Dana Mihăilescu
Contact details
Institutional address: English Department / Centerfor American Studies
School of Foreign Languages and Literatures
University of Bucharest
7-13, Pitar Moş street, Bucharest, Sector 1, Romania
Email:
Webpages:
Work experience
• October 2015 – present: Associate Professor, Department of English/Center for American Studies, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest
• October 2012 – September 2015: Assistant Professor/ Lecturer, Department of English/Center for American Studies, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest
•October 2009 – September 2012: Junior Lecturer, Department of English/Center for American Studies, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest
• February 2008 –October 2009: Junior Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest
• October 2004 – present: researcher, University of Bucharest, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Department of English - American Studies
• September 2006 – June 2007: Executive director of “Ariel” Language Center, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest
• February 2004 – February 2008: Junior Lecturer, "Dimitrie Cantemir" University, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Department of English
• Seminars and courses taught: Ethno-Racial Identity Configurations in American Literature. Cross-Cultural Encounters (American studies sophomores)( Introduction to Mass Media (U.S. Mass Media and Image Culture: The Stakes of Gender, Ethnicity and Ethics) (American studies sophomores)(; Media Communication: Intergenerational Dynamics in African American and Jewish American Media (American studies 1st year graduate students) (; Introduction to American Civilization (Translators freshmen); ( seminars in (19th and 20thcentury)American literature; Practical courses of English.
• July 12 – July 20, 2006 and July 16 - July 23, 2005: Translator/Interpreter – Summer schools organized by “Le Centre International de Formation Européenne / Institut Européen des Hautes Études Internationales”, Nice, France and held at "Dimitrie Cantemir" University, Bucharest (2006 topic: “Perspectives de l’entrée de la Roumanie dans l’Union Européenne”; 2005 topic: « La Nouvelle Europe élargie: perspectives et premiers résultats»)
• Peer reviewer for Journal of Modern Jewish Studies;European Review of History (ISI-AHCI journal); Intercultural Education (ISI journal); Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies; Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review; Rowman & Littlefield International Publishers.
• Editorial board member for [Inter]sections, an annual online journal of American Studies at the University of Bucharest (ISSN 2068 – 3472).
Education
2004-2010, January 30
• PhD in Philology, Magna Cum Laude, University of Bucharest (PhD dissertation: Ethical Dilemmas and Reconfigurations of Identity in Early Twentieth Century Eastern European Jewish American Narratives; advisor: Prof. Rodica Mihăilă; committee: Prof. Stephen Whitfield (Brandeis University); Prof. Victor Neumann (University of West, Timişoara); Prof. Ştefan Avădanei (Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi).
2003-2004
• MA in American Studies, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest (MA dissertation: Ethnic Identity Dilemmas. The Jewish Immigrant Margin vs. American Mainstream Impositions; advisor: Assoc. Prof. Mihai Mîndra)
1999-2003
• BA in English major / French minor, School of Letters, University of Craiova (BA dissertation: Levels of Silence in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury; advisor: Assist. Prof. Aloisia Şorop)
1995-1999
• High school studies, “Carol I” high school of Craiova
Awards
• December 2016: UEFISCDI Award (PNIII-P1-1.1-PRECISI-2016-13096) for publication of “Transnational conundrums around trips by young people to Holocaust death camps: Ethical potentialities of incongruous memories in Thomas Duranteau’s travelogue Des miettes et des étoiles (2012)” in French Cultural Studies 27.4 (November 2016): 348-360.
• August 2016: UEFISCDI Award (PNIII-P1-1.1-PRECISI-2016-10947) for publication of “Specifics of Holocaust Child Survivors’ Memoirs as Reflected in Appelfeld’s The Story of a Life” inCLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Special Issue on War and Life Writing. Guest editors Louise O. Vasvári and I-Chun Wang. 17.3 (September 2015, published in May 2016): 1-7. ISSN: 1481-4374.
• December 2014: UEFISCDI Award (PN-II-RU-PRECISI-2014-8-5289) for publication of “Traumatic Echoes of Memories in Child Survivors’ Narratives of the Holocaust: The Polish Experiences of Michał Głowiński and Henryk Grynberg” in European Review of History21.1 (February 2014): 73-90. ISSN: 1350-7486 (Print), 1469-8293 (Online).
