Documents, in particular identity cards, mediate relationships between individuals and institutions. Their materiality matters and actively impacts how states govern populations and their movements. In this paper, I examine one such object, the Romanian identity card. Focusing on its temporality and agency, I explore how objects and technological procedures enact race. In Romania, people without an address or proof of residence—many of them members of segregated Roma communities living in deep poverty—can only receive a temporary identity (...) card, the Carte de Idenititate Provizorie (CIP). CIP holders do not enjoy full citizenship and are deprived of various rights, such as the right to travel without a passport within the European Union. They are also exposed to heightened surveillance as they must apply annually for a new CIP. Starting from the material object of the CIP, I explore how race comes into being as a relation at the intersection of various temporalities that are folded into the rules and bureaucratic practice entailed in its issue. I offer the concept of “permanent temporality” to analyze how racialization occurs in practices of governing people and their movement in Europe. (shrink)

Drawing on the existent literature in the field and on in-depth interviews, we aim to examine here the practice and the meaning of wearing hijab by Romanian-born Muslim women. In our attempt to show the particularities of veiling among young Romanian-born Muslim women, we take into account the social and cultural context, the meanings and the values that these women convey to wearing the hijab and the consequences that such a practice has for their lives in the community (...) and in the Romanian society at large. We hope that the findings presented and discussed in this paper will enrich the research on this topic and will add a new perspective on the status of Muslim women in Eastern Europe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Romanian Cultural and Political IdentityDonald R. KelleyThe Journal of the History of Ideas, in collaboration with other institutions, including the Universities of Bucharest and Budapest and the Soros Foundation, recently sponsored the second in a series of international conferences being planned on topics in current intellectual history. (The first, “Interrogating Tradition,” was held at Rutgers University, 13–16 November 1997.) The Romanian conference, which was held in the (...) Elisabeta Palace in Bucharest (27–31 May 1998), was devoted to “Culture and the Politics of National Identity in Modern Romania.” Over forty scholars, mainly from Romania but some also from the U.S., France, Germany, and Hungary, gathered to discuss a variety of questions about Romanian society, past, present, and speculative future; and they were joined by at least as many visitors, especially students, from the local area and beyond.Topics discussed included politics, language, economics, historiography, religion, education, philosophy, ideologies, intelligentsia, particular intellectuals, minorities, and women (though not Gypsies or gays). Under this riot of rubrics a wide range of questions were posed in interdisciplinary fashion, with frequent, sometimes impassioned interventions. What is—was, might have been, can be—Romania? Who is a Romanian (and who not)? What is Romania’s relation to the West and the East? (And what are the “West” and the “East”?) To modernity, to modernism, to modernization? What is—has been, should be—the function of intellectuals, of political and cultural elites, in understanding the Romanian past and in setting a course for the future? What, more generally, is the role of history in answering such questions? Or is history perhaps (as Karl Krause remarked of psychoanalysis) the disease for which it claims to be the cure?Keith Hitchens’s keynote address suggested that rehashing old essentialist debates might not be productive at millennium’s end, but the conference itself could not avoid some excursions down the paths of memory and myth. For historians, Western historians anyway, Romania seems to have too many pasts. Located at the juncture of four previous empires, Romania is a mosaic, or perhaps a pandemonium, of ethnic, religious, economic, and ideological groups that can only imagine, or invent, a nationality. Geographically (and in many ways culturally) remote from the West, Romania for a long time (as Sorin Antohi remarked) lacked both a public sphere and a civil society; and suffering “a Counter-Reformation without a Reformation” (Alexandru Dutu’s phrase), it has not enjoyed a tradition of religious or ethnic toleration. Nor have either the Germans or the Jews (as Glass said) found their own unity within the changing borders of the modern Romanian state. Not until the nineteenth century did Romania develop, out of its Boyar background (as Siupiur argued), an intellectual elite that could create a modern national history and help turn “peasants into Romanians” (Antohi’s phrase); and even then this elite seemed more attracted to conservative [End Page 735] (Herder, Savigny, Burke) than to liberal views of autochthonism. Many features of Western modernity, such as Newtonian science, reached Romania late, and indeed there was a retrograde movement against liberalism under the aegis by orthodox religion. In any case this intelligentsia has been as fragmented and multiform as the Romanian past itself. True, some Romanian scholars like to posit a mainstream tradition, “excesses aside,” as one speaker put it—but how, asked another, can historians put “excesses” aside from the devastating perspective of this century?Political and cultural self-examination was the dominant theme of this conference. Nationality, said Pippidi, depends on three factors, viz., name, language, religion, and territory. The Romanian name dates from the tenth century, indicating a separation of the Roman from the Greek tradition in Wallachia; and from the seventeenth century the idea of a mainly Roman provenance was given privilege. As a language, “Romanian” was spoken in the late Middle Ages, but the first written document is dated 1521. The principal religion in Romania was and is Greek orthodox, although there are also Roman Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, and German Protestant communities, as well as the Uniate church created in the eighteenth century. As for the territory, this has been a matter of change, conflict, and confusion throughout the tragic course... (shrink)

Nadia Anghelescu, Identitatea arabă: istorie, limbă, cultură. (Arab Identity: History, Language, Culture) Iaşi: Polirom, 2009, 442 p.

