2018 Activities

Academic Scientific Research Report 2018

Publications / Publicatii

Dana Mihailescu, “Mapping Transgenerational Memory of the Shoah in Third Generation Graphic Narratives: On Amy Kurzweil’s Flying Couch (2016).” Comic Books, Graphic Novels and the Holocaust. Beyond Maus Ed. Ewa Stańczyk. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, September 2018. 93-110. ISBN: 978-1-138-59864-5. https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138598645. [book chapter]

Conference presentations / Prezentari conferinte

Ana Barbulescu, “Ghetourile din Transnistria: făptaşi, martori, victime / Transnistrian Ghettos: perpetrators, witnesses, victims.” Evreii din România: 756.930 / 3.271 ó– 99,56% Conference, SNSPA, Bucharest, Romania, 1 November 2018. http://snspa.ro/evreii-din-romania/; http://snspa.ro/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Program-1-noiembrie-2018.jpg

Roxana Oltean, “Re-Membering the Holocaust in Promised Lands. Crossroads and Routes from U.S. Perspectives,” The 2018 RAAS – Fulbright Conference Ideology, Identity, and the US: Crossroads, Freeways, Collisions, 4-6 October 2018. http://raas.seanet.ro/uploads//raas-conference_2018/Program_RAAS_Conference_2018_FINAL.pdf. [trip details: 3-5 October 2018]

Dana Mihailescu, “Family Conduits Shaping Transcultural Memories of the Shoah in Third Generation Graphic Narratives: On Amy Kurzweil’s Flying Couch (2016).” The 11^th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies, Cracow, Poland, 15 – 19 July 2018, http://eajs2018.uj.edu.pl/en. [trip details: 15-19 July 2018]

Stefan Cristian Ionescu, “A Marxist Holocaust perpetrator? Colonel Stere Marinescu, Romania's war crimes trials, and his justifications for the deportation of Czernowitz Jews,” 6^th INoGS Global Conference, Medical Faculty of Aix-Marseille University, France, 4-7 July 2018. http://inogsconference2018.com/spip.php?rubrique7. [trip details: 3-7 July 2018]

Dana Mihailescu, “The Jewish Fusgeyer Migration Movement from Early Twentieth Century Romania as Transcultural Rhetorical Tool in Literature,” Society for Romanian Studies Conference, ASE, Bucharest, 26-30 June 2018, https://society4romanianstudiesdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/srs-conference-program.pdf. [presentation on 28 June 2018]

Mihaela Precup, “'Blow me, said Anne Frank': Alternative Tropes of Holocaust Survival in Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy,” 20th Annual International Conference of English Department at the University of Bucharest Truth(s) and Alternative Facts, Bucharest, 7-9 June 2018, http://engleza.lls.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/06/Literature-and-Cultural-Studies-2018.pdf. [presentation on 9 June 2018]

Ana Barbulescu, “Reflectarea Holocaustului în presă - oportunitate, resurse, bune practici / Representations of the Holocaust in the written press. Opportunities, resources, good practices.” Seminar Reflectarea Holocaustului în presă - oportunitate, resurse, bune practici. Organizers: Oral History Institute, Chişinău; Friedrich Ebert Foundation / Moldova Republic; National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania “Elie Wiesel,”Chişinău, 15 May 2018. https://oralhistory.md/rom/articles/ana-barbulescu-reflectarea-holocaustului-in-presa-oportunitate-resurse-bune-practici

Research stays / Stagii cercetare

Dana Mihailescu, American Corner/American studies library at Ovidius University, Constanta, 3-5 October 2018

Dana Mihailescu, Uppsala University Library, Uppsala, Sweden, 16-28 September 2018

Roxana Oltean, ECCLES Center for American Studies, British Library, London, UK, 5-12 August 2018

Mihaela Precup, Freie Universitet Library, Berlin, Germany 27 July – 27 August 2018

Guest lecture for "Dynamics of Vulnerability and Traumatic Affect Lecture Series":

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]

Panel/workshop title: Family Frames in Jewish Graphic Narratives

[organized within the Eleventh Biennial MESEA Conference Ethnicity and Kinship: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Family, Community, and Difference, May 30 - June 2, 2018, University of Graz, Austria (http://mesea.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MESEA2018Program.pdf)]

Organizers:Karolina Krasuska (University of Warsaw) and Dana Mihailescu (University of Bucharest) [For organizing this panel, Dana Mihailescu was supported by UEFISCDI-funded grant no. 5 / 2018, PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0091, Transcultural Networks in Narratives about the Holocaust in Eastern Europe]

Description: The concept of family has lately become a primary category of analysis for many scholars working in the interdisciplinary fields of gender, ethnic, memory and Holocaust studies, especially thanks to the gender-informed work of Pascale Rachel Bos analyzing gender difference during World War II (“Women and the Holocaust: Analyzing Gender Difference,” 2002) as well as to Marianne Hirsch’s earlier influential concept of “family frames” developed in relation to postmemory (Family Frames, 1997). In addition, the category of “generation” is experiencing a revival in literary studies, again helping to problematize what (Jewish) family and genealogy may imply (Astrid Erll, Jordana Silverstein), whereas other scholars probe how from focusing on the “family” we can broaden our understanding of wartime and postwar histories and representations (e.g. Jewish Families in Europe 1939-Present. History, Representation and Memory, 2015).

We seek to expand on these conceptualizations of family and generationality, and think though the concepts of family as represented in graphic narratives focusing on Holocaust memory. Through the readings of graphic memoirs, which become more and more present cultural phenomenon we are hoping to both contribute to the exploration of intergenerational and/or transcultural memories of the Holocaust and how they are produced specifically within the formal limits of graphic narratives.

Participants and presentation titles:

1. Title:“To fill in the parts that had gone missing:” Memory of the Father in Bernice Eisenstein's I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors

Author:Aleksandra Kamińska (University of Warsaw)

2. Title: Family Conduits Shaping Transcultural Memories of the Shoah in Third Generation Graphic Narratives: On Amy Kurzweil’s Flying Couch (2016)

Author:Dana Mihăilescu (University of Bucharest)

3. Title: Daughters of the Revolution: Julia Alekseyeva’s Soviet Daughter

Author: Karolina Krasuska (University of Warsaw)

4. Title:Touching the Past and Post-Memory Family Romance in Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters

Author: Shiamin Kwa (Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania)