madalina nicolaescu - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by madalina nicolaescu
American, British and Canadian Studies Journal, Dec 1, 2015
This article focuses on particular meanings of the term "work," as related first to the process o... more This article focuses on particular meanings of the term "work," as related first to the process of adapting Shakespeare and secondly to the ideological and philosophical resonances of this term as employed in the socialist propaganda in East Germany and which Heiner Müller introduces into Shakespeare's text and gives an ironical twist to. In the first part it points to a few aspects of East German doctrinaire readings of Shakespeare, which were further contested and deconstructed in Müller's translation cum adaptation. The final part zooms in on the reconfiguring of the established meanings attached to the concept of work in Müller's rewriting of Macbeth and on the relation between these meanings and the philosophy of history he proposes in his adaptation.
Linguaculture
The paper investigates the factors contributing to the recent surge in popularity of Shakespeare&... more The paper investigates the factors contributing to the recent surge in popularity of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on the Romanian stage. One possible explanation lies in the play's adaptability and relevance to present-day concerns coupled with the opportunities for creative reimagining offered by its canonical Romanian translation. The article posits that directors and playwrights have engaged in a fruitful "collaboration with the dead" (Leitch 19), breathing new life into the classic text by means of different forms of rewriting. Specifically, the paper discusses two recent versions of Romeo and Juliet staged in Bucharest, at Teatrul Mic in 2018 and at Teatrul Odeon in 2021, and focuses on the process of rewriting Shakespeare’s text in the form of a theatre adaptation and of a radical appropriation.
Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, 2019
brilliantly auditions her Lady Macbeth and expresses her disgust at the fact that these roles are... more brilliantly auditions her Lady Macbeth and expresses her disgust at the fact that these roles are played by teenage boys: she could play them much better. And in their own ways, these kinds of resentments and frustrations-especially when portrayed so brilliantly by Grant-are true enough.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 2014
Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press... more Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact:
Gender Studies, 2012
It is the main aim of this essay to analyse the modulations and inflections introduced in the tre... more It is the main aim of this essay to analyse the modulations and inflections introduced in the treatment of law in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in the process of cross-cultural transmission and dissemination of the play in the nineteenth century. Focus will be placed on the shift of emphasis from issues related to the law in Shakespeare's text to issues related to rights in two Romanian adaptations derived from French and German texts.
Linguaculture, Feb 1, 2014
The paper discusses the stage adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet that were ... more The paper discusses the stage adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet that were circulated in the German Länders and the Habsburg Empire in the late 18th and early 19th century. The various forms of rewriting Shakespeare are linked with processes re-contextualizing the text and are discussed as forms of localizing a transnational Shakespeare. The analysis zooms in on the contexts of performance of the German adaptations in two Transylvanian cities. The paper highlights the cultural and linguistic negotiations performed when further translating the already multilayered rewritings of the Shakespearean text and focuses on a Romanian translation of a German adaptation of Hamlet.
Springer International Publishing eBooks, 2022
Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, 2019
The focus of the article is the investigation of the stage version commissioned for the 1965 prod... more The focus of the article is the investigation of the stage version commissioned for the 1965 production of Troilus and Cressida directed by David Esrig. It looks at the tradition in Romania not to publish translations of Shakespeare produced for the stage before focusing on the differences between the two types of translation (page and stage) in the socialist period. Esrig’s production is further discussed as a case study, comparing this version, by Florian Nicolau, with Leon Leviţchi’s canonical one, published in 1960.
Messages, Sages and Ages, 2016
The paper discusses recent Romanian Shakespeare productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’... more The paper discusses recent Romanian Shakespeare productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Bucharest. It argues that global mass culture, in the form of TV sitcoms and musicals, YouTube clips and computer games, is re-circulated on Romanian stages with the result of re-mediating the older forms of Romanian Shakespeare performances. The paper interrogates the popular character of the new type of productions, which are largely unpolitical and motivated by commercial reasons. The last part of the paper presents a radical deconstruction of Shakespeare’s text in the form of a computer game, which, however, re-introduces the political orientation of older, pre- 1989 performances.
Gender Studies, 2015
this paper sets out to discuss the situation of Romanian migrant women as represented in their st... more this paper sets out to discuss the situation of Romanian migrant women as represented in their stories. A major issue the paper broaches is the degree of agency and choice migrant women enjoy and the strategies they seek to expand them. Other topics discussed refer to the dominant migration ideology in the source country as well as the restrictions writers have in dealing with more problematic aspects.