The multiplicity of Islamic interpretations is reflected in the heterogeneous nature of the Romanian Muslim communities. The internal fragmentation and disunity of Muslim communities, intra-Islamic difficulties, ideological and sectarian rivalry, success of Salafism among certain groups, the absence of stronger and more visible Islamic alternative discourses and the lack of interest in finding adequate mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the new Muslims in society are some of the general problems of the Romanian Muslims. Local Islamic revival has (...) an ethno-cultural dimension, a religious and even a political one as external disputes are imported in the Romanian context and affects the way Muslims define and practice Islam. Some Rroma and indigenous Tatar-Turkish adopted the neo-traditionalism consolidated in the second half of the last century and promoted by the most active Sunni NGOs in Romania. Some converts emancipated from the ideological control by conservative and neoconservative Islamic currents and are in search of progressive or mystical interpretations; other new Muslims found safety in the Salafi’s certitudes and rigid rules. Case study findings presented in this article may suggest that the more it depends on formal rituals, external behavior and rigid canonical displays of religiosity, the more fragile the Muslim identity becomes. A vulnerable constructed Self conceives differences and alterity as an attack against personal identity, hence the increasing aggressive and intolerant, superior Salafi attitudes. The more it is built on universal values, inner experience, ethical convictions, the more open and capable of integrating alterity and fostering positive relations with people of different religions becomes Muslim identity. (shrink)

The European emigration on the other side of the Atlantic was a complex phenomenon. The areas inhabited by Romanians got acquainted to this phenomenon towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Therefore, starting with the year 1895, a certain mixture of causes led to a massive migration to America, especially of the Romanians from the rural areas. The purpose of our study is to explore the causes of the Romanian emigration across the ocean (...) up to the First World War to present the Romanian emigrants' features (occupation, age, gender, social status, religious affiliation, the way they were distributed across the North-American territory) and to bring forth essential aspects of the way they embraced the assimilation process. From a methodological standpoint our analyses are based upon official data of the US Census. This data is being interpreted in the light of some reference papers referring to the period that makes the object of our study. A certain amount of information presented here relies on our research activity in the Metropolitan Archives of Sibiu, where the ecclesiastic correspondence of that time provides very interesting data.  . (shrink)

The present study represents a preliminary theoretical attempt to analyse the socio-political influence and impact of the Romanian Orthodoxy within the Romanian public life and political culture since 1990, both through the relation between the Orthodox Church and the state, and its impact on the wider society. An open-ended reflection on a constantly unfolding reality, the approach focuses on demonstrating the profound “modernity”—not backwardness—of Orthodoxy’s implicit political theology and derived ideologies and their “modern” destructiveness. The pivotal segment of (...) the study is the relation between modernity and a theory of exclusion derived from a rather unorthodox (brief) interpretation of its emergence from the main carriers of modernity, namely Enlightenment and humanism. Instead of conclusion, the final section compiles and comments a few reformist initiatives and some possible philosophical-theological ways out of the deadlock of ideological self-centrism that still dominates our Orthodoxy. (shrink)

The article analyzes the interaction of Orthodoxy and the state and its role in asserting national identity in the context ofRomania’s modernization process. I have developed the concept of tendential modernity for studying the distinctive nature of Romanian modernity Modernity in Romania focused primarily on national and geostrategic problems, due to the absence of a state encompassing all Romanians. The Orthodox Church had been recognized as a symbol of national identity, therefore it was included among the basic (...) institutions that would support the national project, in order to serve the new purposes imposed by modernity. In the context of the modernization process undergone by Romanian society, the church is not separated from the state, but becomes a church of the state, a church whose prerogatives are established by the secular power; thus the church is defined as an institution that is embedded in the process of modern change decided by the state. As a matter of fact, modernity itself was ambivalent and ambiguous, which influenced decisively the role of Orthodoxy in the assertion of Romanian identity. (shrink)

The author intends to look at Romanian cultural transition as an ongoing process which since 1989 has known an accelerated pace according to the fall of communism and the real perspectives of integration in the European Union. Seen within the cultural constraints of globalization, the impact of social and cultural change in Romanian society affected considerably the cultural behavior of the individual as well as the setting of new institutions, their functioning and implicitly the rhythm of democratization. Remarking (...) on modernization in Eastern Europe, the author consid- ers that unless civil society asserts its presence, reconstructing the Romanian public sphere, transition may be a reversible process. (shrink)

