictional characters, created by the students as final assessment, in order to offer the latter novelty in approaching literature, make them aware of the distinction between the private and the public spheres (with the Victorians and with us), make them focus on characters chronologically and psychologically, during stages of development, and make them do further research on social networks (with the Victorians and with us). The paper will present results of these types of assessment with the English major and minor students enrolled in the Victorian literature class and will analyze the efficiency of the online assessment methods proposed.
minor students at the Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University Constanța, Romania, participating in the online Victorian literature classes during semester one of the academic year 2020-2021. The assessment was conducted by Associate professor Nicoleta Stanca and Assistant professor Alina Cojocaru. The instructors started from the assumption that for evaluation they had to take into account the advantages
and disadvantages of online classes, with which both they and the students had become familiar. The greatest challenge of this alternative to face-to-face education had been to create and maintain an online class community. Thus, in order to preserve an online environment in which students should feel free to be creative and communicate with one another, two types of assessment have been introduced: a continuous one, “The British Literature Blog,” and a final one, “the Facebook/ LinkedIn Profiles.” Dr. Alina Cojocaru has been the administrator of The British Literature Blog: News, Views and Reviews from the students of Ovidius University, intended for students as an online source to complement their work in class in an active and collaborative manner. Associate
professor Nicoleta Stanca has worked on the Facebook and LinkedIn Profiles for fictional characters, created by the students as final assessment, in order to offer the latter novelty in approaching literature, make them aware of the distinction between the private and the public spheres (with the Victorians and with us), make them focus on characters chronologically and psychologically, during stages of development, and make them do further research on social networks (with the Victorians and with us). The paper will present results of these types of assessment with the English major and minor students enrolled in the Victorian literature class and will analyze the efficiency of the online assessment methods proposed.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The article retraces the historical development of the most important elements that constitute the founding pillars of the Dintr-un Lemn Monastery (Romania): the ancient oak trees, the wooden church and the miracle-working icon of... more
The article retraces the historical development of the most important elements that
constitute the founding pillars of the Dintr-un Lemn Monastery (Romania): the ancient
oak trees, the wooden church and the miracle-working icon of Virgin Mary with the
Baby. The endurance of the oak trees, the legends around the building of the wooden
church and the origin of the icon, the historical sources testifying of a long tradition
of faith and Christian love in the area and the more recent efforts for the restoration of
the little church and the icon, make the Dintr-un Lemn Monastery a unique one in our
country.
constitute the founding pillars of the Dintr-un Lemn Monastery (Romania): the ancient
oak trees, the wooden church and the miracle-working icon of Virgin Mary with the
Baby. The endurance of the oak trees, the legends around the building of the wooden
church and the origin of the icon, the historical sources testifying of a long tradition
of faith and Christian love in the area and the more recent efforts for the restoration of
the little church and the icon, make the Dintr-un Lemn Monastery a unique one in our
country.
Research Interests:
The article attempts to discuss icons, such as prom oti nal films, music and dancing shows, Irish-themed pubs and Celtic symbols in all fo rms of souvenirs, meant to represent Irish identity abroad, especially in the US, where many de... more
The article attempts to discuss icons, such as prom oti nal films, music and dancing shows, Irish-themed pubs and Celtic symbols in all fo rms of souvenirs, meant to represent Irish identity abroad, especially in the US, where many de scendants still feel nostalgic about their origin. Issues of authenticity, commodification and tourist practices and ethnicity will be tackled in relation to these iconic images.
Research Interests:
Until WWII, New York was an Irish city, with the "political machine" of the Tammany Hall, the heads of the church, police and fire departments and schooling, all Irish-controlled. After 1945, the Irish domination declined... more
Until WWII, New York was an Irish city, with the "political machine" of the Tammany Hall, the heads of the church, police and fire departments and schooling, all Irish-controlled. After 1945, the Irish domination declined because of less immigration and suburbanization in the US. This article will discuss the changes in the "traditional" Irish neighbourhood, such as Washington Heights and Inwood, NYC, where the Irish have begun to define themselves in relation to the numerous blacks and Latinos moving in the area. Secondly, it will present a typology of "new" Irish immigrants in NYC, since the 1980s. In spite of the tensions between the undocumented workers and the highly skilled ones or between the first-generation and the recent Irish immigrants, the latter have helped reviving the Irish neighbourhood in NYC politically, economically and culturally. Until WWII, New York used to be an Irish city, with Irish mayors, people in the fire and police departm...
Research Interests:
The article presents the beginning of navigation in the Black Sea in the early Antiquity, especially on the west coast. We will highlight the role of Thracian-Getae, the ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantium and Italians. Since the fourteenth... more
The article presents the beginning of navigation in the Black Sea in the early Antiquity, especially on the west coast. We will highlight the role of Thracian-Getae, the ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantium and Italians. Since the fourteenth century, Romanians asserted their interests in the Black Sea through the institution of the rulers of the principalities. The leaders in Moldavia and Wallachia included among their titles the control of the maritime coast and of the ports, had ships built and extended navigation and trading in the region. The establishment of the Ottoman Empire diminished the Romanian navigation in the Black Sea after 1848 with the transformation of the Black Sea into “a Turkish lake”, but there is proof that it continued on a smaller scale. The change of the navigation regime in the Black Sea after 1829 gave the Romanian principalities new opportunities for sailing and after 1859, Romania created its own naval juridical system. The union of Dobrogea with Romania i...
Research Interests:
In a recent context in which Romania is confronted with the problem of emigration, this article portrays the life and works of Grigore Nandriș (1895-1968), university professor and patriot, who offers an example of devotion to his... more
In a recent context in which Romania is confronted with the problem of emigration, this article portrays the life and works of Grigore Nandriș (1895-1968), university professor and patriot, who offers an example of devotion to his profession and country that could be set as a standard for all the following generations. He defended Romania in the war, as a soldier, and then at home in the academia, at the University of Chernivtsi and abroad, in France, at the Romanian School at Fontenay-aux-Roses, and in England, at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. Brilliant linguist, speaking 14 foreign languages, he left a considerable amount of books, articles, reviews, conferences on linguistics, folklore, religion, and culture, being mainly interested in
establishing links between language and place and culture and neighbouring nations. And above all, Grigore Nandriș’s personality remains a landmark among scholars in his field and colleagues, friends, students, and followers, who admired his devotedness to the Romanian cause abroad.
establishing links between language and place and culture and neighbouring nations. And above all, Grigore Nandriș’s personality remains a landmark among scholars in his field and colleagues, friends, students, and followers, who admired his devotedness to the Romanian cause abroad.
