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act: This paper aims at analyzing the connection between the contemporary Romanian literature and world literature through the emergence of maximalist novel embodied in Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu’s novel, Abraxas. The author belongs to the 2000 generation, a generation which has neglected the postmodern maximalist approach. Therefore, I intend to analyze the emergence of maximalism in Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu’s novel by indicating the tension it generated in regards with the previous minimalist formula and by observing the connection of literature with the socio-economic context of the 2000’s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the background of recent syntheses on the concept of authenticity in Romanian literature and in the light of gender studies in relation to the postcanonical perspective, this paper aims to question a possible alternative of authenticity in two interwar novels written by women: Anișoara Odeanu’s 1934 Într-un cămin de domnișoare [In a Young Ladies’ Home] and Lucia Demetrius’ 1936 Tinerețe [Youth]. While interwar literature outlines a masculine, misogynist and machismo authenticity, based on vitalism and obsession with the experience of the male subject, the alternative of prose written by women proposes an authenticity that is neither doctrinaire nor merely a form. While not configured as an alternative to the ism of male writing’s authenticity, the two novels propose a demonopolisation of authenticity and underline the signs of a counter discourse of women writings within and against a misogynistic society and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It goes without saying that during the nineteenth and twentieth century literary historiography tries to define national identities. However, a methodological and paradigm shift occur at the beginning of the twenty-first century when, under the auspices of globalization and the emergence of world literature and transnational literary studies, literary historiography is rethought as a collective and transnational project. Yet, the asymmetry of the world literary system affects literary historiography too. When it comes to this scholarly genre, the asymmetry is most visible in the fact that in the era of transnationalism, national histories are still written at the periphery. Given the aforementioned observation, this paper a) looks into the challenges of writing literary history in Romania in the age of world literature and transnational studies, and b) tries to explain why a national literary history is still needed and how it can change the way we think about Romanian literature. The starting point of this inquiry is represented by the publication of Mihai Iovănel’s Istoria literaturii române contemporane: 1990-2020 [History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020]. In the context of the ‘transnational turn’ in literary studies, the attempt to write relevant national histories in a peripheral literary space such as Romania is faced, in my view, with two major challenges: 1) the fact that transnationalism manifests itself differently at the periphery and 2) the tradition of Romanian literary criticism and history. The former refers to the fact that unlike central literatures, where transnationalism is shaped to a large extent by migrant writers (those who enter these literatures), in Romanian literature it comprises exiled or migrant writers (those who left Romania and not vice versa) and, to a lesser extent, the literatures written by ethnic minorities. A comparative approach can cast light on this difference. For example, while the thirteenth volume of The Oxford English Literary History is dedicated entirely to migrant and bicultural writers, transnational histories concerning the peripheries, such as History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, focus on multiple literary spaces and therefore have a different approach to dealing with transnationalism. The latter challenge is represented, as shown by Iovănel, by the long-lasting tradition of the “principle of aesthetic autonomism”, which persists even in post-communist Romania. In this regard, this paper aims to show that Iovănel’s History… overcomes the above-mentioned hindrances of literary criticism and succeeds in offering an image of Romanian literature not as confined to its national boundaries but as part of the world literary system. Along with other significant scholarly works on Romanian literature as and in world literature, this project is a significant step towards re-thinking Romanian literature as a “literature of the world” (Terian 2015). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Manuela Boatcă and Anca Parvulescu’s recent volume, Creolizing the Modern, in relation to the debates surrounding the adequacy of the postcolonial framework for the analysis of East European and, more specifically, Romanian literature. It argues that the authors manage to signal, introduce and put into practice some of the most important methodological updates in the fields of postcolonialism, dependency studies and World Literature. Through a discussion of each of these milestones, Boatcă and Parvulescu’s inter-imperial reading method is shown to provide a highly rigorous and productive world-systemic perspective on modern canonical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the strategies enacted by Mihai Iovănelʼs History in order to map the transnational interactions of contemporary Romanian literature. Since Iovănel emphasizes that, starting with the 2000s, the Romanian writers define themselves mainly through the global networks in which they try to integrate, this article aims to analyse: a) the canonical function acquired by the local references to World Literature; b) their explanatory role compared to the one played by the closed circuit of the so-called “intra-national” comparisons; c) the theoretical legitimacy of the “transnational canon” projected by Iovănel in the epilogue of his History. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Monday Literary Club had a very important role in creating, educating, and shaping what the History of the Romanian Literature calls "Generation '80". In a recent interview, Florin Iaru, one of the first and the most important members of this generation, tells us how he sees the activity and the role of the club within the age, but also the Romanian literature. Based on his opinion, on the one hand, the Monday Literary Club brought together very valuable people and tried to make the most of them, and on the other hand, the communist regime played a very important role in the poets' life and poetry. I consider the Monday Literary Club very important for the Romanian history, not only from a literary point of view, but also because of its implications at the time, its strength in defending human rights, the freedom of speaking, the mere daily existence of a citizen who wants to express his opinions freely. This paper starts from my Research within the National Security Archives (CNSAS), which regards the communist implication in this literary club's existence: collaboration notes and very interesting so called "informational" reports regarding the members of this club. It tries to argue how important was, and still is, the activity of the Monday Literary Club during the communist period, but also its literary, historical, and political implications for the time before it was forbidden and after its closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]