Public discourse on religious matters is a sensitive issue in Romania. It has raised heated debates for at least two reasons: on the one hand, the repressive policy of the Communist regime concerning religion created a strong boomerang-effect, a religious renaissance after 1989; on the other hand, there is a deep cleavage between the “two Romanias:” the urban and the rural, the modernized and the traditionalist, the liberal and the conservative. Religion still serves as a major cultural marker of national (...) identity, and the church is one of the most trusted institutions in Romania. We are exploring the hypothesis that the 2006-2007 religious icon scandal in Romania is a typical example of heated public debate in a transitional society. (shrink)

A recurrent issue in linguistic theory and psychology concerns the cognitive status of memorized lists and their internal structure. In morphological theory, the collections of inflected forms of a given noun, verb, or adjective into inflectional paradigms are thought to constitute one such type of list. This book focuses on the question of which elements in a paradigm can stand in a relation of partial or total phonological identity. Leading scholars consider inflectional identity from a variety of theoretical (...) perspectives, with an emphasis on both case studies and predictive theories of where syncretism and other "paradigmatic pressures" will occur in natural language. The authors consider phenomena such as allomorphy and syncretism while exploring questions of underlying representations, the formal properties of markedness, and the featural representation of conjugation and declension classes. They do so from the perspective of contemporary theories of morphology and phonology, including Distributed Morphology and Optimality Theory, and in the context of a wide range of languages, among them Amharic, Greek, Romanian, Russian, Saami, and Yiddish. The subjects addressed in the book include the role of featural decomposition of morphosyntactic features, the status of paradigms as the unit of syncretism, asymmetric effects in identity-dependence, and the selection of a base-of-derivation. The Bases of Inflectional Identity will interest linguists and cognitive scientists, especially students and scholars of phonological theory and the phonology-morphology and mind-language interfaces at graduate level and above. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of ethnic entrepreneurship in relation to religious identity and multiculturalism in civil society and proposes a spotlight on Turkish entrepreneurs in Romania, as a relevant example of the benefits of increasing cultural diversity and opportunities to learn from different cultures and traditions. It aims at empirically investigating whether the distinct ethnic features of Turkish entrepreneurs, especially their religion, influence their business performance in Romania and their integration in the host country’s civil society. The information (...) for this case study has been collected through in-depth interviews with top representatives of Turkish-Tartar minority associations in Romania and of Turkish Businessman Association (TIAD), and combined with statistical data from various sources. Several characteristics have been considered in our research, with a focus on business performance, religion and civil society. So far ethnic entrepreneurship issue has been approached in Romanian scientific research only indirectly or partially. Our paper singles out this issue and opens the door for further interdisciplinary research and dialogue. (shrink)

Migration generates well-being for individuals and communities, but the pursuit of well-being is not without risks. Tens of thousands of Romanian children are affected by the migration of their parents, others have to cope with the effects of their own migration. Should migrants have difficulties adjusting when returning “home”? Is readjustment even possible for all remigrants, without support? The article aims to present some issues that the remigrants are confronted with when trying to readjust to their communities of origin. (...) The article shows how readjustment is influenced by the social image, which in turn influences the social support for their adjustment and subsequent development. (shrink)

This text will comment on some of the important aspects of the connection between Eastern Orthodoxy and contemporary civilization, the historical development of which has been designated as post-modernity. Being neither modern, nor postmodern, nor anti-modern, Orthodoxy has to answer the question as to whether globalization is analogous to the “cosmic liturgy” sought by the Christian religion as a whole, or to the contrary, is moving away from it. The other basic problem of Orthodoxy – especially in what were formerly (...) designated as East European societies – is that it should be identified with nationality. To be Orthodox often means to be a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Russian, a Romanian, etc. Ethnic affiliation and Orthodox affiliation are often interchangeable. Thus, the nationalization of Orthodoxy is becoming a major problem that the Church must resolve. (shrink)

Andrei Oisteanu, The Image of the Jew in Romanian Culture Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2001.

Our study focuses on the impact of American advertising on local consumers and industry and discusses the relationship between standardization and localization on the global market. Although America seems to be a hybridized, ‘McDonald-ized’ reality, it is in fact grounded on a multicultural and social mix that deems it highly recognizable. Consequently, we argue that reconstructing American identity means sharing similar values with other cultural spaces, whose history, religion, and social customs require a different approach to daily life and (...) finding new means of expression. Our main argument is that advertising disseminates its message in foreign markets and that American campaign models were implemented despite cultural differences. Therefore, we will study the way American heterogeneity becomes homogeneous in the advertising realm, and explain the relationship between standardization and localization in promoting brand values. Our analysis relies on examples of the post-1990 Romanian advertising revolution that showcase the global American influence on Romania’s local industry as reflected by celebrations (Valentine’s Day, Man’s Day) and other American symbols (the cowboy image, the impact of the English language) present in locally broadcast advertisements. Consequently, our paper asks a very controversial question: Does market globalization embed the American spirit in indigenous cultures through advertising, bypassing local culture, ideology and society? (shrink)