Research Interests:
This article aims to discuss the case study of a Northern-Irish woman, Mabel ‘Maria’ Farley Nandriș, who became a real promoter of Romanian culture. Her intellectual passion for this land started in her youth, when she first came to... more
This article aims to discuss the case study of a Northern-Irish woman, Mabel ‘Maria’ Farley Nandriș, who became a real promoter of Romanian culture. Her intellectual passion for this land started in her youth, when she first came to Romania, in the 1930s, grew through her marriage to the Romanian university professor Grigore Nandriș, her baptism in the Orthodox Church and the Romanian-Northern-Irish heritage left to their
son, Professor Jonh Nandriș. Her dual legacy is revealed by her publications, even if away from Romania because of historical circumstances, and she will be seen, in this article, as an informal ambassador of Romania on the British Isles.
son, Professor Jonh Nandriș. Her dual legacy is revealed by her publications, even if away from Romania because of historical circumstances, and she will be seen, in this article, as an informal ambassador of Romania on the British Isles.
Research Interests:
Beginning 1840s, the humour magazine Puck suggested that New York's immigrant ghettos were overbrimming with Irish dynamiters. The images that associated Irish newcomers with crime, drunkenness, sexual looseness, thievery, violence,... more
Beginning 1840s, the humour magazine Puck suggested that New York's immigrant
ghettos were overbrimming with Irish dynamiters. The images that associated Irish newcomers with crime, drunkenness, sexual looseness, thievery, violence, desire for power, stigmatizing them as undesirable, led to an early overall picture of messy urbanism which disrupted the idyllic American dream. It was convenient to scapegoat an ethnically different other, so the Irish-American community at the end of the nineteenth century served the purpose. This case was especially illustrated by the
obedient young Bridget and nationalist old Biddy series of cartoons in American popular magazines, such as Harper‟s, Puck and Munsey‟s. Cartoonists drawing for these magazines appropriated the British simian stereotype of the Victorian age to create negative stereotypes of Irish-American urban poor depicted as dirty, ignorant, abusive, violent, target of mockery, yet teller of jokes. Interestingly, as Biddy may have been in charge of the American kitchen, the Irish were in charge of American urban politics and in the 1880s, Irish-born personalities were elected for the position of mayor of New York and Boston, thanks to the strong links between the Catholic hierarchy and Democratic politicians. Though late nineteenth century representations of the Irish in America seem to have reinforced the sense of the ethnic other, the Irish started assimilating probably due to the triad of language, religion and politics.
ghettos were overbrimming with Irish dynamiters. The images that associated Irish newcomers with crime, drunkenness, sexual looseness, thievery, violence, desire for power, stigmatizing them as undesirable, led to an early overall picture of messy urbanism which disrupted the idyllic American dream. It was convenient to scapegoat an ethnically different other, so the Irish-American community at the end of the nineteenth century served the purpose. This case was especially illustrated by the
obedient young Bridget and nationalist old Biddy series of cartoons in American popular magazines, such as Harper‟s, Puck and Munsey‟s. Cartoonists drawing for these magazines appropriated the British simian stereotype of the Victorian age to create negative stereotypes of Irish-American urban poor depicted as dirty, ignorant, abusive, violent, target of mockery, yet teller of jokes. Interestingly, as Biddy may have been in charge of the American kitchen, the Irish were in charge of American urban politics and in the 1880s, Irish-born personalities were elected for the position of mayor of New York and Boston, thanks to the strong links between the Catholic hierarchy and Democratic politicians. Though late nineteenth century representations of the Irish in America seem to have reinforced the sense of the ethnic other, the Irish started assimilating probably due to the triad of language, religion and politics.
Research Interests:
The purpose of this article is to discuss theoretical approaches to emigration and exile, especially from the perspective of Irish critics, and to present the manner in which they have been applied to (modern) Irish writing, such as... more
The purpose of this article is to discuss theoretical approaches to emigration and exile, especially from the perspective of Irish critics, and to present the manner in which they have been applied to (modern) Irish writing, such as Joyce‟s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is considered fundamental in this respect, or in Seamus Heaney‟s poetry. These theoreticians insist on the existence of a tradition of exile in Irish writing, some focusing on a tragic sense of Irish expatriation seen as exile and, therefore damaging for the individual, whereas others have insisted on the positive aspects of newness and non-conformity, inclusiveness and expansion experienced by Irish exiles seen as hybrids.
Research Interests:
Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (2009), considered a New York, Irish- American, immigrant, 1970s and post 9/11 novel, starts with Philippe Petit’s walk on a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in New York in 1974. This... more
Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (2009), considered a New York, Irish-
American, immigrant, 1970s and post 9/11 novel, starts with Philippe Petit’s walk on a
tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in New York in 1974. This historical
event is used as a symbol which links space (Park Avenue and the Bronx at the extremes), time (1974 and 2006, the post 9/11 period) and characters’ stories. An overpopulated city in permanent change, New York is constructed in the novel vertically, horizontally as networks. The article will explore the relation between the real and fictional spaces of New York in its three dimensions, or as “thirdspace”, superimposing pre- and post-9/11 cartographies. The most relvant dimension of the overcrowded city, the horizontal connection, is achieved through the hard work and dedication of an Irish Jesuite priest (in 1974) and two community volunteers (in 2006), each of them part of dedicated networks.
American, immigrant, 1970s and post 9/11 novel, starts with Philippe Petit’s walk on a
tightrope between the World Trade Center towers in New York in 1974. This historical
event is used as a symbol which links space (Park Avenue and the Bronx at the extremes), time (1974 and 2006, the post 9/11 period) and characters’ stories. An overpopulated city in permanent change, New York is constructed in the novel vertically, horizontally as networks. The article will explore the relation between the real and fictional spaces of New York in its three dimensions, or as “thirdspace”, superimposing pre- and post-9/11 cartographies. The most relvant dimension of the overcrowded city, the horizontal connection, is achieved through the hard work and dedication of an Irish Jesuite priest (in 1974) and two community volunteers (in 2006), each of them part of dedicated networks.
Research Interests:
Eavan Boland's desire has never been to erase Irish history and myth through her poetry but establish a dialogue with them through a mythologizing of the domestic, mother-daughter bond and of the (Irish) suburbs. In her texts, the woman... more
Eavan Boland's desire has never been to erase Irish history and myth through her poetry but establish a dialogue with them through a mythologizing of the domestic, mother-daughter bond and of the (Irish) suburbs. In her texts, the woman has managed to enter the realm of art as herself. Boland intends to write the female ageing body into poetry. Also, the poet revisits the roles assigned to women, the Mother Ireland motif and the myth of the cyclical renewal of the Greco-Roman earth goddess and mother Ceres or Demeter and of her daughter Persephone. Since nature and landscape have been traditionally personified as feminine in Irish literature, Boland had to come with responses to this feminine tradition through what she considered a poetry of the suburbs.
