Cultural Innovation and Creativity

Cultural Innovation and Creativity
Director: Prof. dr. Andrei Bodiu
The main domain of research is creativity and innovation in the field of culture, understood
both in its particular fields: literature, ethnology, cultural studies, anthropology etc and from
an interdisciplinary perspective. Research inside the doctoral school is focused on pointing
out different innovative aspects regarding the works of important Romanian authors of the
modern and, mainly, contemporary literature. The doctoral students write their thesis
proposing complex monographs on the life and works of authors who have not been the
subject of a monograph yet.
On the other hand the research is focused on revealing the mechanisms of literary creativity,
of creative writing, being the unique research center of this kind in Romania. For reaching this
purpose, the center uses the creative experience of several important Romanian writers who
are also its members: Alexandru Muşina, Ovidiu Moceanu, Andrei Bodiu, Carmen Puchianu.
Besides recognition in the area of contemporary Romanian literature, our team of researchers
constitutes landmarks for the national contribution in the field of Comparative literature.
Alexandru Musina’s theory of modern poetry as exploration of an uncertain and indeterminate
world, Virgil Podoabă’s phenomenological approach to experience in literature, Rodica Ilie’s
research on avant-garde manifestos and Adrian Lăcătuş’ book on the conservative modernity
in Central Europe, along with the seminal theory of our late colleague Gheorghe Crăciun on
paradigmatic shift towards a transitive poetry give substance and identity to our comparatist
research directions.
The Center consists of 12 members: four professors, all of them being PhD advisors, four
associate professors and four lecturers. There are 17 doctoral students led by three doctoral
advisors: 8 by prof. dr. Andrei Bodiu, 7 by prof. dr. Alexandru Muşina, 2 by prof. dr. Virgil
Podoabă. We also have a post-doctoral student, Andrada Pintilescu who is affiliated with the
Center.
The research infrastructure contains a very modern mobile television studio that can be used
for very different purposes. In the research areas mentioned above, it can be used in creating
and producing scientific cultural films. On the other hand we provide services for the entire
Institute, producing advertisement films for the scientific output of all the other scientific
centers. The mobile television studio will also promote the main scientific and cultural events
organized in the Institute. We are open to provide services for other firms or institutions
because the members of the center have experience in creating and producing different kind of
films.
The area of partnership is open both to the scientific centers from the Romanian Universities
and from abroad. Romanian literature is, as defined by CNCS, a domain of national interest.
That is why we shall pragmatically promote the idea of becoming the main Romanian center
of research in contemporary Romanian literature. Pursuing this status, we organize, starting
with 2005, the main scientific national event of the domain, The National University
Conference in Contemporary Romanian Literature. The most prominent Romanian professors
in this field have participated in our conference. Each year, around the works of two great
Romanian contemporary poets, prose writers or literary historians and critics we have
developed new ideas, new scientific approaches to the works of the personalities invited at the
conference. Starting with 2005 we invited at the conference the following great personalities
of the Romanian literature: Emil Brumaru and Mircea Horia Simionescu in 2006, Ana
Blandiana and Gabriela Adameşteanu in 2007, Nicolae Manolescu and Eugen Simion in 2008,
Petre Stoica and Livius Ciocârlie in 2009, Ion Pop and Radu Cosaşu in 2010, Eugen Negrici
and Cornel Unugreanu in 2011.
In the idea of emphasizing the research possibilities in the field of comparative literature, our
center organized twice, in 2005 and 2011, The Conference of the Romanian Association of
General and Comparative Literature. Six members of the Center are part of this professional
association, the most important in the field, an association which is affiliated to ICLA,
International Comparative Literature Association.
In the very important goal of internationalizing our scientific work we have organized in 2011
the first edition of The International Conference in Comparative Literature and Cultural
Studies, on the theme of Legitimation of Literature in Totalitarian Regimes. The value of the
conference made the prestigious academic publishing house Cambridge Scholars to request
the publication of the conference proceedings.
During the last years, members of the Center (Andrei Bodiu, Rodica Ilie, Adrian Lăcătuş)
developed relations with colleagues and institutions in the Baltic countries (The Estonian
Association of Comparative Literature and Tartu University in Estonia; The Latvian Academy
of Sciences in Riga, Latvia), Slovenia and Poland. One of the goals of our center is to
participate inside a Central and Eastern European research network and explore the particular
creative and cultural conglomerate that the historical, social and political experience of our
part of the continent produced.
Exploiting on the same regional cultural, scientific and creative potential, the work of Carmen
Puchianu (as organizer of the annual Internationale Tagung Kronstädter Germanistik)
integrates the center into the field of German Studies with an important local component.
The members of the center published two ISI articles, Carmen Puchainu and Adrian Lăcătuş
(in collaboration with Caius Dobrescu) both of them published in Transilvanian Review in
Cluj. Andrei Bodiu and Rodica Ilie published articles in Interliterarria, a journal classified as
ERIH Int2. Alexandru Muşina, Virgil Podoabă, Rodica Ilie, Andrei Bodiu, Ovidiu Moceanu,
Adrian Lăcătuş published in reviews which are indexed in SCOPUS data base. Rodica Ilie
and Andrei Bodiu published articles about Romanian literature in the famous Kindlers
Literatur Lexikon, edited by Metzler Verlag from Stuttgart, Germany. Carmen Puchianu
published a masive study about the work of Thomas Mann Der Splitter in Auge:
Überlegungen zur Interpretation einiger Erzählwerke von Thomas Mann at Stutz Verlag in
Passau, Germany.
The books written by Alexandru Muşina, Ovidiu Moceanu, Andrei Bodiu, Carmen Puchainu
can be found in important libraries of the world such as: Harvard University Library, The
Library of Congress, Columbia University Library, Yale University Library, Stanford
University Library, University of Wisconsin and many others.
As we said, the center sets as its field of research the creative writing. That is why we think
that it is important to underline that members of the centers won, in their quality of writers
important prizes. Andrei Bodiu won in 2001, the ASPRO (The Association of Romanian
Professional Writers) prize for poetry and in 2009 the USR (the Romanian Writers Union)
prize for poetry. Alexandru Muşina won the USR prize for poetry in 2010. There are also
other important prizes won by the members of the center, too.
A very important detail for the future development of the center is that two of the young
members, Rodica Ilie and Adrian Lăcătuş received the prizes for books of theory of literature
and comparative literature offered by ALGCR (The Romanian Association of General and
Comparative Literature) in 2007 and 2009.
We think that our existence inside the structure of the Institute can enrich and diversify the
field of research. On the other hand, we propose clear and original domains of research which
can define us both in Romania and in the international academic world.