Saturday, June 1, 2013

Book Presentation in Brasov: "Press, Propaganda and Politics"

Presentation of our collective volume today, at 11 a.m., within an international conference organised in Brasov by the "G. Baritiu" Library. I would like to thank again Rubén Jarazo Álvarez and the authors for their wonderful work and to express my gratitude to the organisers of the event, who also presented the book in a TV programme yesterday. Also, special thanks to Álex Amaya Quer, one of our fellow authors, for his contribution to the volume as well as to its presentation.


Sunday, April 21, 2013

De-Centring Cultural Studies


Cuprins si Introducere 

De-Centring Cultural Studies: Past, Present and Future of Popular Culture, Editors: José Igor Prieto-Arranz, Patricia Bastida-Rodríguez, Caterina Calafat-Ripoll, Marta Fernández-Morales and Cristina Suárez-Gómez, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013 

"The academic resistance that cultural studies has encountered remains especially visible in Eastern and Southern European countries. One such example is Spain, where cultural studies is seen at best as an emergent research field. Hence the interest of this volume, conceived in Spain by an all-Spanish editorial team and written by a diverse range of authors who prove that, in spite of all difficulties, cultural studies continues to bloom – even in Southern and Eastern Europe.The different chapters offer interdisciplinary insights into a wide selection of cultural materials whose relevance goes well beyond purely aesthetic issues. Altogether, the volume (1) provides interesting theoretical reflections on the subtle (yet arbitrary) borders between popular and canonical culture; (2) explores how the popular culture of yesteryear has influenced and inspired later “canonical” cultural materials; and (3) studies how the reception of, and representation in, popular culture can be accounted for from the crucially relevant perspectives of gender and age.This collection of essays studies and explores the connections between a wide range of materials, including relevant examples of classic and contemporary literature, Arthuriana, pop music and videos, political and mainstream film, newspaper advertising, television, and the phenomenon of the (trans)media star."





CORNELIU PINTILESCU, "JUSTIŢIE MILITARĂ ŞI REPRESIUNE POLITICĂ ÎN ROMÂNIA COMUNISTĂ (1948-1956)", Presa Universitara Clujeana, 2012


Cuprins si Introducere


„Studiul de caz propus de Corneliu Pintilescu, prin amplitudinea cercetării, prin nuanţele tematice şi discursive aduce un suflu proapăt în literatura istorică dedicată comunismului românesc. Textul are o anvergură interdisciplinară, demonstrând o bună cunoaştere a conceptelor, procedurilor şi instituţiilor juridice şi poliţieneşti, care au funcţionat în epocă. Vinovăţia politică este probabil conceptul cel mai bine ilustrat pe parcursul excursului realizat de dl. Pintilescu. Duşmanul de clasă, celălalt din perspectivă ideologică este suprins în multiple ipostaze, generos documentate din materialul arhivistic, în diferitele momente ale anchetei şi procesului penal. Bine documentat, harnic şi stăruitor în eforturile sale, autorul reuşeşte să creioneze o frescă de epocă ce are în centrul său metamorfozele sistemului juridic din România primului deceniu comunist.”
Conf. Univ. dr. Virgiliu Ţârău





Friday, January 25, 2013

Forthcoming volume: "Press, Propaganda and Politics", Edited by Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu and Rubén Jarazo Álvarez




cover image © CSP 2013



This collective work aims to compare media (and in particular cultural press) in Francoist Spain and Communist Romania, placing the two opposing paradigms in a common approach with the intention of identifying shared patterns and intricate connections between them, but, at the same time, without ignoring their radical differences. This comparison is performed both explicitly (through several chapters focusing on the general methodological implications of such a comparison between Francoist Spain and Communist Romania in the development of totalitarian / dictatorial propagandistic systems; and implicitly, by offering the academic frame to a series of case studies from both regimes. The contributors to this volume –Spanish, Anglo-Saxon and Romanian scholars – approach several aspects of media in relation to politics, propaganda, historical or social aspects in the two regimes, based on their academic backgrounds: history, cultural studies, media and literature. The volume intends to suggest - through its collection of general, comparative or analytic chapters, as well as through a new approach on two political and cultural phenomena otherwise studied as opposing paradigms – the need for a larger debate on the potential of the approach to these phenomena in a common framework.

Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Researcher, holding a PhD (2009) from “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is currently conducting a research project on identity within Romanian media, and is also a member of the international research project EXPERT, P.J. Safarik University, Kosice, Slovakia, where she gives regular lectures. In 2011 she was a Visiting Scholar at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Spain. Her academic work and teaching cover cultural studies, comparative literature, gender studies and cultural journalism.

