Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies最新文献

{"title":"The Séance of Reading: Uncanny Designs in Modernist Writing, Thomas J. Cousineau","authors":"Mădălina Elena Mandici","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25928","url":null,"abstract":"‟The Séance of Reading: Uncanny Designs in Modernist Writing” (2023), a book arising out of Thomas J. Cousineau’s long and fruitful teaching experience and his extensive engagements in Romanian academia as a Fulbright scholar, entices readers to appreciate key canonical works spanning American and European literature through the lens of the Romanian ballad ‟The Legend of Master Manole” and Mircea Eliade’s view of mythical creation by sacrifice. The aesthetic myth of master-builder Manole lends magnitude and resonance to nine modernist texts set in harmonious juxtaposition for the purpose of revealing and restoring the sacrificed textual elements within. Most valuably, the author makes the reader register the intricate relationship between the sacrificed protagonist and the architectural body of the literary monuments discussed throughout his book, which successfully brings together different literary genres, capitalizing on the scenario of death and ontological rebirth.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140972606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The journey to the end of the world under the sign of reconciliation with oneself and the world","authors":"Gabriela Chiciudean","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.26124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.26124","url":null,"abstract":"The novella Cînd Nu mai ai pe Cine să Îmbrățișezi [When you have no one to hug], by Răzvan Brudiu, offers a wild and isolated image of a hamlet in the Apuseni Mountains, where old Joseph lives in solitude, strengthened by the power of faith, waiting for the last road to eternity. In the volume we can identify a dialogical construction on the waiting theme, under the sign of silence. If Joseph speaks, it is to banish loneliness, as rarely does anyone cross his threshold, so that in the narrative ego his words and gestures provoke deep meditations on existence. The profile of the central hero is gradually built up through simplicity, modesty, and natural gestures, contrasting with the erudition of the theologian who constantly feels the need to refer to various passages in the Bible, to church events and services, to quotations from the writings of saints or famous writers, etc. Two different worlds emerge from the dialogue between the two protagonists, that of the city, where life is full of daily hassles and worries, where people judge things with a ‘correct’ mind, and the world of old Joseph, for whom time has already become ‘eternity’. These worlds, symbolically confronted, generate meaningful images. The 90-year-old man serenely looks towards death, aware that he does not have much more to expect from life and wishing to be reunited with his wife. He leads a simple life, but his prayer, uttered without worrying about tomorrow, generates in his heart love and longing for the Creator. For him, the end of the world is, in fact, the meeting with God, and everything he does since his wife’s death is a preparation for reaching the final goal, thus becoming an example for everyone who believes in eternal life.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140976843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why politicize the cultural game? (Emil) Cioran’s ethos: mysticism, religion and ethnic philosophy","authors":"Felix Nicolau","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.26119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.26119","url":null,"abstract":"The present research aims at understanding some of Emil Cioran's spiritual positions in several of his writings. The tools of analysis are the philosophical and cultural approaches, but also elements of positivist determinism, such as climate, disease, etc. The oeuvres studied belong to different periods of creation. The working hypothesis is that the essayist remained a lifelong thinker oscillating between the extreme right and the extreme left, as well as a stubborn and metaphysically rejected progressive thinker, but always obsessed with metaphysics and the transcendent. Among the commonplaces of Cioran's artistic and geopolitical critique of reality and the real are narcissism, humor, victimhood and diatribe. His work is underpinned by intuition and Utopian projection and much less by logic. Cioran becomes dangerous if treated as a programmatic philosopher, but otherwise he is a spectacular source of artistic and literary-philosophical insights; an experimental essayist, dangerous as an influencer. The fate of his thinking has been heavily marked by the ideologies of his interpreters.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140974747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cultural intimacy, cultural distance: methodological aspects of anthropological research into Romanians in Poland","authors":"Annemarie Sorescu-Marinković, Ewa Nowicka","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25789","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25789","url":null,"abstract":"This study focuses on a comparison of two sets of in-depth, face-to-face interviews among Romanians living in Poland about their perceptions of the country and society, and their migrant experiences. The interviews were conducted five years apart, using the same guide, but carried out by Polish interviewers in the first case, and by a Romanian interviewer in the second. Comparative analysis of the material gained in this process reveals that, despite similar content in interviewee responses, the standing of the interviewer was by no means neutral. Crucial for the volume, type, and nature of the collected data – as well as for its interpretation – is the interviewer’s identity. In this regard, the study draws on Michael’s Herzfeld’s concept of ‘cultural intimacy’ to explain the mutual reproduction of different levels of identity and to develop a framework for analyzing the interaction between the social scientists and their interlocutors.