Research Interests:
The paper aims at presenting Yeats and Heaney as poets that inherited and continued the Irish pastoral literary tradition. Irish literature has shown its preoccupation with place and nature since its creation of the ancient dinshenchas,... more
The paper aims at presenting Yeats and Heaney as poets that inherited and continued the Irish pastoral literary tradition. Irish literature has shown its preoccupation with place and nature since its creation of the ancient dinshenchas, i.e. place-name poetry, expressing the lore of the place. The Irish pastoral tradition has been fruitfully interwoven with the classical and the English one. Moreover, a nostalgic mood/mode, typical of the pastoral tradition, has been a prominent characteristic of a people who has always sought the means to bridge the past and the present, to recover the past and heal the traumas of disruptions and emigration. Yeats’s pastoral verse may have grown out of the need to create a self-consciously nationalist literature, as an attempt to continue previous models, in a context of the occult. Heaney’s pastoral poetry has emerged in post-colonial Ireland, during a period of violence and chaos, in an “in-between” space. His early metaphors (the bog, the digger) and his representations of the Irish landscape, as feminine or as “the other”, endeavor to establish or, at least, question, spatial, historical and cultural continuity.
Research Interests:
The Publishing House of the Academy of Romanian Scientists proposed for publication in 2020 the volume Mănăstirea dintr-un Lemn – un complex monahal unic în România. Monografie istorică/ Dintr-un Lemn Monastery – A Unique Monastic Complex... more
The Publishing House of the Academy of Romanian Scientists proposed for publication in 2020 the volume Mănăstirea dintr-un Lemn – un complex monahal unic în
România. Monografie istorică/ Dintr-un Lemn Monastery – A Unique Monastic Complex
in Romania. Historical Monograph, author Professor Valentin Ciorbea (Foreword by
Professor Ion I. Solcanu, translation into English by Nicoleta Stanca), 444pp., with an
exceptional design and color photographs.
România. Monografie istorică/ Dintr-un Lemn Monastery – A Unique Monastic Complex
in Romania. Historical Monograph, author Professor Valentin Ciorbea (Foreword by
Professor Ion I. Solcanu, translation into English by Nicoleta Stanca), 444pp., with an
exceptional design and color photographs.
Research Interests:
The essay will look at examples of popular writing in James Joyce’s Ulysses, with the purpose to show that the relationship between what is seen as high modernist fiction and middlebrow writing is dialogical, in the Bakhtinian sense. The... more
The essay will look at examples of popular writing in James Joyce’s Ulysses, with the
purpose to show that the relationship between what is seen as high modernist fiction and middlebrow writing is dialogical, in the Bakhtinian sense. The article will also attempt to answer questions regarding the connection between Ulysses and middlebrow culture, in terms of an audience, consumer identity, advertizing practices and modernity. How could one define Bloom’s “advertisal” approach, based on creating visual lure, curiosity and the supposed mystery of female subjectivity? Bloom does not only consider women’s clothing in terms of advertising, he looks upon many other
aspects of life from the same perspective. What kind of a book is Molly reading in “Calypso” when she asks Leopold to explain to her the term metempsychosis, which she has found in Ruby the Pride of the Ring, and what does Bloom buy her in the “Wandering Rocks”? If we know that the first novel finds its inspiration in Ayme Reade’s Ruby. A Novel. Founded on the Life of a Circus Girl, a nineteenth-century sentimental circus story featuring a girl-made-slave as the protagonist, Sweets of Sin, the one bought during his wanderings, remains unidentified as a dime pornographic novel, with
a title invented by Joyce or lost among the many of the type in the age. How do these sources contribute to the revisitation of the understanding of reception of popular fiction among women?
purpose to show that the relationship between what is seen as high modernist fiction and middlebrow writing is dialogical, in the Bakhtinian sense. The article will also attempt to answer questions regarding the connection between Ulysses and middlebrow culture, in terms of an audience, consumer identity, advertizing practices and modernity. How could one define Bloom’s “advertisal” approach, based on creating visual lure, curiosity and the supposed mystery of female subjectivity? Bloom does not only consider women’s clothing in terms of advertising, he looks upon many other
aspects of life from the same perspective. What kind of a book is Molly reading in “Calypso” when she asks Leopold to explain to her the term metempsychosis, which she has found in Ruby the Pride of the Ring, and what does Bloom buy her in the “Wandering Rocks”? If we know that the first novel finds its inspiration in Ayme Reade’s Ruby. A Novel. Founded on the Life of a Circus Girl, a nineteenth-century sentimental circus story featuring a girl-made-slave as the protagonist, Sweets of Sin, the one bought during his wanderings, remains unidentified as a dime pornographic novel, with
a title invented by Joyce or lost among the many of the type in the age. How do these sources contribute to the revisitation of the understanding of reception of popular fiction among women?
Research Interests:
This paper will look at the manner in which Romania is perceived by an Irishman, Peter Hurley, living here for twenty years, travelling on foot from Săpânța to Bucharest (26 days, 650 kilometers) and recounting it all in a book, The Way... more
This paper will look at the manner in which Romania is perceived by an Irishman,
Peter Hurley, living here for twenty years, travelling on foot from Săpânța to Bucharest
(26 days, 650 kilometers) and recounting it all in a book, The Way of the Crosses
(2013). The title of Hurley’s book may have been inspired by a hybrid Irish-Romanian
experience, signaled to the author by another Irishman, Shaun Davey, who, in 2009,
composed music triggered by the “lyrics” of the epitaphs on the crosses in the Merry
Cemetery of Săpânța, Romania. Travelling, being inspired by Romanian landscape and
culture, with the background of the Irish writer’s “sense of place”, Hurley’s account is
meant to reach audiences beyond the Romanian border and enable further interaction.
The project of walking the way of the crosses and the writing about it, drawing maps
and showing pictures fit in the Irish author’s preoccupations with bringing to the fore
authentic traditional Romania. His travel writing becomes a means through which
Romanian-Irish personal and collective memory are transmitted beyond boundaries,
avoiding ideological perspectives, using elements such as Dacian pottery, Romanian
ceramic production today and the story of the last family of potters in Maramureș. The
translation of aspects of Romanian culture involves recalling legends, rituals, beliefs,
stories, historical accounts, which are resituated in a trasnational context (for instance,
haystack making in Maramureș and the West of Ireland, Romanian children in popular
costumes playing with plastic Chinese-made toyguns, a Romanian peasant as the Last of the Mohicans). Hybridity also results from the author’s bilingualism (e.g. praying at a troiță in Romanian and translating the prayer into English in the book or keeping theRomanian words for “traistă”, “horincă”, “zacuscă”, “șindrile”).
