This is a series of lectures discussing the input of vulnerability in American culture and the spirit of social justice by delving into trauma narratives, complicated historical legacies, present challenges, and paths of future development. Our aim is to hereby develop a forum for discussing, sharing and archiving research materials in our adjacent fields of research, for developing networks of collaboration. Our guest lecturers are early career Romanian and foreign researchers specializing in various interdisciplinary, cutting-edge fields of scholarship such as trauma and memory studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, (post)communist studies etc. This series of lectures was initially organized within the PN-II-RU-TE-2011-3-0149 project, Cross-Cultural Encounters in American Trauma Narratives (2013-2014),  PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0051 project, Intergenerational Dynamics of Vulnerability in American Trauma Narratives (2015-2017), and PN-III-P1.1-TE-2016-0091, Transcultural Networks in Narratives about the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (2018-2020), projects funded by the Romanian National Council for Scientific Research (UEFISCDI).

CALENDAR OF EVENTS  

Fall 2023

November 14, 2023, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13 Pitar Mos street, Bucharest): William Morris (BA Harvard, MA Oxford, 2023-2024 Fulbright Researcher at the University of Bucharest), “Chinatown Boy: The Lee Family and Chinese American History”  

Abstract: Chinese American migration has continued for well over 150 years, with enormous changes in the migrant experience throughout this period. This lecture will examine the landmark events of Chinese-American history through a single family’s migration history, as related by MIT Professor Tunney Lee to the lecturer in a series of interviews from 2018 to 2020.

Bio: William Morris is a Fulbright researcher, affiliated with the University of Bucharest, studying the humanitarian and policy response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Romania and Bulgaria. Last year he was the director of a humanitarian aid program assisting Ukrainians in Iasi, Romania and Odesa, Ukraine. Previously, he worked at IOM Zambia and has taught in China and Japan. He graduated from Harvard University in 2017 with an undergraduate degree in History, East Asian Studies, and Government, and received a masters of science in Migration Studies from Oxford University in 2021.

Fall 2018

October 29, 2018, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest): Gaëlle Fisher (Center for Holocaust Studies, Institut für Zeitgeschichte München), “Holocaust Survivors from Bukovina in Romania after World War II through the Lens of Ego-documents” [Abstract and bio]

Fall 2017

September 26, 2017, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest):Ana-Maria Gavrila (University of Bucharest), “Private/Public Moments of Vulnerability: Writing and Performing the Self in the Works of ANNIE LEIBOVITZ and SALLY MANN” [Abstract and bio]

Spring 2017

July 19, 2017, 10 a.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest): Olga Stefan (curator, Zurich), “The Future of Memory” [Abstract and bio]

May 19, 2017, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest): Ramona Dima (University of Bucharest), “An Overview of Queer Romanian Contemporary Cultural Products and Practices” [Abstract and bio]

April 7, 2017, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest): “Vulnerabilities as Sites of Action Involving Modes of Historical Representation” Workshop [Abstracts and bios]

(1) Kári Driscoll and Susanne C. Knittel (Utrecht University), “Memory after Humanism: Vulnerability, Disability, Species”

(2) Ana Barbulescu (University of Bucharest), Vulnerabilities of Post-Communist Romanian Historiography as to Holocaust Representations: Competitive Identities and Dangerous Memories

Fall 2016

October 28, 2016, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest):Angela Dragan (Dimitrie Cantemir University), "Vulnerable Sites of Remembrance: The Legacy of the First Encounters between Japan and the U.S." [Abstract and bio]

Spring 2016

May 18, 2016, 6 p.m. (Room 4, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures / University of Bucharest, 7-13, Pitar Mos street, Bucharest): Mihaela Precup (University of Bucharest), "Trauma and Representation in the American Memoir of Mourning" [Abstract and bio]

Fall 2015

October 16, 2015, 6 p.m. (Room 52, Nicolae Titulescu University, 1st floor, Timpuri Noi subway station): Susanne C. Knittel (Utrecht University), “The Transatlantic Eugenics Movement as a Site of Memory” [Abstract and bio]

Spring 2015

June 24, 2015, 6 p.m. (Mark Twain Room): David M. Crowe (Elon University), “The Evolution of the Nazi Policy towards the Roma throughout Europe during the Holocaust” [Special guest lecture details]

May 15, 2015, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Christian Moraru (University of North Carolina at Greensboro / Fulbright Specialist in Romania), “The Politics of Affect and the Global Imagination in Post-World War II American Narratives of Trauma” [Guest Lecture Details]

March 30, 2015, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Ilinca Diaconu (University of Bucharest), American Military Masculinity, U.S. Imperialism and Their Paradoxes[Abstract and bio]

Fall 2014

November 24, 2014, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Claudiu Stoian (University of Bucharest), Memory and History in the Hebrew Bible: On the Functional Dynamics of Jewish Memory for the Writing of History [Abstract and bio]

December 8, 2014, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Romy Solomon (Maryland University / Fulbright Scholar), Human Trafficking and Prevention Efforts in the U.S., Moldova, and Romania [Abstract and bio]

Spring 2014 

February 28, 2014, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Vlad Basarab (multi-media, performance and video artist / Fulbright scholar), The Archaeology of Memory [Abstract and bio]

April 29, 2014, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Corina (Palasan) Dobos (University of Bucharest / University College London), World Population Conference, Bucharest 1974: Politics and Demographical Concerns [Abstract and bio]

June 25, 2014, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Petruta Naidut (University of Bucharest), Early modern maps, travel reports and fantasies of the New World. The impact of exploration on the enlargement of Britain’s intellectual empire [Abstract and bio]

Spring 2013   

April 12, 2013, 6 p.m. (Room 4): David Dulceany (Dartmouth College/Duke University), Peripheral Links: Romanian and Cuban Relations during the Cold War [Abstract and bio]

April 22, 2013, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Stefan Ionescu (Clark University), Romanianization: Corruption, Opportunism, and Resistance in World War II Bucharest [Abstract and bio]

June 10, 2013, 6 p.m. (Room 4): Mirela Tanta (University of Illinois at Chicago), Recycling Ideology: Romania’s Socialist Realism Canon [Abstract and bio]

For further details, contact: Dana Mihailescu (dmihailes@yahoo.com)