The present study explored the relationship between attitudes toward transgender individuals and the judgments people make in transgression scenarios involving transgender and cisgender individuals of different ages in a sample of 184 Romanian students. We used a mixed-method approach and tested the effect of gender identity on participants' punishments in a hypothetical transgression. In hypothetical transgressions involving preadolescent transgender and cisgender agents, results suggested no differences in participants' theft punishments. However, adult cisgender transgressors received significantly harsher punishments compared (...) to transgender transgressors. Our qualitative analyses suggested that the most frequent categories of responses justifying the punishments confirmed the importance of the agent's age. Our findings suggested no significant associations between participants' gender and reported the previous contact with an LGBTQ member and the punishments they chose for child and adult transgressors. Results are discussed in light of their implication in the contemporary, highly LGBTQ intolerant Romanian context. (shrink)

The 1924 Church reform, through which the Romanian Orthodox Church decided to adopt the Revised Julian Calendar, led to dissent movements, mostly comprised of peasants, especially in the villages of Moldavia and Bessarabia. Considering the calendar change a heresy, these groups soon developed into religious communities that came to be known as Old Calendarists, or “stylists,” followers of “the old-style calendar.” Led by defrocked priests and monks who rejected the reform, the groups very quickly became the target of the (...) secret police and the Gendarmerie. What also drew the attention of the authorities and the Orthodox Church was that women, especially the younger ones, seemed to play important roles within the communities, not only in terms of membership, but also in preserving and spreading the Old Calendarists’ beliefs and religious ideas. As many members of the communities were being arrested, and their churches were destroyed, these women also suffered imprisonment, monastic incarceration, or were forced to hide from the authorities in caves or huts that they built in the woods. Though subjected to various forms of persecution, which continued through the communist period, the majority of them held strong to their beliefs and contributed to the forging of a religious identity. Using archival documents, in the forms of letters, postcards, photos, and declarations as primary sources, and drawing on interviews conducted with contemporary nuns and members of the Old Calendarist communities, the present article explores the personal stories of young Old Calendarist women. Building upon the work of Anca Șincan, this article challenges the notion that transmission of religion was the exclusive prerogative of older women. (shrink)

This article is about Mircea Eliade’s rapport to exile, both his and other Romanians’. His approach of the exilic experience allows an incursion into the “diaspora” semantic field in the study Theorizing Diaspora by Jana Evans Braziler and Anita Mannur and a look at Eliade as a “diasporic subject”. To Eliade, the relationship with homeland and the diasporic identity assume religious significance. He urges members of the Romanian diaspora to hold the native country sacred as a ‘Jerusalem in (...) the Sky’. A strong believer in the salvaging power of cultural creation over the political factor, he wanted his work to be a response to the communist regime in Romania. (shrink)

Romanian historiography generally states that in Communist Romania there was no intellectual capable of stimulating a “heresy” comparable to those in Yugoslavia, Hungary or Poland. This is almost true. While the Romanian Communist/Workers Party despised intellectuals, even if they were docile and obedient, in the upper echelons of the RCP/RWP one could hardly find true intellectuals. However, there were some cases that can challenge this narrative – Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, Grigore Preoteasa, Miron Constantinescu or Tudor Bugnariu. My paper will (...) discuss the case of Tudor Bugnariu, one of the intellectuals seduced by the communist project and ideology in interwar Romania, who later managed to occupy important offices within the RCP/RWP and the state structures. By analyzing the narratives of Tudor Bugnariu’s several autobiographical texts, my paper will examine and explain his becoming and the construction of his self-identity and of his “revolutionary” self. (shrink)

In Romania, the Baptist denomination includes, according to the 2002 census, about 130,000 believers, subsequent to the Pentecostal denomination. Areas having a large number of followers are Banat and some parts of Transylvania; besides these, there can be added large urban areas such as Bucharest, Timişoara, Constanţa, Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, and Arad. In terms of ethnicity, Romanians represent the majority, followed by the Hungarians (Hungarian Baptist Convention). One of the smallest minorities in Romania, that is the Czechs, also provides a number (...) of believers, in the village of Sfînta Elena (Coronini Township, Caraş-Severin County) being the only Czech Baptist community in our country. Here, besides Catholics, a Baptist community is to be found, twice as small and of fairly recent origin. In the following, we intend to outline its image, based on field observations and interviews carried out between 2005-2010 (All of these have been materialised in our book, Istorie şi memorie în comunităţile cehilor din Clisura Dunării). We paid a particular interest in the neo-Protestant group, in order to identify means of building the image of another group with a different faith, considering the double minority, ethnic and religious status. Also, we tried to capture the ratio of forces between two different faith groups that were facing the same economic and social problems, problems that have caused the depopulation of villages, by massive migration of people to the Czech Republic. (shrink)