• October 2010: Romanian Association of American Studies Graduate Student Award for best PhD dissertation in American Studies submitted between 2008 and 2010 (
Scholarships and fellowships
• August 2008 – June 2009: Fulbright Junior Visiting Researcher, American Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts[Advisor: Prof. Stephen J. Whitfield]
• Raphael Patai Fellow at the Conference “Modern Jewish Culture: Unities and Diversities,” June 24-26, 2008, Wroclaw, Poland.
• October 2004 – September 2008: PhD scholarship offered by the University of Bucharest
• October 2002 - February 2003, "Charles de Gaulle - Lille 3" University, Lille, France: study grant within the Socrates European Commission Exchange Programme. Areas of study: English and French.
Research projects
• October 2015 – September 2017: Project leader/researcher in PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0051 project “Intergenerational Dynamics of Vulnerability in American Trauma Narratives”, project no. 173 / 2015 funded by UEFISCDI, the National University Research Council of Romania.
• October 2015 – September 2017: Researcher in PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0609 project “Representations of Violence in Contemporary American Popular Culture”, director: Assoc. Prof. Mihaela Precup; project no 174 / 2015 funded by UEFISCDI, the National University Research Council of Romania.
• January 2016 – December 2017: Project leader/Researcher in University of Bucharest project no.177, “Regimes of Vulnerability in American Trauma Narratives”, project funded by the University of Bucharest
• January 2016 – December 2017: Researcher in University of Bucharest project no.178 “Means of Representing Violence in American Popular Culture”, director: Assoc. Prof. Mihaela Precup; project funded by the University of Bucharest
• January 2014 – December 2017: Researcher in University of Bucharest project no.271 “Trauma Narratives in the United States”, director: Prof. Roxana Elena Oltean; project funded by the University of Bucharest
• October 2011 – October 2014: Researcher in PNII-RU-TE-2011-3-0149 project “Cross-Cultural Encounters in American Trauma Narratives: A Comparative Approach to Personal and Collective Memories”, director: Assoc. Prof. Roxana Elena Oltean; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)
• October 2011 – October 2013: Researcher in PNII-RU-TE-2011-3-0159 project “Women’s Narratives of Transnational Relocation”, director: Assoc. Prof. Maria-Sabina Alexandru Draga; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)
• September 2007 – September 2010: Junior Researcher in PN-II-Idei project no. 205 “Romanian Cultural Space in Transatlantic Perspective. From Post-Communism to Post-Accession”, project director: Prof. Rodica Mihăilă; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)
• September 2007 – December 2010: Junior Researcher in PN-II-Idei project no. 280 “Cultures of Diasporas: The Margin and the Mainstream in Jewish-Romanian and Jewish-American Literatures”, Project director: Assoc. Prof. Mihai Mîndra; project funded by the National University Research Council of Romania (NURC)
Summer schools / Training / Researchstays
• August 21 – September 7, 2017: Uppsala, Sweden: Research at the Library of Uppsala University, funded by UEFISCDI project no. 173 / 2015, titled “Intergenerational Dynamics of Vulnerability in American Trauma Narratives”
•June 2 – June 15, 2017: Frankfurt, Germany: Research at the Humanities Library of Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt, funded by UEFISCDI project no. 173 / 2015, titled “Intergenerational Dynamics of Vulnerability in American Trauma Narratives”
• May 8 – May 15, 2017: Jerusalem, Israel: Research at The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, funded by UEFISCDI project no. 173 / 2015, titled “Intergenerational Dynamics of Vulnerability in American Trauma Narratives”
• August 17 – August 30, 2012: Paris, France: Research at Mémorial de la Shoah, funded by EUFISCSU-CNCSIS project no. 64 / 2011, titled “Cross-Cultural Encounters in American Trauma Narratives: A Comparative Approach to Personal and Collective Memories”, director: Assoc. Prof. Roxana Elena Oltean
• May 30 – June 3, 2011: Dubrovnik, Croatia: Participant in Feminist Critical Analysis Course, Witnessing the Past, Remembering the Future, organized by The Center for Gender and Politics of Belgrade University (Political Science Department), Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and the Department of Gender Studies of the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest