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140973365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An overview on the 20th-century Central-European novel","authors":"Monica Manolachi","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.26035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.26035","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past century, the history of Romanian literature has been dominated by nationalist approaches, necessary for the consolidation of a stable cultural identity. However, the concept of cultural identity involves changing and migratory components as well, many related to its links with other cultural identities, each of them with its own literature. This book review provides insights into the scholarly significance of Dicționarul romanului central-european din secolul XX [The Dictionary of Central European Novel in the 20th Century] coordinated by Adriana Babeți and edited by Oana Fotache, understood as a project that maps a transnational literary phenomenon. The study is examined for its uniqueness, specific linguistic diversity and multicultural scope: 250 entries about works initially published in one of the fourteen languages spoken in the region, including French and English as international languages, either part of the canon or more marginal and less known. Other reasons include its adequate combination of analysis and synthesis; the extensive team research carried out over three decades; and its socio-political relevance nowadays. The review highlights the historical, cultural, and academic contexts in which the dictionary was published, the avatars of the concept of Central Europe, several characteristics of the Central-European novel, and details about its structure, sections and features. The presentation mentions a few limitations about the availability of the titles in the languages of the region and the admitted gender imbalance and indicates several research audiences possibly interested in alternative ways of approaching novels in the context of globalization.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140974047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"For a noble and sentimental literature: N. Steinhardt and the essay as a form of freedom","authors":"Antonio Patraș, Roxana Patraș","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.26127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.26127","url":null,"abstract":"N. Steinhardt, the author of Jurnalul fericirii [The Diary of Happiness], was not only an exquisite intellectual colporteur, but also an erudite essayist of astonishing spontaneity, who gave his intellectual discourse a remarkable cultural breadth, which places him in the same spiritual family as Alexandru Odobescu, Paul Zarifopol, Mihail Ralea, Alexandru Paleologu or Andrei Pleșu. In spite of the diversity of the themes addressed, the essays of the later monk of Rohia preserve a basic unity, revealed in a coherent modus cogitandi and a defensive ethos, intended to protect individual freedom through recourse to modesty and to what Paleologu called common sense as paradox. Reading Steinhardt’s essays is also a powerful antidote to laziness of thought, offering the reader the chance to escape from the narrow horizon of commonplaces. Leaving aside the prison memorial and the texts on religious subjects, which are permeated by the same essayistic vein, we highlighted the fact that Steinhardt understood literary criticism as an ingenious creative activity, polemically anti-positivist, susceptible to new and surprising cultural analogies, incessantly pleading for the rehabilitation of subjectivity, emotion and feeling as essential factors in the process of knowledge, from the perspective of a fundamental humanism drawing from Montaigne’s tradition.\u0000 ","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140976495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"I.L. Caragiale. Despre autor, cititor și diferite mecanisme de seducere, pornind de la O conferență","authors":"Mircea A. Diaconu","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.25957","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.25957","url":null,"abstract":"The present text aims to problematise the work of I.L. Caragiale through the lens of reception theories, hermeneutics, and textuality while at the same time questioning some of the structuring themes of his writing, such as truth, the quest and the reader. Using texts such as ‘O conferență’, ‘Două loturi’, ‘Inspecțiune’, ‘Năpasta’, ‘D’ale carnavalului’, ‘Abu Hassan’, ‘1 Aprilie’ and others, the author aims to highlight elements of substance, attitude and style that converge in Caragiale’s writing, which, beyond the social, it associates the metaphysical comic or the idea of empty transcendence with the concern for truth, meta-textuality or the social. In this context, the proximity of I.L. Caragiale to Alphonse Allais or Henry James, in the interpretations of Umberto Eco and Wolfgang Iser, is supported beyond the similarities that legitimise the reading of I.L. Caragiale from the perspective of reception theories, by the fact that their relevant texts were written at the height of the Belle Époque. Therefore, Caragiale’s world appears as a luminous, complicit, seductive irony.