Peter Hurley, living here for twenty years, travelling on foot from Săpânța to Bucharest
(26 days, 650 kilometers) and recounting it all in a book, The Way of the Crosses
(2013). The title of Hurley’s book may have been inspired by a hybrid Irish-Romanian
experience, signaled to the author by another Irishman, Shaun Davey, who, in 2009,
composed music triggered by the “lyrics” of the epitaphs on the crosses in the Merry
Cemetery of Săpânța, Romania. Travelling, being inspired by Romanian landscape and
culture, with the background of the Irish writer’s “sense of place”, Hurley’s account is
meant to reach audiences beyond the Romanian border and enable further interaction.
The project of walking the way of the crosses and the writing about it, drawing maps
and showing pictures fit in the Irish author’s preoccupations with bringing to the fore
authentic traditional Romania. His travel writing becomes a means through which
Romanian-Irish personal and collective memory are transmitted beyond boundaries,
avoiding ideological perspectives, using elements such as Dacian pottery, Romanian
ceramic production today and the story of the last family of potters in Maramureș. The
translation of aspects of Romanian culture involves recalling legends, rituals, beliefs,
stories, historical accounts, which are resituated in a trasnational context (for instance,
haystack making in Maramureș and the West of Ireland, Romanian children in popular
costumes playing with plastic Chinese-made toyguns, a Romanian peasant as the Last of the Mohicans). Hybridity also results from the author’s bilingualism (e.g. praying at a troiță in Romanian and translating the prayer into English in the book or keeping theRomanian words for “traistă”, “horincă”, “zacuscă”, “șindrile”).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The article starts from the claims of some ecocritical theoreticians that Christianity may be considered among the roots of the belief that man masters the earth (at least in the West) and thus justifies the current environmental crisis.... more
The article starts from the claims of some ecocritical theoreticians that Christianity may be considered among the roots of the belief that man masters the earth (at least in the West) and thus justifies the current environmental crisis. But even these critics feel the need to provide role models of environmental concern from the list of saintly figures of the Christian tradition. In an age completely enthusiastic about the union
between science and technology, the Victorian Age, the Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote sonnets that may be read through the ecocritical lens at a time when the concept had not been invented. The conclusions of the essay point out the relevance of the emergence of ecococritical studies in the 1980s, showing thus how literary studies,
religion and spirituality join environmental concerns and contribute to man’s fair appreciation and treatment of nature.
between science and technology, the Victorian Age, the Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote sonnets that may be read through the ecocritical lens at a time when the concept had not been invented. The conclusions of the essay point out the relevance of the emergence of ecococritical studies in the 1980s, showing thus how literary studies,
religion and spirituality join environmental concerns and contribute to man’s fair appreciation and treatment of nature.
Research Interests:
The article discusses the manner in which the Romanian poet Radu Gyr recreates in a ballad the legend of the founding of one of the oldest and most beautiful monasteries in Vâlcea, Dintr-un Lemn Monastery. The first part of the article... more
The article discusses the manner in which the Romanian poet Radu Gyr recreates in a ballad the legend of the founding of one of the oldest and most beautiful monasteries in Vâlcea, Dintr-un Lemn Monastery. The first part of the article sets the background, making references to the beginnings of religious poetry in Romanian literature and also to the literary creation of Radu Gyr, a highly sensitive and appreciated poet, whose suffering in prison taught him the true value of faith. The same faith is the guiding principle in the cycle dedicated to the Romanian monasteries in his volume of Ballads (1943). The ballad of Dintr-un Lemn Monastery revisits another famous Romanian literary work, Lady Chiajna, by Alexandru Odobescu, with a focus, in Gyr’s unique style, on the founding myth of the sacrifice, which leads to the building of the monastery.
Research Interests:
The paper will discuss Seamus Heaney's ars poetica in connection to the tension between poetic identity and Irish identity constantly present in his poetic creation. It will also attempt to examine various aspects of his poetry in the... more
The paper will discuss Seamus Heaney's ars poetica in connection to the tension between poetic identity and Irish identity constantly present in his poetic creation. It will also attempt to examine various aspects of his poetry in the context of contemporary Ireland, taking into account the Irish tradition of the poet as a public figure-and audience's expectations-and Heaney's sense of being a poet in the first place, his creed being the mystery of the poet's art
Research Interests:
The paper aims to discuss borderlines and borderlands, focusing on aspects connected to the cultural identity of the communities living on borderlands or divided by frontiers of some kind, yet united through other means. Various... more
The paper aims to discuss borderlines and borderlands, focusing on aspects connected to the cultural identity of the communities living on borderlands or divided by frontiers of some kind, yet united through other means. Various approaches concerning what we have discussed as the dual nature of borders are presented, the examples supporting the theoretical background being drawn from Ireland, physically divided between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The conclusion emphasizes the necessity of a unifying vision, meant to accommodate identity and otherness across border.
Research Interests:
The paper points to darkness and light as a classical dual pair, which figures prominently in Heaney's poetic vision. The two series of images are seen in a constant relationship of tension, secondary-primary positioning being undermined.... more
The paper points to darkness and light as a classical dual pair, which figures prominently in Heaney's poetic vision. The two series of images are seen in a constant relationship of tension, secondary-primary positioning being undermined. We have explored darkness and light in relation to Heaney's ars poetica, the Irish troubles and the poet's self. The chapter concludes that the dualities of content and poetic strategies, discussed in the previous chapters, are reflected in the structuring of Heaney's poetic imagery as well. They may account for the undecidability of the self, for the so-called écriture feminine, to use H. Cixous's words to refer to the kind of writing that does not depend on sex but on the perception of the text by the reader because it operates at syntactic and semantic level; it is any kind of writing containing repressed or veiled elements, vocabulary leading to ambiguity and resisting direct access to unity, light and truth.
Research Interests:
The article discusses gender representations in the twentieth century Irish-American popular culture. Postwar Hollywood female and male representations are relevant to the process of diasporic identity formation through a constant... more
The article discusses gender representations in the twentieth century Irish-American popular culture. Postwar Hollywood female and male representations are relevant to the process of diasporic identity formation through a constant negotiation between Ireland and Irish America. From the 1960s, for example, Irish masculinity was perceived in terms of violence, which has started to fade away only in the 1990s. Female figures indicate the major role played by Irish women in the aftermath of WWII, whereas, recently, these representations have become rare since they may no longer serve to illustrate diasporic anxieties and desires.
Research Interests:
The article attempts to discuss icons, such as promotional films, music and dancing shows, Irish-themed pubs and Celtic symbols in all forms of souvenirs, meant to represent Irish identity abroad, especially in the US, where many... more
The article attempts to discuss icons, such as promotional films, music and dancing shows, Irish-themed pubs and Celtic symbols in all forms of souvenirs, meant to represent Irish identity abroad, especially in the US, where many descendants still feel nostalgic about their origin. Issues of authenticity, commodification and tourist practices and ethnicity will be tackled in relation to these iconic images.