• August 20 – September 3, 2010: London, Great Britain: Research at British Library, funded by EUFISCSU-CNCSIS project no. 280 / 2007, titled “Cultures of Diasporas: The Margin and the Mainstream in Jewish-Romanian and Jewish-American Literatures”, Project director: Assoc. Prof. Mihai Mîndra
• August 4 – August 18, 2010: Osnabrueck, Germany: “International Osnabrueck Summer School on the Cultural Study of the Law – Synergies: Law, Language and Culture,” Department of English and American Studies, Osnabrueck University
• April 16 – April 20, 2007: Heidelberg, Germany: Presentation of PhD project structure, “The Contingency of Double Identity. The East European in Early 20th Century Jewish American Prose Narratives” at the Heidelberg Spring Academy in American Studies
• August 25 – September 5, 2006: Budapest, Hungary: “The European Union and the New Transatlantic Challenges”. Organizers: L’Institut Européen d’Hautes Études Internationales, Nice and Hungarian New Atlantic Initiative
Visual / Media projects
• “Stories of Staring Eyes. A Lineage.” FAMILY LINE-UPS.Trans-generational Encounters in Family Photography (Joint Project with Mihaela Precup, Roxana Oltean –
Publications
Authored Books
• Regimes of Vulnerability in Jewish American Media and Literature. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2015. ISBN 978-606-16-0551-4. 293 pages. MLA-indexed.
• Ethnic Identity Dilemmas in Early Twentieth Century East European Jewish Immigrant Narratives in the United States. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2012. 167 pp. ISBN 978-606-16-0125-7. MLA-indexed.
Edited Books
• co-editor, with Mihaela Precup and Roxana Oltean. Mapping Generations of Traumatic Memory in American Narratives. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. 398 pp. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5672-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5672-0. MLA-indexed.
• co-editor, with Rodica Mihăilă. Romanian Culture in the Global Age. Bucharest: University of Bucharest Press, 2010. 305 pp. ISBN 978-973-737-848-4. MLA-indexed. [
Encyclopaedia chapter entries
• “Hate Crime.”Violence in American Society: An Encyclopedia of Trends, Problems, and Perspectives. Ed. Chris Richardson. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, forthcoming.
Studiesin peer-reviewed journals:
Articles in ISI-AHCI indexed journals
• “Transnational conundrums around trips by young people to Holocaust death camps: Ethical potentialities of incongruous memories in Thomas Duranteau’s travelogue Des miettes et des étoiles (2012).” French Cultural Studies 27.4 (November 2016): 348-360. Impact Factor: 0.143. eISSN: 17402352| ISSN: 09571558.DOI: 10.1177/0957155816660678.
• “Specifics of Holocaust Child Survivors’ Memoirs as Reflected in Appelfeld’s The Story of a Life.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Special Issue on War and Life Writing. Guest editors Louise O. Vasvári and I-Chun Wang. 17.3 (September 2015, published in May2016): 1-7. Purdue University Press. ISSN: 1481-4374.
• “Traumatic Echoes of Memories in Child Survivors’ Narratives of the Holocaust: The Polish Experiences of Michał Głowiński and Henryk Grynberg.” European Review of History/Revue européenne d’histoire 21.1 (February 2014): 73-90. ISSN: 1350-7486 (Print), 1469-8293 (Online) (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, ISI-AHCI, ERIH Int 1 journal);
• “Being without Pleasurable Memories: On the Predicament of the Shoah’s Child Survivors in Norman Manea’s “Proust’s Tea” and Kindred Narratives.” American Imago 70.1 (Spring 2013): 107-124. E-ISSN: 1085-7931; Print ISSN: 0065-860X [Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, ISI-AHCI-indexed journal];
• “Images of Romania and America in Early Twentieth-Century Romanian-Jewish Immigrant Life Stories in the United States.” East European Jewish Affairs 42.1(April 2012): 25-43. ISSN 1350-1674 / ISSN 1743-971X online [Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, Manchester, UK, ISI-AHCI-indexed journal].
Review articles in ISI-AHCI indexed journals
• “Comics from the World Wars as Palimpsest-Laden Tools for Historical Analysis.”[Review article on Comics and the World Wars. A Cultural Record by Jane Chapman, Anna Hoyles, Andrew Kerr and Adam Sherif and Comics, the Holocaust and Hiroshima. By Jane Chapman, Dan Ellin and Adam Sherif]Rethinking History. The Journal of Theory and Practice20.4 (2016): 586-593. [Taylor and Francis, UK, ISI-AHCI-indexed journal, Impact factor: 0.302]ISSN: 1364-2529 (Print), 1470-1154 (Online).
