Romanian Cultural Space and the Global World in theWorks of Diaspora Romanians

Anca-Teodora Serban-Oprescu. "East and West: Romaniaand America, or the Creolization of Cultural Spaces inthe Context of Globalization" 171

Elena-Adriana Dancu. ""Home, where?": Global Foreignersin the Plays of Saviana SHinescu" 183

Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru. "Poetry as TransatlanticDialogue: Forgiven Submarine by Ruxandra Cesereanuand Andrei Codrescu" 201

Alexandra Florescu. "Influential Romanian LiteraryTheorists Building Their Careers Abroad: Are TheyOurs or Are They the World's?" 217

Representations of Romania in the Global World throughWestern Lenses

Diana Benea. '''Identity Debates in and beyond HertaMUller's German and Anglo-American Reception".... 233

Ilinca-Miruna Diaconu. "Western Representations of theBalkans: Romania as "Frozen Image"" 251

Dana Mihfiilescu. "Images of Romania in ContemporaryNorth American Narratives" 265

"Ode to Bucharest" 293"Taking the air" 294"From the colonies" 295"In This City" 297"Preambulatory" 298

Romanian Culture in the Global Age is a collection ofessays which investigates the dynamics of Romanian culture inthe new, context created by the interaction between the forces ofglobalization and those of post-communist transition and of post-E.U. accession. In the two decades that have passed since thecollapse of communism, Romania, like all the other ex-communistcountries, has been through a continuous process of redefiningand reaffirming its identity as a new democracy. The contributorsto the present volume attempt to provide answers to severaltopical questions related to the shaping of the Romanian culturalidentity and the location of Romanian culture in the global worldfollowing the country's new status as a NATO and an E.U.member: How does the local/glo,bal dialectic intrinsic to the globalworld affect the re-shaping of Romanian cultural identity? Howdo the increasingly fast flow of information and thecommunications revolution affect a country like Romania, whosevisibility has increased rapidly since the country became a NATOand an E.U. member? How does the awareness of being one of theworld's democracies and an active participant in the world'surrent debates change the way in which Romanian culture

imagines and reinvents itself as it becomes increasingly freer fromthe mental manacles bequeathed by the communist regime?

In the attempt to tackle these and other related questions,the essays included in the present volume offer a rich variety ofthematic approaches, ranging from studies that open broadtheoretical perspectives to case studies that emphasize originalI peets of contemporary Romanian culture at the interface with( day's world. In addition, as an imaginative touch to the, ademic format, the volume includes in its Coda several po ms

about the pulse of Romania's everyday life written by Americanpoet Martin Woodside, a Fulbright grantee, during his stay inRomania, in 2009-2010.

Accordingly, we have structured our volume in foursections, moving from a broad general perspective of Romanianidentities in the global world, to particular case studies of how theRomanian cultural space is portrayed in Romanian in situproductions, in works by diaspora Romanians and, finally, inWestern narratives. The Coda contains poems by MartinWoodside.

A first series of essays are grouped together under the titleRomanian Identities in the Global World: Cross-CulturalExchanges, and locate Romanian identities at the crossroads ofthree spaces of analysis: post-communism, cultural legacy andthe global world. The opening essay of the volume, RoxanaOltean's "Between Kitsch and Authenticity: Romanian Identity inthe Age of Globalization," attempts to draw a theoretical model tolocate Romanian identity in the global world, positioning it at theintersection of kitsch and authenticity. With a similar objective inview, Ovidiu Ivancu's essay "Romanians and Europe. IdentityIssues in the Global World" focuses on how Romania's accessionto the E.U. has rekindled the culture wars of the 1930's betweentraditionalism and Europeanism and shows how the two types ofRomanian identity corresponding to those conflicting attitudes,that of an archaic Romanian and a European Romanian, have led,in contemporary times, to the rise of a new image-type,representative of Romanian identity - the "Roma?ian~in-transition." Addressing all the three spaces of cultural mqUlry,Rodica Mihaila examines the case of the 2009 Nobel Prize forliterature awarded to Romanian-born German author, HertaMUller. In her essay entitled "Questions of Identity in theGlobalizing World. The Case of Herta MUller's Nobel Prize"MihaiIa argues that, despite on-going academic debates favoringfluid identities, as proved by this particular case, national identity

continues to represent a significant category of cultural analysis.Sharing the concern for identifying the most adequaterepresentations of Romanian identity, Marina Cap-Bun's essay,"Romanian Studies Programs and the Promotion of RomanianCulture Abroad," discusses various strategies of promoting thestudy of Romanian culture abroad.

The last three essays in this first section turn torepresentations of Romanian identity in drama and poetry. In heressay "'Performing Memories: Communism as Rhizome,"Catalina-Florina Florescu focuses on two plays by MihaelaMichailov and Matei Vi~niec, and draws attention to theimportance of incorporating the memories of the communistexperience into the substance of imaginative, artistic works.Including communism in the rhizomatic formation of Romaniannational identity in the global age, she argues that performativememory explored artistically is the best way to understandommunism's moral crimes and keep them alive in people's, nsciousness.

