Newsletter
Editor:
Dr. Nicolae Harsanyi, M.S.L.S.
6937 Bay Drive #210
Miami Beach, FL 33141
Ph: 305-994-1419
Email: niki@thewolf.fiu.edu
Consultants:
Dr. Valentina Glajar
Modern Languages Dept.
Texas State University
San Marcos, TX 78666
Anca Luca Holden, Ph.D. Candidate
University of Georgia
Comparative Literature
Athens, GA 30602
The RSAA Newsletter is published twice a year.
REMINDER: All RSAA members who have changed their mailing address and institutional affiliation, or who now also have an e-mail address, are kindly requested to update these data by contacting the editor. Annual dues ($15.00, payable to RSAA) are to be sent to Anca-Elena L. Holden, 40 Greenwich Hill, Belchertown, MA 01007.
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Panels at
2005 MLA Convention, Philadelphia, PA, 27-30 December 2006
#485 Living at the Outskirts: Cinema and East European Countries
Friday, December 29, 2006, 1.45-3.00 p.m. Adams, Loews
Program arranged by RSAA.
Presiding: Catalina Florina Florescu, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette
#585 West Goes East: (Re)turning to East Central Europe After 1989
Friday, December 29, 2006, 7.15-8.30 p.m. Adams, Loews
Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Romanian Studies.
Presiding: Anca L. Holden, Univ. of Georgia.
#718 Mircea Cartarescu at Home in the World: Comparative Approaches to His
Work
Saturday, December 30, 2006, 12.00 noon-1.15 pm Washington B, Loews
Program arranged by RSAA.
Presiding: Laura Elena Savu, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Respondent: Christian Moraru, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro
RSAA Annual Meeting: December 28, 5:30 p.m. in Adams, Loews
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BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
Volume 2 of History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, edited by Marcel Cornis-Pope and John Neubauer, (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.) has just been published! Congratulations!
All contributors to vol. 1 and 2 can purchase a copy of both volumes at a 70%
discount against the book's advertised price. Contributors to vol. 2 will also
receive tear-out pages of their contribution.
Please order your copy of vol. 2 (or vol. 1 if you missed it) directly from
John Benjamins, at the following address:
Isja Conen
Acquisition Editor
John Benjamins Publishing Co.
P.O. Box 36224
1020 ME Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 630 4747
Fax: +31 20 673 9773
email: isja.conen@benjamins.nl
The editors hope very much that you will assist them in approaching the important libraries in your area and country to buy a copy (if they do not have already a subscription for the series). Concerning reviews, which are very important, please use whatever connections you have with journals to generate some interest in reviewing this important book. John Benjamins will send a review copy to journals if these request one.
Congratulations to the authors of vol. 2.!
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NEWS FROM OUR MEMBERS
Nicholas Catanoy, whose collection of poetry Vederi de pe aripa lui
Icar, was published by Editora Galateea in 2004 (ISBN 3-9809358-5-X), is
the subject of a book long study by Ion Cristofor: Nicholas Catanoy sau Avatarii
unui peregrin, (Cluj: Napoca star), the second edition of which was published
in 2005 (ISBN 973-647-173-x).
Oana Chivoiu chaired the panel "Beating the Mother's Breast" at North American Victorian Studies Association Conference, West Lafayette, IN, August 2006. She also presented the paper "Modeling Sites of Cultural Hybridity in Maria Edgeworth's Ennui" at Midwest Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, November 2006.
Monica Grecu presented two papers: "Voiculescu: Self-challenge and National Identity" and "Myth and its Function in Crystallizing Narrative Identities" in different sessions at "The European Mind: Narrative and Identity" Conference (Malta, July 23-27, 2006). At the meeting of RMMLA, held in Tucson, AZ (October 12-14, 2006) she delivered the paper "The Lyricism of the Inner Withdrawal."
Dr. Grecu was also active in giving public talks within her Reno, NV community: "Susan Glaspell and Her One Act Plays" (at North-West Library); "Ch. P. Gilman: 'The Yellow-Wallpaper'" (at Elder College); "Ch. P. Gilman: 'The Yellow-Wallpaper'" (at both North-West Library and Elder College); "Humor in Langston Hughes' Salvation and Woody Allen's Death Knocks (at both North-West Library and Elder College).
Nicolae Harsanyi presented the paper "The Eye of the Beholder" at the "The European Mind: Narrative and Identity" Conference (Malta, July 23-27, 2006).
Anca Luca Holden published the book chapter "Liminality, Hybridity, and the Aesthetic of Experimentation with Language in the Works of Carmen-Francesca Banciu" in Bodies and Representations. Women's Voices in Post-Communist Eastern Europe 2. Ed. Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, Madalina Nicolaescu, and Helen Smith. Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii, 2006. 91-115.