Migration is one of the social processes that have influenced and are still deeply influencing current Romanian society, given that millions of Romanian citizens have relatives who had longer or shorter migration projects. Migration leads to socio-economic and cultural changes, which cause temporary or permanent changes in the human reality, the way of life and the personality of those who leave, but also of those who remain at home. Certainly, migration affects, first of all, the family, changing both (...) its structure and functionality. The temporarily disintegrated family has become one of the forms towards which the evolution of the family is moving, raising a multitude of problems aimed at a new lifestyle and interaction, new demands in the line of adjustment and accommodation both within and outside the family. The phenomenon of emigration in order to find a workplace affects both the family, as a social nucleus, and the individual as part of the family structure. Migration has a major impact on the relationship between spouses, on the parent-child relationship, on parental behavior, on destiny, in general. Although the family remains central to the existence of individuals in a transnational situation, its cohesion is not self-evident; it becomes a problem of community integration. Following the way in which the perspective on the family has changed in the context of migration, the study aims to identify and analyze the most important transnational practices through which family cohesion was maintained in the case of Romanian migration. To better understand this process of maintaining transnational family cohesion, we use an analytical model in four dimensions (social, positional, cultural and identity). (shrink)

The paper presents several cases of feminism rejection from the part of influent Romanian intellectuals. The misconceptions and prejudices surrounding feminism are sometimes difficult to interpret, as long as there are not many individuals ready to accept the feminist label. The author analyses the reasons of this phenomena, establishing the correlations among the rejection of feminism and other Western ideologies, such as multiculturalism and political correctness. Finally, it attempts at sketching several solutions, by emphasizing the importance of support groups (...) where the feminist identity may be promoted and practiced. (shrink)

The current paper investigates the Romanian Uniate/ Orthodox conflict from the perspective of peace and conflict studies, making use of an interpretation of Johan Galtung’s conflict theory and his proposed analysis tools. The aims are to contribute to a more comprehensive and multilateral understanding of this conflict in a wider context than the ideological one and hopefully to suggest some of the means of attenuating the conflict.

The paper examines one possible argument against restricting the display of religious icons in Romanian public schools. Opponents of this decision claim that cult objects affirm something essential about our cultural identity and therefore that using legal instruments to protect this identity is justified. Using a differential analysis of two models of identity recognition, Charles Taylor’s and Axel Honneth’s, this paper argues that the legal protection of cultural identity is compatible with value pluralism but only (...) if its defense is justified in the terms provided by Honneth’s theory of identity recognition. However, the argument in favor of displaying icons in Romanian public schools, unlike the argument against wearing the Islamic veil in French public schools, cannot be justified in these terms. (shrink)

The present study proposes a valorization of the work of professor and philosopher Ioan Biriş. The statistics of his books and studies, their distribution by areas of interest, and especially the ideas in his work confirm the need for philosophy in the Romanian cultural life. As a whole, his philosophical endeavor is based on the concept of totality. Thus in the Hegelian spirit, Ioan Biriş successfully convinces us that the logical may exceed the limits of formal exercise and become (...) the organon of philosophy. In this capacity, the logical may operate on the real and valorize the multiple relationships between identity and difference. His books Filosofia și logica științelor sociale, Totalitate, sistem, holon, Rolul imaginarului în cunoașterea științifică, Istorie şi cultură, as well as a series of studies among which let me mention: “L’identité symbolique et la logique partitive des valeurs spirituelles”, “On the logic of religious terms”, “Le rapport identite-difference et la conjonction collective. Aspects logiques”, clearly prove the author’s capacity to integrate existential, religious, cognitive and axiological issues into a unitary vision. As Noica would say, he succeeded to enter the spirit’s life thorough the intellect’s gate. (shrink)

Malls have become social magnets for people of all social strata, young included, and, in this guise, they apparently emulate churches in their function of ritually congregating people at weekends or on Sundays. In the following we shall endeavour to read the city malls (in Transylvania) from a Cultural Studies perspective with the goal of showing that they function as cultural loci for youth congregation, as well as powerful agencies of identity construction. We aim to prove that through their (...) ritual presence in malls and their consumption and reassignment of meaning to mall space (teens make special use of mall space quite often contrary to, or at least different from, the original intentions) adolescents perform and display self-identities. The underlying assumption is that consumption is symbolic and that teens in malls consume signs and meanings rather than just commodities. During the process, there occurs a construction of sorts, that of self- or group identities, for this is an era where young people increasingly define themselves through what they consume, be it commodities or signs. Our concern is with how malls are appropriated by teenagers, and how through the ritualistic pursuit of leisure and pleasure therein Romanian teens consecrate the function of malls of symbolising a specific world view, a system of beliefs, and a set of attitudes, very much like religion does. Thus, while primarily secular temples (now a commonplace syntagm for malls), malls may be said to epitomize the sacred symbols of young people today1 although, at face value, they seem to tend to mundane rather than spiritual needs. (shrink)