Research Interests:
The essay will look at examples of popular writing in James Joyce's Ulysses, with the purpose to show that the relationship between what is seen as high modernist fiction and middlebrow writing is dialogical, in the Bakhtinian sense. The... more
The essay will look at examples of popular writing in James Joyce's Ulysses, with the purpose to show that the relationship between what is seen as high modernist fiction and middlebrow writing is dialogical, in the Bakhtinian sense. The article will also attempt to answer questions regarding the connection between Ulysses and middlebrow culture, in terms of an audience, consumer identity, advertizing practices and modernity. How could one define Bloom's "advertisal" approach, based on creating visual lure, curiosity and the supposed mystery of female subjectivity? Bloom does not only consider women's clothing in terms of advertizing, he looks upon many other aspects of life from the same perspective. What kind of a book is Molly reading in "Calypso" when she asks Leopold to explain to her the term metempsychosis, which she has found in Ruby the Pride of the Ring, and what does Bloom buy her in the "Wandering Rocks"? If we know that the first novel finds its inspiration in Ayme Reade's Ruby. A Novel. Founded on the Life of a Circus Girl, a nineteenth-century sentimental circus story featuring a girl-made-slave as the protagonist, Sweets of Sin, the one bought during his wanderings, remains unidentified as a dime pornographic novel, with a title invented by Joyce or lost among the many of the type in the age. How do these sources contribute to the revisitation of the understanding of reception of popular fiction among women?
Research Interests:
The article discusses Oscar Wilde as representative of aestheticism and decadentism, without ignoring his identity as an Irishman. His American South tour lectures and his theoretical essays on the figure of the dandy, the art for art's... more
The article discusses Oscar Wilde as representative of aestheticism and decadentism, without ignoring his identity as an Irishman. His American South tour lectures and his theoretical essays on the figure of the dandy, the art for art's sake and beauty offer the framework for the study of his dramatic work, out of which the famous play The Importance of Being Earnest has been chosen as an example to illustrate his satirical genius.
Research Interests:
The paper aims at presenting Yeats and Heaney as poets that inherited and continued the Irish pastoral literary tradition. Irish literature has shown its preoccupation with place and nature since its creation of the ancient dinshenchas,... more
The paper aims at presenting Yeats and Heaney as poets that inherited and continued the Irish pastoral literary tradition. Irish literature has shown its preoccupation with place and nature since its creation of the ancient dinshenchas, i.e. place-name poetry, expressing the lore of the place. The Irish pastoral tradition has been fruitfully interwoven with the classical and the English one. Moreover, a nostalgic mood/mode, typical of the pastoral tradition, has been a prominent characteristic of a people who has always sought the means to bridge the past and the present, to recover the past and heal the traumas of disruptions and emigration. Yeats's pastoral verse may have grown out of the need to create a self-consciously nationalist literature, as an attempt to continue previous models, in a context of the occult. Heaney's pastoral poetry has emerged in post-colonial Ireland, during a period of violence and chaos, in an "in-between" space. His early metaphors (the bog, the digger) and his representations of the Irish landscape, as feminine or as "the other", endeavor to establish or, at least, question, spatial, historical and cultural continuity.
Research Interests:
Yeats's works appear to be dominated by a constant pursuit of the collective sacred knowledge that must have been passed down from generations and which is often reveled in the tension between the material reality and the spiritual world.... more
Yeats's works appear to be dominated by a constant pursuit of the collective sacred knowledge that must have been passed down from generations and which is often reveled in the tension between the material reality and the spiritual world. Drawing on and challenging at the same time the Christian tradition of his country, but also Neo-Platonism, Hinduism and the occult (Theosophy, The Order of the Golden Dawn, spiritualism and folklore), Yeats placed spirituality at the center of his life and writings. Visions of on Irish occult secret order, of an Anima Mundi that stores everything that has been humanly thought, the belief in reincarnation and a cyclical theory of time, symbolism and the power of evocation and invocation of language, all these aspects offered Yeats a lifelong belief that he was on the edge of a revelation. In his desire to gain access to a world religion, to have a revelation of a universal pattern or of the Unitary Being and to liberate the Irish consciousness, Yeats harmonized all these religious, philosophical, supernatural, folk and literary traditions.
Research Interests:
The purpose of this article is to discuss theoretical approaches to emigration and exile, especially from the perspective of Irish critics, and to present the manner in which they have been applied to (modern) Irish writing,... more
The purpose of this article is to discuss theoretical approaches to emigration and exile, especially from the perspective of Irish critics, and to present the manner in which they have been applied to (modern) Irish writing, such as Joyce‟s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is considered fundamental in this respect, or in Seamus Heaney‟s poetry. These theoreticians insist on the existence of a tradition of exile in Irish writing, some focusing on a tragic sense of Irish expatriation seen as exile and, therefore damaging for the individual, whereas others have insisted on the positive aspects of newness and non-conformity, inclusiveness and expansion experienced by Irish exiles seen as hybrids.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Inginerul dr. Dumitru Manole : vocaţia comuniunii ştiinţifice cu ogorul dobrogean = Engineer dr. Dumitru Manole : the vocation of the scientific communion with the Dobrogean field / Valentin Ciorbea, Luminiţa Stelian. - Bucureşti :... more
Inginerul dr. Dumitru Manole : vocaţia comuniunii ştiinţifice cu ogorul dobrogean = Engineer dr. Dumitru Manole : the vocation of the scientific communion with the Dobrogean field / Valentin Ciorbea, Luminiţa Stelian. - Bucureşti : Editura Academiei Oamenilor de Ştiinţă din România, 2023
ISBN 978-630-6518-13-5
ISBN 978-630-6518-13-5
Research Interests:
Nicolae, Gabriel-Octavian, Valentin Ciorbea. Notre ami Anatole Magrin: artist fotograf şi diplomat: viaţa şi opera. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Oamenilor de Ştiinţă din România, 2023. Traducerea în limba engleză Nicoleta Stanca.... more
Nicolae, Gabriel-Octavian, Valentin Ciorbea. Notre ami Anatole Magrin: artist fotograf şi diplomat: viaţa şi opera. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Oamenilor de Ştiinţă din România, 2023. Traducerea în limba engleză Nicoleta Stanca. Traducerea în franceză Ion Dumitrașcu. ISBN 978-630-6518-05-0. 236 pp.
Research Interests:
Constanta Port: de la inceputuri si pana in prezent/ from its beginning to the present, Gabriel Octavian Nicolae si Marian Mosneagu, Editura Farul, Constanta, 2022.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Translation
Research Interests:
Translation
Research Interests:
English language course
Research Interests:
English language course
Research Interests:
The owner ofthis certificate has participated in a project supported by the European Union Erasmus+ programme. Erasmus+ supports ihe educational, professional and personal development of individuals in the education, training, youth and... more
The owner ofthis certificate has participated in a project supported by the European Union Erasmus+ programme. Erasmus+ supports ihe educational, professional and personal development of individuals in the education, training, youth and sport fields. tt offers opportunities for learning mobility and active pafiicipation for young people, as well as professional development and cooperation for youth workers and youth work organisations.