While Florescu describeS' Romanian cultural identity in theI bal age as "rhizomatic," Adriana Bulz refers to it as

"dialogical" in nature. Bulz explores "the local/global dialectics ofI manian-American theater exchanges at the dawn of the twenty-IiI' t century," aiming to explain how such instances of cross-(ultural engagement can help develop Romanian cultural identitylicllogically, within the larger context of globalization. Finally, inIii.. essay "Romanian Multimedia Poetry in the Global Age," ChrisI lnasescu discusses Romanian cultural identity in the global age

11 investigating how and to what extent European and AmericanIIvllnt-garde multimedia experiments have found their way inI iltemporary Romanian poetry.

The second section of the volume, Portraying Romania1111 I the Global World in Romanian Cultural Productions,II 'Iudes a number of essays examining how in-situ Romanian111111 I' and producers have inscribed Romanian identity in the

global age. Among these, Costinela Dragan's essay, "Post~~oldWar Conceptualizations of America in Romanian Travel WrItmg"examines how two Romanian travel writers, Viorel Salagean andStelian Tanase envision shifted images of America in the post-, .1989 context as a multiethnic space and model of democracy, mopposition to the negative conceptions previously shaped bycommunist ideology and propaganda. The other two essaysincluded here move on' to the realm of film: MihaelaParaschivescu examines Mircea Eliade's personality and work assource of inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 2007 film, Yo~thwithout Youth; Camelia Anghel focuses on the recent Romanianfilm, Francesca, and the contradictory debates it has given rise toin Italy, arguing that the film is a meditation upon Romanians' ~ndItalians' failure to understand each other, deconstructmgstereotypical views of "the other." These essays try to determineto what degree Romanian literature and cinematography can serveas an internationally-relevant space of reflection capable ofincreasing Romania's visibility in today's global age.

In the attempt to cover - as much as possible - the widevariety of present-day cultural exchanges between Romania andthe global world, the essays in part three, Romanian CulturalSpace and the Global World in the Works of DiasporaRomanians, focus on Romanian cultural diaspora in the U.S.,examining the way in which the transatlantic dialogue influencesdiasporic identities. In this sense, Anca-Teodora $erba~-Oprescu's essay argues that the creolization of cultural spaces I~an inherent topic of Romanian diaspora narratives by AndreICodrescu, Gabriel Ple~ea, Alexandra Tarziu and MirelaRoznoveanu. Elena-Adriana Dancu examines the plays of SavianaStanescu and shows how the author's immigrant charactersrenegotiate Romania, and, more broadly, Eastern Europe, bybecoming global foreigners in America. Maria-Sabina DragaAlexandru analyzes the role of poetry in the transatlantic dialoguey focusing on Ruxandra Cesereanu and Andrei Codrescu's

volume Forgiven Submarine. Finally, Alexandra Florescu tacklesthe case of Matei Calinescu's life and work in Romania and the

.S. The leading idea of these essays refers to the experiences ofRomanian immigrants to the U.S., where America becomes aspace of reflection allowing for a renegotiation of East Europeanidentity as fluid and in process.

The last section of the volume, Representations ofRomania in the Global World through Western Lenses, includes'ssays aevoted to the way in which Romanian culture hasoppeared in WesternlNorth American narratives. Among these,I iana Benea's essay, "Identity Debates in and beyond HertaMUller's German and Anglo-American Reception," comparesMUller's critical reception in Germany and the Anglo-American..pace, ranging from emphasis on her Romanianness to herI''Iocation in the position of the Communist other; the author'oncludes on the writer's overcoming such binary debates andI ituating her identity outside any fixed cultural categorization. In11 'I' essay "Western Representations of the Balkans: Romania as""'I'ozen Image"," Ilinca-Mirt.ma Diaconu foregrounds theI Tsistence of a culturally inferior image of Romania in Westernliscourse, following her close reading of Tony Judt's article,"R mania: Bottom of the Heap" (2001). In addition, DanaMihrtilescu's essay, "Images of Romania in Contemporary North

merican Narratives," examines the representation of Romania in111' narratives of three North American authors who traveled toI omania between 1999 and 2002, Aleksandar Hernon, BruceII 'nderson and Jill Culiner. In her reading, the image of theI \Inanian cultural space inside the respective texts stressesI nmanians' urgent need to fight a present-day amnesiac tendencyIllwurds the communist past by acknowledging and confronting1\ () major coordinates that have become deeply engrained inI\ll'" nt-day Romanians' psyche, namely a persistent culture ofII I i ion and categorical discourse.

The volume ends in a Coda, which includes five poeticalvignettes of Romania's everyday life, as seen by American poetMartin Woodside. The poems ponder on the relation betweentime's passage and people's hassled existence and on the typicalRomanian city. Seen as a multilayered site, it superposes theimage of tired and hard-working people with that of the beggingneedy, and their strained attempts to balance indifference andsympathy. Our intention, in that respect, has been that of offeringour readers an idea of the dynamic dialogical exchanges betweenliterature and cultural criticism by, hopefully, steering updiscourse and conversation in a fruitful way.

Considering the different angles of analysis presentedabove, the essays in this volume are likely to contribute to the on-going scholarly attempt towards the democratization oftransatlantic studies by presenting the Romanian/East European -Western dialogue as a space of mutual and honest exchanges inwhich criticism of "the other" is balanced by a responsible senseof self-analysis. Finally, we hope that those interested inRomanian culture in the global age will find in the present volumeoriginal and stimulating approaches.

Romanian Identities in the GlobalWorld: Cross-Cultural Exchanges