Various authors emphasize an important aspect of the secular context of the contemporary world: the transfer of symbolic power from religion to political ideologies. National ideology enjoys a particular place. In the circumstance of cohabitation between religious minorities and the majority within a national state, solutions must be found that ensure the ground for religious pluralism and freedom. The paper in question aims at analyzing the prerequisites that will render possible cohabitation and mutual recognition between the minority groups and the (...) Orthodox majority within the Romanian context. Due to the cultural diversity of Romania, the state has to elaborate multicultural policies in order to ensure opportunities for affirming the plural religious identities that can be found within the national state. (shrink)

The goals of the study were to examine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by the Big Five factors of personality in American, Romanian and German samples, and to determine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by factor analysis in any of the three cultures. The results in all three cultures indicate that fundamentalism and authoritarianism have virtually identical personality correlates. In all three cultures, the two constructs were indistinguishable via exploratory factor analysis and could only be (...) distinguished via confirmatory factor analysis, although direction-of-wording effects dwarfed the differences between fundamentalism and authoritarianism. The findings suggest that researchers should view fundamentalism as religious authoritarianism, and should therefore be cautious when making inferences about religiosity from research on fundamentalism. (shrink)

Vom urmări o rețea de texte de toate felurile... care ilustrează cultura autenticității răspândită în rândul 'tinerelor generații' din Europa, în primele decenii ale secolului trecut. Locul lor geometric e obsesia redefinirii sinelui, iar discursurile autorilor români (printre care Eliade, Cioran, Holban, Eugen Ionescu, Nae Ionescu, Camil Petrescu, Sebastian, Vulcănescu) nu fac excepție. Atunci când vorbesc despre autenticitate, ei au în vedere identitatea, din perspectivă narativă, psihologică, etnică sau politică, la fel ca scriitoriii occidentali de la care au importat setul (...) de ideologeme"--Ștefan Firică, back cover flap. (shrink)

The goals of the study were to examine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by the Big Five factors of personality in American, Romanian and German samples, and to determine whether fundamentalism and authoritarianism could be distinguished by factor analysis in any of the three cultures. The results in all three cultures indicate that fundamentalism and authoritarianism have virtually identical personality correlates. In all three cultures, the two constructs were indistinguishable via exploratory factor analysis and could only be (...) distinguished via confirmatory factor analysis, although direction-of-wording effects dwarfed the differences between fundamentalism and authoritarianism. The findings suggest that researchers should view fundamentalism as religious authoritarianism, and should therefore be cautious when making inferences about religiosity from research on fundamentalism. (shrink)

The present study is an ideography applied to the work and intellectual activity of the Romanian-born Jewish scholar Leon Volovici. A careful analysis of his writings reveals a series of essential directions - landmarks and recurrent themes of his work - that Volovici himself followed without hesitation throughout his intellectual becoming. Succinctly, the case of Leon Volovici represents a remarkable model of practicing cultural dialogue and achieving intellectual histories from several perspectives. In addition to brief introductory considerations and concluding (...) remarks, this study focuses upon the following dimensions of his writings: i) the role of intellectual dialogue and the meaning of dialogic culture in Volovici's view; ii) the systematic presentation of the dimensions of Romanian antisemitism in the period between 1850 and 1940; iii) the presentation of the historical and sociological dimensions of the idea of writer in Romanian culture and iv) the remembrance of Volovici's identity in the context of his wanderings through distinct geographic spaces. Our conclusion is that all these dimensions are coherent with one another, making up the general image of Leon Volovici's work. (shrink)

The German term `Mitteleuropa' was coined to designate Central Europe at the time when the Habsburg monarchy exercised its domination over the Danube area and when the Eastern borders of the Reich proclaimed in 1871 were formed, thus from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the First World War. Mitteleuropa constitutes an ambivalent `lieu de mémoire', a notion in which Central Europe has invested its memory of the past and its identity: such a notion is (...) negative when it brings to mind the mental map of German imperialism both exploited and perverted in the Third Reich; it is positive when it is interpreted as a federative idea, opening supranational perspectives associating the countries of German culture with Slavic peoples — the Hungarians, the Romanians — and with the Jews. Since the formation of the `Habsburg myth' as a retrospective utopia of a defunct harmony of nationalities in the `third Europe' situated between Western Europe and the Russian world, the Austrian tradition has become the focus of the new notion of `Zentraleuropa', prefiguring Central European union. (shrink)