Research Interests:
Grant GR-22_U.S. Department of State FEDERAL ASSISTANCE AWARD – GRANT, SRO10022GR0035
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Craiova conference diploma 2023
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Bucuresti 2008
Research Interests:
conferinta Iasi Cernauti 2017
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Documente comisii 2018-2022
Research Interests:
This ninetieth issue of DIALOGO (2024) is dedicated to the multi-theme “Discrimination, Bias, and Repudiation,” addressing an [unfortunately, ongoing] actual and critically relevant issue. The focus is on human biases in contemporary... more
This ninetieth issue of DIALOGO (2024) is dedicated to the multi-theme “Discrimination, Bias, and Repudiation,” addressing an [unfortunately, ongoing] actual and critically relevant issue. The focus is on human biases in contemporary society, encompassing discriminatory behaviors, actions, and legislation, particularly amid global crises, local conflicts, and increasing wars. These challenges often diverge from universal human
values. By advocating for merciful human coexistence, DIALOGO collates various articles assessing conflict and societal responses to these pervasive behaviors. We start our endeavor with the inquiry, “How do discrimination, bias, and repudiation manifest across different societal, psychological, and cultural contexts, and what strategies can be employed to mitigate these pervasive human behaviors effectively?”
values. By advocating for merciful human coexistence, DIALOGO collates various articles assessing conflict and societal responses to these pervasive behaviors. We start our endeavor with the inquiry, “How do discrimination, bias, and repudiation manifest across different societal, psychological, and cultural contexts, and what strategies can be employed to mitigate these pervasive human behaviors effectively?”
Research Interests:
The book contains chapters on: Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh, Brian Friel and Seamus Heaney.
Research Interests:
Mapping Ireland (Essays on Space and Place in Contemporary Irish Poetry) focuses on spatiality and the place of postcolonial and feminist Ireland and Irish America as envisaged in contemporary poetry, illustrated by writers such as John... more
Mapping Ireland (Essays on Space and Place in Contemporary Irish Poetry) focuses on spatiality and the place of postcolonial and feminist Ireland and Irish America as envisaged in contemporary poetry, illustrated by writers such as John Hewitt, John Montague, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin, Eavan Boland, Ciaran Carson, Medbh McGuckian, Richard Murphy, Mary O’Malley and Eamonn Wall.
Research Interests:
The context of this volume on Irish-Romanian Connections is both very personal and academic. It is academic because I teach at elective courses on Irish literature at the English major undergraduate program and the MA program at Ovidius... more
The context of this volume on Irish-Romanian Connections is both very personal and academic. It is academic because I teach at elective courses on Irish literature at the English major undergraduate program and the MA program at Ovidius University Constanța, the Faculty of Letters and since 2012 the Embassy of Ireland in Bucharest have supported all my efforts bringing the two institutions together, the embassy and the university. Yet, the story is also very personal because, throughout these years, there has been a generous and warm-hearted group of people at the Embassy who trusted me and encouraged me: Their Excellencies Ambassadors: John Morahan, Oliver Grogan, Gerard Corr and Derek Feely; Deputy Heads of the Mission: David Costello, Andrew Harwood and Patrick Coleman; PA to Ambassador and Cultural Officer Anamaria Suciu and the entire team at the Irish Embassy. Thus, my work at the university in a permanent collaboration with the Embassy has revealed the meaning of the Irish-Romanian connections, i.e. truly dedicated individuals who are open to embrace otherness and graft it on their identity so that the communion becomes relevant for both parties.
The book is divided in four chapters: chapter I, Travel and Memory Culture, Literature and Identity: A Transnationalist Approach to the Circulation of People and Texts as Ambassadors of Culture; chapter II, Journeys trough Romania. (Travel Writings by Irish Men and Women: Patrick O’Brien’s Journal of a Residence in the Danubian Principalities in the Autumn and Winter of 1853, Maude Rea Parkinson’s Twenty Years in Romania and Peter Hurley’s The Way of the Crosses); chapter III, Irish Writers in the Romanian Space. Highlights of the Reception of W.B. Yeats, J. Joyce and S. Heaney and chapter IV, Ireland-Romania Relations: Cultural Initiatives of the Embassy of Ireland in Bucharest. The key characters of my account of the Irish-Romanian Connections are travellers, writers and their books and ambassadors. They all travel; if it had not been for their journeys – real, mental, spiritual, cultural – the connections would have been poorer. Getting back to the academic layer of the book, this is the purpose of the first chapter, to demonstrate, trough theory, the vital role of the circulation of people, writers, texts and ambassadors in order to highlight the true value of interconnections and interrelations.
Chapter II, Journeys trough Romania. (Travel Writings by Irish Men and Women: Patrick O’Brien’s Journal of a Residence in the Danubian Principalities in the Autumn and Winter of 1853, Maude Rea Parkinson’s Twenty Years in Romania and Peter Hurley’s The Way of the Crosses) presents the travel journals of three Irish “travellers” through Romania in different historical ages, form mid-19th century to the contemporary period. Both volumes by Patrick O’Brien and Maude Rea Parkinson have been more recently brought to the attention of the Romanian readers by Professor Constantin Ardeleanu from the History Department of the Lower Danube University of Galați. He translated O’Brien’s book and co-translated Rea Parkinson’s volume with a colleague from the same university, Oana Celia Gheorghiu. Taking into account the interest of the historian’s in the British economy and political interests at the Danube mouths (1829-1914) and the foreign trade and navigation at the Lower Danube (1881-1900), then it is easy to realize the value of his in-depth introductions to the two volumes.
Twenty Years in Romania was written a few decades later in an equally difficult context, that of the Great War and Romania’s participation in it in 1916. The public opinion in the West in general and in Britain in particular was favourable to the goal of the Romanian independence and union, the framework for it having been created through the work of the Anglo-Romanian Society, publications and the official propaganda of the Romanian authorities. Maud Rea Parkinson’s volume brings a personal contribution to the warm, yet, picturesque, image of Romania at the turn of the 20th century (1889-1916). The focus of her descriptions is on mainly on townlife, especially Bucharest in full process of modernization, social layers, pastimes, institutions, politics, education, beliefs and customs.