Mihaela Marin authored the following article: "Un cœur simple: variations sur un paysage normand", forthcoming in The Romanic Revue, 2007. She also presented the following two conference papers: "The Haunted House of Naturalism: Tragedy and the Working Class Novel in 19th-century France (at the International Conference 'The Locus of Tragedy,' The University of Antwerp, Belgium, November 2006) and "Aperçu sur la pneumatologie du texte naturaliste," (at the Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium, University of Indiana, Bloomington, October 2006).
Calin-Andrei Mihailescu published the collective volume Cum era? Cam asa… Amintiri din anii comunismului (românesc) (What Was It Like? Something Like That… Memories from the years of (Romanian) communism), which he edited for Curtea veche Publishing in Bucharest (ISBN (10) 973-669-277-9; (13) 978-973-669-277-2 (pbk.)) The book, launched this fall in Bucharest, Timisoara and New York, is a best seller in Romania. Website: http://www.curteaveche.ro/Amintiri/aminte.html
Ileana Orlich is currently on a Fulbright assignment in Romania at the University of Bucharest (2006-7).
Stefan Stoenescu published the essay "Ontological Relativity and the Paradox of Time", Caiete Internationale de Poezie / International Notebook of Poetry, LiterArt XXI, Norcross, GA - USA, No.7/2006, pp. 100-110. The Romanian version of this text, "Relativism ontologic si timp paradoxal", Euphorion, Revista de literatura si arta / Sibiu - Fondata de Uniunea Scriitorilor din România in 1990, Anul XVII / 3-4 / martie-aprilie / 2006, pp. 4; 22, is based on the Preface the author wrote, back in 1983, to his translation into English of a volume of selections from Mircea Ivanescu' poetry / 120 poems totaling about 3,000 lines /, issued as other poems, other lines by Eminescu Publishing House of Bucharest. The Romanian version of the Preface has been commissioned by Euphorion and was published for the first time in the Mircea Ivanescu issue of the Sibiu-based review, as a tribute to the poet's 75th anniversary]
Stefan Stoenescu's essay "Destin poetic românesc: 1944-2004 -- îin
Statele Unite si Canada" / The Fortunes of Romanian Poetry Written in
the United States and Canada between 1944 and 2004, is the Preface
(pp. V-XVIII) to the volume, Timpul - rana sângerânda. Poeti
români în Lumea Noua / Time - A Bleeding Wound. Romanian Poets in
the New World, Stefan Stoenescu and Gabriel Stanescu, Editors, Criterion
Publishing, Bucharest, 2006, XVIII + 474 P. The volume is a collection of 377
'exilic poems' by 36 poets, belonging to three generations, which came over
to America from communist Romania either as political refugees or immigrants.
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
A proposed collection on filmic representations of Dracula that transcend genre and identity. Submission deadline: January 15, 2007
This collection of essays seeks to investigate and explore the impulse by which global communities continue to reinvent Dracula in film, whether in an attempt to confront oppression or repression, or to embody social ills and taboos. Thus, theoretical analyses of the transnational generation of Dracula's cinematic offspring are highly sought. Contributions to this collection of essays should examine Dracula films and the ways in which Dracula's movement across borders of nationality, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, and film genre since the 1920s has engendered conflicting conceptualizations about the formation of the "other," identity, and ideology that oscillate between conservative and liberal spheres of normalcy. While this collection is concerned with the complex web of interrelationships between the historical, cultural, and literary counterparts that make up the conventional body of cinematic work from mainstream studios like Universal, Metro, Hammer, Columbia, AIP, equally important is the significantly larger, yet predominantly under-appreciated body of cinematic work that has poured out of other global markets. We are searching for essays that address these concerns by using single-film or period-based analysis.
With the focus of this collection targeting Dracula and Dracula-type characters
in films from not only the United States and England but from other global markets,
this collection welcomes submissions that seek to ground Dracula depictions
and experiences within a larger political, historical and cultural framework,
seeking to identify how different ethnic groups represent themselves and their
distinct movements across borders in the Dracula cinema myth. Chapters may focus
on isolating new, developing tendencies toward transnational modes of cultural
production, or may instead excavate and trace past
tendencies from older depictions.
We seek perspectives engaged in the fields of literature, media studies, cultural studies, history, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, health, medicine, criminology, and theology.
As payment, each contributor will receive 1 copy of the completed book.
Please submit your manuscript electronically as an email attachment to:
John Edgar Browning
Adjunct Lecturer of English
First-year Writing Program
Southern Methodist University
E-Mail: jbrowning@smu.edu
or
Dr. Caroline Joan (Kay) Picart
Associate Professor of English
Courtesy Associate Professor of Law
Florida State University
E-Mail: kpicart@english.fsu.edu
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Romanian Studies Association of America
N e w s l e t t e r
c/o Nicolae Harsanyi
6937 Bay Drive #210
Miami Beach, FL 33141