The author proposes here “the first Romanian attempt at a hermeneutic systematization of the philosophy of European law”, a field that is approached from an organic, integrating perspective. It has to be seen as a synchronic lectio magistralis on the ineluctable role of the spiritual roots when deciphering and assuming national identity. The complicated “euronomosophical” discourse, whose beginning is an excellent page of self-history about the “Europe” of the author, voices an appeal to a deeper self-knowledge. A complex, (...) dynamic reality: from euromyth to euro-oniria and PaxEuropaea. Such incursions into the universe of law certainly involve an instructive and pedagogical side, building a patchwork of ideas, suggestions and themes that could be further developed. (shrink)

In this article we discuss the modern premises of visuality and the effects of the cultural transfer of optical and photographic techniques on the work of Max Blecher, a Romanian Jewish writer who was a keen explorer of Marcel Proust’s works. In his works Blecher pursued the same theme as Proust—the mechanisms of interior memory and life—and often used optical instruments as a metaphor of identity. The role of the photographic model in his depiction of social tableaux, characters, (...) and dispositions, originated partly in the influence of Proust’s writing and partly in other techniques of the European literary avant-gardes. (shrink)

This article focuses on the events surrounding a homosexual Romanian man's attempt to be recognized as a refugee in Britain. Numerous themes emerge such as the nature of authenticity, knowledge, identity, pleasure, evidence and the homosexual refugee as being caught in between two legal apparatuses (that is, fleeing from the hostility of one legal regime and then trying to gain refugee status, and thus legal protection, via a British Immigration Tribunal). In this article, the corporeality and sensuality of (...) legal practices are exposed in the form of `practices of truth'. That is, in this case medico-legal `living individuals' were to perceive, hear, speak, touch and penetrate the `secrets' of Mr Vraciu's body in order to authenticate his sexual identity for the purposes of law. This case also demonstrates the existence of a differend between what I describe as the self-knowledge of homosexuality and the `legal' fact-based, or authorized knowledge of homosexual identity produced through practices of truth. (shrink)

Important and, in the same time, controversial personality of interwar period and the later one, Nichifor Crainic was in the same time poet, theologian, philosopher and politician. He published many articles, book reviews, chronicles, meditation and theological studies in books and journals like Gândirea or Ramuri (the first one founded by him). Inthe same time, he was the first professor of mystical theology in a Romanian Faculty of Theology, the one of Bucharest. His theological ideas are still relevant today (...) for the theological space and this make them to be analysed, referred to and quoted. In the same time, some of them have influenced his political attitude, making them to become exponential for Romanian Nationalism during the interwar period, to see, as others (for example Nae Ionescu) of being Orthodox as linked with national identity, and also to be closed with far-right movement during the aforementioned period, but also during the Second World War. Using his ideas expressed, both in his books of poetry or theology or in journals like the ones already named, but also information from the books and articles dedicated to him, we will try there to see how his theological ideas and the influence of theology and Orthodox Church upon him, have influenced the Romanian writer in his political actions. We will also see how his ideas are reflected inhis work as politician and writer and we will analyse the influence that he had upon other personalities of his time with same concerns and political orientation. The research will therefore bring again into attention the profile and work of the Romanian theologian, offering a new approach of the relationship between his ideas and works and a reevaluation of his ideas and their actuality. (shrink)

The paper examines one possible argument against restricting the display of religious icons in Romanian public schools. Opponents of this decision claim that cult objects affirm something essential about our cultural identity and therefore that using legal instruments to protect this identity is justified. Using a differential analysis of two models of identity recognition, Charles Taylor’s and Axel Honneth’s, this paper argues that the legal protection of cultural identity is compatible with value pluralism but only (...) if its defense is justified in the terms provided by Honneth’s theory of identity recognition. However, the argument in favor of displaying icons in Romanian public schools, unlike the argument against wearing the Islamic veil in French public schools, cannot be justified in these terms. (shrink)

Using a discursive and ethnomethodological analytic framework, this article explores the social construction of moral transgression and moral meanings in the context of coming to terms with the recent communist past in Eastern Europe. This article illustrates some significant aspects of everyday uses of morality and the socio-communicative organization of public judgements on moral transgression. The article considers the range of public reactions and commentaries to a public confession of having been an informer for the former Romanian secret police. (...) Moral reasoning around transgression takes several forms: a) invoking everyday psychological categories and morally implicative descriptions associated with identities of persons and actions; b) drawing upon culturally available metaphors and images with roots in Judaeo-Christian ethics and morality; c) using the wider political context of coming to terms with the past as foundation and criterion for moral judgement. This article argues that rather than attempting to analyse moral judgement in abstract, one must focus on the everyday constructions and uses of morality found in social interaction and social responses to moral transgression. (shrink)