One century later, in 2012, Peter Hurley, this time an Irishman who eventually settled in Romania in 1994, embarks on a journey on foot through Romania, from north (Maramureș) to the capital city, Bucharest. His travel journal gives an answer to the question the Irishman is constantly asked mostly by Romanians and which he mentions in the preface to his book The Way of the Crosses: “Why the hell do you live in Romania?”. This is the Romanian context at the turn of the 21st century, a “quiet cataclysm”, according to Hurley (The Way iii), that of Romanian migration all over Europe and even all over the world. For the Irishman, it rings bells of an entire history of Irish migration. But, the counterargument to this reality and the answer to the question previously mentioned is offered by Hurley’s entire experience on the way from Săpânța to Bucharest: the spirituality of the places given by the humanity and generosity of their inhabitants and their stubbornness to preserve a traditional way of life in spite of all obstacles.
I began writing chapter III, Irish Writers in the Romanian Space. Highlights of the Reception of W.B. Yeats, J. Joyce and S. Heaney, as a presentation of the reception of the great literary voices of Irish literature in the Romanian space and as I was looking for information on when texts by Yeats, Joyce and Heaney were first read, translated, appreciated in our country, I realized that the story of reception is also one of movement and circulation, similar to that of the travelers in chapter II. Thus, the earliest instances of Yeatsian reception date back to the 1930s, when the visionary poet was in full maturity and still writing. The same decade, the 1930s, witnessed the fist translations into Romanian from Joyce’s Dubliners, with the entire volume translated in 1966. There is proof that Ulysses had reached English language specialists in Romania in the 1930s, but its journey of translation and publication was more difficult in a context of communist censorship. And Seamus Heaney was introduced in our country in the 1990s when he was first translated by the poet Ana Blandiana and presented by Professor Mihaela Irimia.
Beyond the initial encounters of the Romanian reading public with each of these writers, their odyssey of their reception continues: through conferences in Romanian universities and attendance of summer schools in Ireland by Romanian academics, through concerts, exhibitions, lectures organized by the Embassy of Ireland in Romania, through more recent translations or further editions of older translations and all sort of other publications related to their works and last, but not least, the legacies of Yeats, Joyce and Heaney to Romanian writers, academics and general reading public.
The last chapter, Ireland-Romania Relations: Cultural Initiatives of the Embassy of Ireland in Bucharest, rightfully crowns the volume as the contribution of the Embassy of Ireland to the present richness of Irish-Romanian connections has been the engine to start my journey. And what other people than the ambassadors and representatives of Ireland, supported by an entire Romanian team in the institution, could offer better examples of joint projects initiatives and have idea for cooperation and collaboration?
St. Patrick’s Day, the EU Irish Presidency in 2013 (Romania’s turn is interestingly in 2019), Bloomsdays, film festivals, concerts, theatrical productions, book launches and literature festivals, lectures and travelling exhibitions all have given opportunities for cultural diplomacy, which the Embassy of Ireland in Romania has fully demonstrated. By contributing to better knowledge of Irish culture in our country and developing a stronger profile of Ireland in this space, the Embassy, also thanks to the networks activated, manages to strengthen the Irish-Romanian relationships and enhances socio-cultural cooperation.
The book is divided in four chapters: chapter I, Travel and Memory Culture, Literature and Identity: A Transnationalist Approach to the Circulation of People and Texts as Ambassadors of Culture; chapter II, Journeys trough Romania. (Travel Writings by Irish Men and Women: Patrick O’Brien’s Journal of a Residence in the Danubian Principalities in the Autumn and Winter of 1853, Maude Rea Parkinson’s Twenty Years in Romania and Peter Hurley’s The Way of the Crosses); chapter III, Irish Writers in the Romanian Space. Highlights of the Reception of W.B. Yeats, J. Joyce and S. Heaney and chapter IV, Ireland-Romania Relations: Cultural Initiatives of the Embassy of Ireland in Bucharest. The key characters of my account of the Irish-Romanian Connections are travellers, writers and their books and ambassadors. They all travel; if it had not been for their journeys – real, mental, spiritual, cultural – the connections would have been poorer. Getting back to the academic layer of the book, this is the purpose of the first chapter, to demonstrate, trough theory, the vital role of the circulation of people, writers, texts and ambassadors in order to highlight the true value of interconnections and interrelations.
Chapter II, Journeys trough Romania. (Travel Writings by Irish Men and Women: Patrick O’Brien’s Journal of a Residence in the Danubian Principalities in the Autumn and Winter of 1853, Maude Rea Parkinson’s Twenty Years in Romania and Peter Hurley’s The Way of the Crosses) presents the travel journals of three Irish “travellers” through Romania in different historical ages, form mid-19th century to the contemporary period. Both volumes by Patrick O’Brien and Maude Rea Parkinson have been more recently brought to the attention of the Romanian readers by Professor Constantin Ardeleanu from the History Department of the Lower Danube University of Galați. He translated O’Brien’s book and co-translated Rea Parkinson’s volume with a colleague from the same university, Oana Celia Gheorghiu. Taking into account the interest of the historian’s in the British economy and political interests at the Danube mouths (1829-1914) and the foreign trade and navigation at the Lower Danube (1881-1900), then it is easy to realize the value of his in-depth introductions to the two volumes.
Twenty Years in Romania was written a few decades later in an equally difficult context, that of the Great War and Romania’s participation in it in 1916. The public opinion in the West in general and in Britain in particular was favourable to the goal of the Romanian independence and union, the framework for it having been created through the work of the Anglo-Romanian Society, publications and the official propaganda of the Romanian authorities. Maud Rea Parkinson’s volume brings a personal contribution to the warm, yet, picturesque, image of Romania at the turn of the 20th century (1889-1916). The focus of her descriptions is on mainly on townlife, especially Bucharest in full process of modernization, social layers, pastimes, institutions, politics, education, beliefs and customs.
One century later, in 2012, Peter Hurley, this time an Irishman who eventually settled in Romania in 1994, embarks on a journey on foot through Romania, from north (Maramureș) to the capital city, Bucharest. His travel journal gives an answer to the question the Irishman is constantly asked mostly by Romanians and which he mentions in the preface to his book The Way of the Crosses: “Why the hell do you live in Romania?”. This is the Romanian context at the turn of the 21st century, a “quiet cataclysm”, according to Hurley (The Way iii), that of Romanian migration all over Europe and even all over the world. For the Irishman, it rings bells of an entire history of Irish migration. But, the counterargument to this reality and the answer to the question previously mentioned is offered by Hurley’s entire experience on the way from Săpânța to Bucharest: the spirituality of the places given by the humanity and generosity of their inhabitants and their stubbornness to preserve a traditional way of life in spite of all obstacles.