Reviews in ISI-AHCI indexed journals
• Review ofMémoires des Juifs de Roumanie, byMehdi Chebana and Jonas Mercier Mure-Ravaud.Journal of Jewish Studies 63.1 (April 2012): 186-189. ISSN 0022-2097 [Oxford, UK, ISI-AHCI-indexed journal]
• Review of Dancing in the Dark by Morris Dickstein. Vingtième Siecle. Rêvue d’histoire. Presses de Sciences-Po. 2/2011 (110): 213-214. ISSN: 0294-1759
E-ISSN: 1950-6678. ISBN: 9782724632071.
ISI-AHCI, ERIH Int 1 journal. <
Articles in international peer-reviewed journals
• “Mapping Transgenerational Memory of the Shoah in Third Generation Graphic Narratives: On Amy Kurzweil’s Flying Couch (2016).” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies.Special issue “Beyond Maus: Comic Books and the Shoah.” Guest editor Ewa Stańczyk. 27.1 (March 2018). Forthcoming.Print ISSN: 1472-5886Online ISSN: 1472-5894 [CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts); Current Abstracts; Index to Jewish Periodicals; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences; Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts; OCLC; Sociological Abstracts; SCOPUS]
• “A bundle of confessions in Jewish women’s comics: Reconstructing Eastern European Jewish American life in Liana Finck’s A Bintel Brief.” Studies in Comics. Special issue on Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women. Guest editors Heike Bauer, Andrea Greenbaum and Sarah Lightman. 6.2 (December 2015): 271-290. ISSN 2040-3232, Online ISSN: 2040-3240 [ERIH-PLUS journal, indexed in Web of Science].DOI:
• “Haunting Spectres of World War II Memories from a Transgenerational Ethical Perspective in Miriam Katin’s We Are on Our Own and Letting It Go.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Special issue on War and Ethics. Guest editors Mihaela Precup and Rebecca Scherr. 6.2 (April 2015): 154-171.ISSN: 2150-4857 (Print), 2150-4865 (Online). DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2015.1027940.
• “Intergenerational Encounters in the Wake of Shoah and the Ethics behind a Child Survivor’s ‘Terrified Smile’ in Elie Wiesel’s A Mad Desire to Dance.” HBI Online Working Paper Series, December 2012. Part of Hadassah Brandeis Institute Project on Families, Children, and the Holocaust, Brandeis University. Series editor Joanna Michlic.
• “Sides of the Nagging Wife Stereotype in Early Twentieth Century Jewish American Narratives.” Journal of Jewish Identities 3.2 (July 2010): 47-76. [Project Muse Database: < ISSN: 1939-7941.
• “Jewish Men and the Early Twentieth-Century American Code of Masculinity through Ethnic Lenses.” Atenea. Special Issue on Men and Masculinity. Published by University of Puerto Rico at Malaga28.1 (June 2008): 87-102. ISSN 0885-6079.[ Ebsco Database: and Literature Research Center]
• “Jewish Stereotypes in Critical Focus: From Christian Archetypes to Representation Practices.” Australian Journal of Jewish Studies XXI (2007): 201-222. ISSN: 1037-0838. [Extended Academic ASAP Database]
Book/Exhibition reviews in international peer-reviewed journals
• “Review of Le Bastard, Gwenola. Eugene O’Neill. Le génie illégitime de Broadway. Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2014.”Transatlantica. Revue d’études américaines/American Studies Journal. 2/ 2016. Forthcoming.
• “Review of Out of Chaos. Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust. Edited by Elaine Saphier Fox. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2013.” Jewish Culture and History17.1-2 (2016): 175-178.ISSN:1462-169X (Print), 2167-9428 (Online).