Rubén Jarazo Álvarez, PhD, is presently a Lecturer at the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain). He has previously worked at the University of A Coruña (Spain), the National University of Ireland Galway (Ireland), and as Visiting Lecturer at the Dublin City University (Ireland), University of the Arts London (United Kingdom), or at the New York University (United States). He has been investigating in the influence of Anglo-phone and Galician literatures as well as the economic, cultural and identity implications of these interactions and has recently been working on areas such as cultural industry/production, Anglo-Irish theatre in the XVIII and XIX centuries, Celtic cultures, William Shakespeare and censorship, translation studies and minority languages, as well as peripheral representations in Western culture, amongst other issues. He is editor of Cultural Studies academic journals Garoza (2001-present day), and Oceánide (2009-present day).

Available at http://www.c-s-p.org







List of Tables viii

List of Illustrations ix

Foreword x

Acknowledgments xv

Part I: Comparing Francoism and Communism

Chapter One 2
Francoism and Communism: A Historical Approach
Àlex Amaya Quer and Manuela Marin

Chapter Two 14
Comparing Francoism and Communism: Methodological Issues
and Implications
Florin Abraham

Chapter Three  32
War of Words: Similarities and Differences between Francoist Spain
and Communist Romania in the Development of Totalitarian Propagandistic Systems
Àlex Amaya Quer

Part II: Francoist Cultural Press

Chapter Four  56
Surviving Literature: Literary Subgenres Published in the Spanish Periodical Press 
(1936-1975)
Rubén Jarazo Álvarez

Chapter Five  80
Anglophilia and Popular Culture in the Francoist Spanish Press:
The Case of Shakespearean Representations
Elena Domínguez Romero

Chapter Six  96
Pro-German Press and Literature in North-Western Spanish Cultures during the
 World War I (1914-1918)
Joám Evans Pim

Chapter Seven 106
Cultural Revival and Internationalization of Galician Press
(1900-1945)
Adrian Healy

Chapter Eight 117
The Rise of Syndicalism in the United States (1933-1945)
as Reflected in the Spanish Press
María Luz Arroyo Vázquez

Part III: Communism and 1950s Romanian Cultural Press

Chapter Nine 130
Periodicals, Propaganda and Politics in Romanian Culture:
Media Discourse Strategies in the 1950s Romanian Cultural Periodicals. Case Study:  
Flacăra and Contemporanul
Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu

Chapter Ten 156
Ascribing a New Political Identity: Women during the 1950’s.
A Case Study on Săteanca Magazine
Manuela Marin

Chapter Eleven 173
Between East and West: Rival Discourses of Identity in Romanian Historiography
 (1954-1964)
Andi Mihalache

Chapter Twelve  189
Media Censorship and the Local Periodical Gazeta Transilvaniei
(1943-1945)
Ruxandra Nazare

Chapter Thirteen 213
Press, Libraries and Secret Funds in Romania (1945-1989): Case Study
Daniel Nazare

Contributors 227

Index 230

 

Friday, November 30, 2012

Press, Propaganda and Politics: Cultural Periodicals in Francoist Spain and Communist Romania



             image by Andrada Fatu-Tutoveanu

Press, Propaganda and Politics: Cultural Periodicals in Francoist Spain and Communist Romania,
Edited by Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu and Rubén Jarazo Álvarez. Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Details

Forthcoming 2013

SOVIET CULTURAL COLONIALISM CULTURE AND POLITICAL DOMINATION IN THE LATE 1940s-EARLY 1950s ROMANIA






















© Astra.  Astra serie noua, Anul II (XLV), nr. 1-2 



Abstract: The paper analyses the potential of a theoretical comparison between communism and colonialism, focusing on the cultural dimension of the Stalinization process in Eastern Europe. The paper applies this theoretical perspective to late 1940s-early 1950s Romanian culture in relation with the appropriation of culture by the communist regime within the late 1940s political and ideological shift in Eastern Europe. The approach uses as a background for its argumentation a theoretical debate which started 2001 and has continued until today (Chioni Moore 2001, Kovačević 2008), also reinterpreting on a series of theories developed during as well as at the end of the Cold War (Kulski 1959, Kolarz 1964, Horvath 1972, Katsenelinboigen 1990). The paper uses a series of conceptual tools such cultural transfer, cultural dependences, cultural identity, cultural export, which are applied for the first time to the Romanian culture.  
 


Andrada Fătu-Tutoveanu