This piece examines the reaction to modernism or Europeanization of an important segment of the intellectual elite in southeastern Europe in the period between the two world wars. The Romanian Emil Cioran, the Bulgarian Yanko Yanev, and the Serb Justin Popović represented broader currents of opinion in their respective countries on the crucial issues of national identity and paths of development. But each approached the challenges that Europe posed in highly individual ways. Whatever their response may have been (...) – approval or rejection – they were certain that they could ignore Europe only at their peril. (shrink)

This article relates two forms of political and cultural marginality and emancipation to a third one, which, in traditional patriarchal cultures, is the embodiment of marginality par excellence: that of the female self. It explores their similar positioning in the spatial and temporal economy of power relations in a detailed analysis of Irina Grigorescu Pana's novel Melbourne Sundays, a fictionallyrical account of the Romanian author's 11-year exile in Australia, read as a narrative counterpart of her critical approach to exile (...) in The Tomis Complex: Exile and Eros in Australian Literature. These two works describe an experience happening at the intersection between the author's national background – that of Romania – and the postcolonial one of her country of adoption – Australia – as they become relevant from her personal and professional experience as a woman writer. Exile is thus reflected in language, being spatially constructed by means of metaphors such as book, theatre, carnival, garden, which are also relevant for the process of identity formation. The argument mainly relies on Kristeva's theories, an approach motivated by Pana's own choice of the Kristevan discourse of love/hate in relation to the theme of exile in her fictional and critical works, since, as she remarks, exiles and lovers share a marginal, though at the same time essential, position in postcolonial cultures. (shrink)

A new demarcation is proposed between Natural Philosophy and non-Natural Philosophy—philosophy tout court—based on whether or not they follow a non-standard logic of real processes. This non-propositional logic, Logic in Reality, is based on the original work of the Franco-Romanian thinker Stéphane Lupasco. Many Natural Philosophies remain bounded by dependence on binary linguistic concepts of logic. I claim that LIR can naturalize—bring into science—part of such philosophies. Against the potential objection that my approach blurs the distinction between science and (...) philosophy, I reply that there is no problem in differentiating experimental physical science and philosophy; any complete distinction between philosophy, including the philosophy of science and the other sciences is invidious. It was historically unnecessary and is unnecessary today. The convergence of science and philosophy, proposed by Wu Kun based on implications of the philosophy of information, supports this position. LIR provides a rigorous basis for giving equivalent ontological value to diversity and identity, what is contradictory, inconsistent, absent, missing or past, unconscious, incomplete, and fuzzy as to their positive counterparts. The naturalized Natural Philosophy resulting from the application of these principles is a candidate for the ‘new synthesis’ called for by the editors. (shrink)

According to our understanding, when we discuss about the religious life in Romania, one must take into account, first of all, the characteristics of this people, its culture and traditions that are over two millennia old. The similarities and differences with the organization and functioning of other religious systems in Europe and around the world cannot and must not exclude the defining elements of a people that has asserted its origins and defended its spiritual integrity over the centuries. In our (...) country there is a close connection between the history, culture, spirituality and education of this people of Latin origin and mostly of Orthodox faith. Starting from these realities, the Romanian Orthodox Church had an important role in preserving the values and national identity in the face of the frequent stepsons of history. Regarding interreligious education in Romania, it is done in public schools, with the discipline of Religion, where, especially in high school, there are classes in the History of Religions in which one learns about religious traditions around the world and how to interact with people belonging to other denominations, religions and ideologies. The phenomenon of migration increases in our country from one year to another producing important changes in terms of economic, cultural, social and religious realities. Taking into account all these realities, the state must promote policies that protect migrant populations and defend human rights for these communities. At the same time, they must be actively involved in protecting families where one or more members are working abroad and in the process of educating children who remain in the care of relatives. (shrink)

This article argues that it was not only physical borders that challenged people’s biographies in the 20th century, but also shifts in ideology, discourse and predominant languages. I shall explore the biography of a man called Cornel, a native of Bukovina who was a communist cultural official in Romania’s capital Bucharest in the 1960s and who became a priest in the 1970s. I shall show that not only obvious breaks such as the beginning and end of communist rule, but ideological (...) shifts too within Romanian communism prompted Cornel to thoroughly reassess himself. For Cornel, it was the ‘mini-cultural revolution’ of 1971 under the rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu that quickly convinced him to leave his job at the Romanian Ministry of Culture and reinvent himself as an Orthodox priest. But was his self-reinvention successful? A thorough analysis of his biography shows that his linguistic biography—oscillating between Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian—contains crucial elements of productive adaptation and continuity that enabled him repeatedly and successfully to circumvent borders imposed by newly emerging policies. His “third” identity as a writer has given him continuity and self-assurance. (shrink)