• “Legacies of a Traumatic Past in Romanian Jews’ Artworks. Review of Exhibition Crossroads: Jewish Artists during the Holocaust.”Images. A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture (Brill Press, Boston, US), 2011. 123-125. ISSN 1871-7993, Online ISSN: 1871-8000. [Ingenta Brill / EBSCOHOST Arts and Architecture databases]
Articles in internationally-indexed / B Romanian journals
•“Children’s Erratic Memories of the Holocaust: On Cross-Cutting Exchanges in Exhibitions and Visual Projects about Child Survivors and Children of Survivors.” Martor. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review (Special Issue on Children,November 2013): 93-108. < ISSN: 1224-6271.
•“Memory Cues Imbricated in Nineteenth Century Family Photos from the American South: On William Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom!.” University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies 3.1 (November 2013): 116-124. ISSN: 2069-8658.
• “On the Performative Lure of War Memories: Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story”.” University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies 1.2(2011): 105-114. ISSN: 2069-8658.
Articles in Romanian journals/volumes
• “Jewish Stereotypes between Shtetl Culture and Mythic America: The Birth of Contingent Jewish Identity in Anzia Yezierska’s Prose.” University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies IX.3 (2007). 122-128.<
ISSN: 1454-9328.
• “La Llorona and Chicana Empowerment.” Analele Universităţii Dimitrie Cantemir 5(2006): 118-123. ISBN: 973-8338-27-1.
• “Early 20th Century Polemics over Ethnicity. The American Taste for Assimilation and Eastern-European Jews.”University of Bucharest Review. A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies VII.4 (June 2005): 107-115.ISSN: 1454-9328.
Reviews in Romanian journals
•“Writing Visually for Another Crack in the Wailing Wall: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes. A Review.” [Inter]sections 4.13 (Winter/Spring 2011): 12-14.
Book chapters in international volumes
• “The Thrusts of Ghost-Writing Eastern European Survivors’ Memories of the Holocaust in Post-Cold War Western Societies.” After Memory. Rethinking Representations of World War II in Contemporary Eastern European Literatures. Eds. Matthias Schwartz, Nina Weller, and Heike Winkel. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (“Media and Cultural Memory” Series), forthcoming 2017/2018.
• “Shadows of Memory and Intergenerational Legacies in Child Survivors’ Testimonies from the Kestenberg Archive.”Children in the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Historical and Psychological Studies of the Kestenberg Archive. Eds. Eva Fogelman, Sharon Kangisser Cohen and Dalia Ofer. New York: Berghahn Press, 2017.122-149. ISBN 978-1-78533-438-2 (hardback) / ISBN 978-1-78533-439-9 (ebook).
• “Gendered Intergenerational Spaces of Holocaust and Communist Traumas in Anca Vlasopolos’s Transatlantic Memoir No Return Address.” Women and the Holocaust: New Perspectives and Challenges. Eds. Andrea Petö, Louise Hecht and Karolina Krasuska. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IBL (Instytut Badan Literackich PAN)/The Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 2015. 183-205. ISBN: 978-83-64703-24-9.
• “Photography and Prose Pictures in Beloved: The Frames of Emotional Memory.” Toni Morrison - Au-delà du visible ordinaire / Toni Morrison - Beyond the Ordinary Visible. Eds. Andrée-Anne Kekeh-Dika, Maryemma Graham and Janis A. Mayes. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2015. 175-194. L’imaginaire du texte series. ISBN: 978-2-84292-413-3.
• “The Lower East Side as Mishmash of Jewish Women’s Multicultural Images in Leela Corman’s Unterzakhn.” Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels. Eds. Ian Hague and Carolene Ayaka. Routledge, 2015. 212-227. Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies Series. ISBN: 978-1-13-802515-8.
• “Negotiating Traumas via Cross-Cultural Urban Identity Configurations out of Grief: Aleksandar Hemon’s The Lazarus Project.” Mapping Generations of Traumatic Memory in American Narratives. Eds. Dana Mihăilescu, Mihaela Precup and Roxana Oltean. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.31- 53. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5672-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5672-0.
• “Being Off-Track: Returns to Post-Communist Spacesand Transits around the U.S. as Fertile Acts of Dislocation in Svetlana Boym’s Works.” Between History and Personal Narrative: East-European Women’s Stories of Migration in the New Millennium. Eds. Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, Mădălina Nicolaescu, Helen Smith. Graz: Lit Verlag(Contributions to Transnational Feminism Series), 2013. 211-227.ISBN 978-3-643-90448-9.