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140973665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Swedish freemason Lars von Engeström and his description of Transylvania","authors":"Attila Carol Varga","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25930","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25930","url":null,"abstract":"This study highlights one of the oldest and most beautiful bridges between the Kingdom of Sweden and the Romanian Lands in the 18th century. The analysis concerns Count Lars of Engeström, freemason, rector of the University of Lund, diplomat, and envoy of the Kingdom of Sweden in Vienna within the Habsburg Empire. In this capacity, he was able to obtain valuable information about the uprising led by Horea, Cloșca and Crișan in Transylvania in 1784. It was a rebellion that shook the reign of Emperor Joseph II. For this reason, its retaliation was commensurate. Thus, recounting a dramatic episode from the pre-modern history of the Romanians, Lars von Engeström left to posterity a beautiful fresco of Transylvania. He spoke about ethnic and confessional diversity, about the Romanian Roma, about the people living here and their problems. There is no definitive information confirming that he actually visited Transylvania. Nevertheless, the famous Swedish diplomat remains the greatest Northern European scholar to write about this 18th century Transylvanian uprising which was unique in its intercontinental resonance and had significant repercussions in the Swedish press of that era.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140976592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The status of the Romanian literary avant-garde after 2000: from marginalization to recovery","authors":"Alexandru Foitoș","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i1.25859","url":null,"abstract":"The present paper proposes a theoretical approach related to the critical reception of the Romanian literary avant-garde after 2000, a literary phenomenon in‑between marginalization and recovery tendencies. Starting from interwar critical studies from Romania (E. Lovinescu, G. Călinescu, etc.), with predominantly negative perspectives regarding the critical reception of the avant-garde, we will observe how certain clichés of the reception of the phenomenon, seen as “extremist”, as marginal, were perpetuated, with the “barrier” of the apparently impossible literary canonization. After 2000, however, literary studies discuss the historicization of the avant-garde phenomenon, which therefore became canonical in Romanian literary history. However, several elements of the “niche” avant-garde remained in the subsidiary, in the “shadow”. This is what we call the marginal(ized), the secondary avant-garde, which includes a series of less known and researched avant-garde writers, but who contributed to the complex shaping of the avant-garde imaginary.\u0000We will analyse several types of works published after 2000, in order to highlight the complexity of the avant-garde, under constant recovery: literary anthologies (Ion Pop, Nicolae Bârna), avant-garde dictionaries (Lucian Pricop, Dan Grigorescu), several critical studies after 2000 (Ion Bogdan Lefter, Ovidiu Morar, Emilia Drogoreanu, Paul Cernat, Dan Gulea, Emanuel Modoc, Delia Ungureanu, Daniel Clinci, Petre Răileanu, Gabriela Glăvan, Ion Pop, etc.). Many of them focus on the recovery trends of some forgotten writers, with the possibility of their inclusion in the central, canonical avant-garde, while other studies pursue new research methodologies, such as the avant-garde seen in a transnational context, in world literature context, etc. \u0000An issue that we develop in the context of this extended future research, which is also highlighted upon in the present work, is that of post-Urmuz epigonism within Romanian literary avant-garde, a fact that explains the placement of many writers in the sphere of critical marginalization. Thus, many texts by less researched writers are forgotten, being always associated with the central avant-garde models, especially Urmuz, but also Tristan Tzara or other influential writers within the central avant‑garde groups. It is precisely this problem that made us analyse the way in which the writers who are part of the marginal dimension of the avant-garde are recovered through contemporary literary studies from Romania.","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140973175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ființele ficționale: ce sunt și la ce folosesc","authors":"Alina Buzatu","doi":"10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.25958","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.35824/sjrs.v7i2.25958","url":null,"abstract":"My paper problematizes the (non)existence of the fictional beings, addressing a series of important theoretical questions and comparing some relevant (realist / antirealist) answers archived by the modern and contemporary conceptual history. I have examined contrastive philosophical perspectives that define the ontological condition of fictional beings, in an attempt to represent the specific difference of these imaginative constructs and their experiential roles. The argumentative stake of my concise research is to prove that, in the coordinates of the imaginative worlds, fictional beings, their behavior, language, emotions, intentions, help us „read” and interpret real life - they are cognitive tools of exceptional value.\u0000 ","PeriodicalId":36723,"journal":{"name":"Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140976257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}