I began writing chapter III, Irish Writers in the Romanian Space. Highlights of the Reception of W.B. Yeats, J. Joyce and S. Heaney, as a presentation of the reception of the great literary voices of Irish literature in the Romanian space and as I was looking for information on when texts by Yeats, Joyce and Heaney were first read, translated, appreciated in our country, I realized that the story of reception is also one of movement and circulation, similar to that of the travelers in chapter II. Thus, the earliest instances of Yeatsian reception date back to the 1930s, when the visionary poet was in full maturity and still writing. The same decade, the 1930s, witnessed the fist translations into Romanian from Joyce’s Dubliners, with the entire volume translated in 1966. There is proof that Ulysses had reached English language specialists in Romania in the 1930s, but its journey of translation and publication was more difficult in a context of communist censorship. And Seamus Heaney was introduced in our country in the 1990s when he was first translated by the poet Ana Blandiana and presented by Professor Mihaela Irimia.
Beyond the initial encounters of the Romanian reading public with each of these writers, their odyssey of their reception continues: through conferences in Romanian universities and attendance of summer schools in Ireland by Romanian academics, through concerts, exhibitions, lectures organized by the Embassy of Ireland in Romania, through more recent translations or further editions of older translations and all sort of other publications related to their works and last, but not least, the legacies of Yeats, Joyce and Heaney to Romanian writers, academics and general reading public.
The last chapter, Ireland-Romania Relations: Cultural Initiatives of the Embassy of Ireland in Bucharest, rightfully crowns the volume as the contribution of the Embassy of Ireland to the present richness of Irish-Romanian connections has been the engine to start my journey. And what other people than the ambassadors and representatives of Ireland, supported by an entire Romanian team in the institution, could offer better examples of joint projects initiatives and have idea for cooperation and collaboration?
St. Patrick’s Day, the EU Irish Presidency in 2013 (Romania’s turn is interestingly in 2019), Bloomsdays, film festivals, concerts, theatrical productions, book launches and literature festivals, lectures and travelling exhibitions all have given opportunities for cultural diplomacy, which the Embassy of Ireland in Romania has fully demonstrated. By contributing to better knowledge of Irish culture in our country and developing a stronger profile of Ireland in this space, the Embassy, also thanks to the networks activated, manages to strengthen the Irish-Romanian relationships and enhances socio-cultural cooperation.
Research Interests:
The monograph on Seamus Heaney’s writings insists on Heaney as a two-faced, dual or janiform writer. One face is turned towards Irishness and the other towards the outer world. He is faithful to his Irish origin, yet he is writing in... more
The monograph on Seamus Heaney’s writings insists on Heaney as a two-faced, dual or janiform writer. One face is turned towards Irishness and the other towards the outer world. He is faithful to his Irish origin, yet he is writing in English. A role attributed to poetry by Heaney is to provide a fertile tension between an intimate, familiar, local world and the wider arena of educated, literary and cultural discourse, between the “the parish” and “the academy”. The poet’s role with Heaney has also been one of an articulator of place and the Irish border consciousness. Thus, physical borders are changed into frontiers of writing, which are far easier to cross, shape and erase and may hit back at the so-called real ones. Furthermore, the conclusion points towards a selving of the poet into an accomplished artist writing a poetry of the “through-other”, to use Heaney’s term, a poet, whose universality is provided precisely by his Irish particularities, which the poet completes, undermines, plays with and (re)reads through his dual vision.
Research Interests:
Defiance of "Magdalenes." Female Challenges in Recent Irish Fiction, Nicoleta Stanca, Editura Universitară, București, 2023. Foreword by Paul McGarry, Ambassador of Ireland in Romania, Postscript by Anne Fogarty, Professor at University... more
Defiance of "Magdalenes." Female Challenges in Recent Irish Fiction, Nicoleta Stanca, Editura Universitară, București, 2023. Foreword by Paul McGarry, Ambassador of Ireland in Romania, Postscript by Anne Fogarty, Professor at University College Dublin.
Research Interests:
MOTIVATION: Whatever we approach the subject of ‘health’ – in every sense, physical, mental, spiritual, religious, or holistic - society has always been the perfect environment for them to grow, flourish and refine their tendencies.... more
MOTIVATION: Whatever we approach the subject of ‘health’ – in every sense, physical, mental, spiritual, religious, or holistic - society has always been the perfect environment for them to grow, flourish and refine their tendencies. Today, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis and global upheaval while after the Covid-19 pandemic, the health problem discovers new values, confronts the previous ones, and challenges them to exceed their limits and status, but especially to find new boundaries for them to achieve new levels in what is known today as ‘human’. It seems, day by day, that paradigms of what was implied to be ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ regarding ‘health’, are not so [anymore] and people cannot agree with the current paradigms of ‘health’ or at least the directions they head. Thus, in search of more than one-sided understanding of ‘health’, we strive to enrich the comprehension of the term itself in every direction a definition was ever built upon philosophy and practices, and to offer in return a holistic approach for healing and providing aids to health intimately interconnected with the person it concerns, rather than apart from it. Due to the strong interconnections between health and sustainable development, coordination and partnerships across sectors are crucial to ensure harmonized and effective efforts.
Research Interests:
Book review by Alina Buzarna-Tihenea (Gălbează), Defiance of “Magdalenes”. Female Challenges in Recent Irish Fiction, author Nicoleta Stanca, Foreword by HE Paul McGarry, Ambassador of Ireland to Romania and Postscript by Professor Anne... more
Book review by Alina Buzarna-Tihenea (Gălbează), Defiance of “Magdalenes”. Female Challenges in Recent Irish Fiction, author Nicoleta Stanca, Foreword by HE Paul McGarry, Ambassador of Ireland to Romania and Postscript by Professor Anne Fogarty, University College, Dublin. Editura Universitară, București, 2023, 247 pp. ISBN 978-606-28-1570-7. In
Analele Universității „Ovidius” Constanța. Seria Filologie, Vol. XXXIV, 1 / 2023, ISSN 1224-1768 (print), ISSN 2734-7060 (online), pp. 380-383.
Analele Universității „Ovidius” Constanța. Seria Filologie, Vol. XXXIV, 1 / 2023, ISSN 1224-1768 (print), ISSN 2734-7060 (online), pp. 380-383.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This review introduces the reader to a remarkable study on recent British fiction, which "proposes a new interdisciplinary approach to the representations of London in contemporary British literature by exploring the interplay between... more
This review introduces the reader to a remarkable study on recent British fiction, which "proposes a new interdisciplinary approach to the representations of London in contemporary British literature by exploring the interplay between reality and fiction in mapping the urban imaginary" (1). By means of correlating geocriticism, spatial literary studies and memory studies, Alina Cojocaru's research "conducts a geocritical analysis of London in recent British literature published between 1975-2005, exploring the literary representations of the real urban restructurings prompted by the rebuilding projects aimed to revitalize the war and poverty-stricken districts of London, the reterritorialization and remapping of the metropolis by immigrants, the gentrification and displacement of communities, as well as the urban dissolution caused by terrorism" (1).