Southeastern Europe, 2002
Perspectives, 2012
The paper explores the participation of translations of Shakespeare in the promotion of dominant ... more The paper explores the participation of translations of Shakespeare in the promotion of dominant political and cultural values in socialist and post-communist Romania. The shift that the retranslation of Shakespeare in the post-communist period effects is understood to be one of redirecting interest away from values associated with Romanian localism (nationalism) and towards values and discourses associated with globalization and
Journal of Women's History, 1994
In most East European sodeties women welcomed and even partidpated in the 1989 uprisings against ... more In most East European sodeties women welcomed and even partidpated in the 1989 uprisings against Communist regimes. Did subsequent poUtical changes also bear the imprint of their partidpation? Î"Ε this artide I focus on women's involvement in poUtical events in post-Communist Romania, based on first-hand experience. As Western countries were rather late finding out, the difference between Ceaucescu's sodalist regime in Romania and the government of other East European countries consisted largely in the former's intensification of StaUnist, totaUtarian features.1 Unlike Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and even Poland, whidi had embarked upon a process of "de-StaUnation," Ceausescu's personalist and absolutist rule blocked the economic and poUtical process of reforms condudve to the emergence of a more Uberal, post-totaUtarian sodety.2 Having securely isolated Romania not only poUticaUy and culturaUy but also economicaUy, Ceausescu felt free to set up a despotic power system that brought the StaUnist system to unprecedented hdghts in postwar Europe. In the process he added dements from Maoist China and the North Korean cult of personaUty. Viewed from a Foucauldian perspective, Ceausescu's power systemÂ-impressive and impregnable as it appeared to beÂ-was wasteful and ineffident in its employment of technology. Its strategies proved counterproductive and self-destructive, undermining rather than rdnfordng the system.3 Ceausescu's handling of the problem of women serves as a case in
Shakespeare and War, 2008
There is a long history of the reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s plays for political purposes on ... more There is a long history of the reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s plays for political purposes on the East European stage, usually translated into the local language. Translations are too often assumed by the ordinary reader to be faithful, but like stage performances and to some extent critical readings, they are likely to reinvent Shakespeare for different cultural and historical circumstances.
Early Modern Culture Online, 2010
This paper focuses on two 2009 translations of The Tempest in Romania. I would like to argue tha... more This paper focuses on two 2009 translations of The Tempest in Romania. I would like to argue that they pursue an ideological and political stand shaped on the Habermasian conception of a post-national, cosmopolitan Europe.
Sederi
Shakespeare was introduced into the Romanian Principalities between 1830 and 1855, beginning with... more Shakespeare was introduced into the Romanian Principalities between 1830 and 1855, beginning with a production of The Merchant of Venice, translated from a French adaptation of the play. This essay considers the dearth of critical attention paid to the influence of French melodrama in Southeastern Europe, and in Romania in particular; examines the circulation of Shakespearean productions in this area; and investigates the various processes of de-and re-contextualization involved in the melodramatic adaptation of The Merchant of Venice in France in the 1830s and in its translation/performance in the Romanian Principalities in the 1850s.
Canadian Woman Studies, 1995
American, British and Canadian Studies Journal, Dec 1, 2015
This article focuses on particular meanings of the term "work," as related first to the process o... more This article focuses on particular meanings of the term "work," as related first to the process of adapting Shakespeare and secondly to the ideological and philosophical resonances of this term as employed in the socialist propaganda in East Germany and which Heiner Müller introduces into Shakespeare's text and gives an ironical twist to. In the first part it points to a few aspects of East German doctrinaire readings of Shakespeare, which were further contested and deconstructed in Müller's translation cum adaptation. The final part zooms in on the reconfiguring of the established meanings attached to the concept of work in Müller's rewriting of Macbeth and on the relation between these meanings and the philosophy of history he proposes in his adaptation.
Linguaculture
The paper investigates the factors contributing to the recent surge in popularity of Shakespeare&... more The paper investigates the factors contributing to the recent surge in popularity of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on the Romanian stage. One possible explanation lies in the play's adaptability and relevance to present-day concerns coupled with the opportunities for creative reimagining offered by its canonical Romanian translation. The article posits that directors and playwrights have engaged in a fruitful "collaboration with the dead" (Leitch 19), breathing new life into the classic text by means of different forms of rewriting. Specifically, the paper discusses two recent versions of Romeo and Juliet staged in Bucharest, at Teatrul Mic in 2018 and at Teatrul Odeon in 2021, and focuses on the process of rewriting Shakespeare’s text in the form of a theatre adaptation and of a radical appropriation.
Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, 2019
brilliantly auditions her Lady Macbeth and expresses her disgust at the fact that these roles are... more brilliantly auditions her Lady Macbeth and expresses her disgust at the fact that these roles are played by teenage boys: she could play them much better. And in their own ways, these kinds of resentments and frustrations-especially when portrayed so brilliantly by Grant-are true enough.
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 2014
Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press... more Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact:
Gender Studies, 2012
It is the main aim of this essay to analyse the modulations and inflections introduced in the tre... more It is the main aim of this essay to analyse the modulations and inflections introduced in the treatment of law in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in the process of cross-cultural transmission and dissemination of the play in the nineteenth century. Focus will be placed on the shift of emphasis from issues related to the law in Shakespeare's text to issues related to rights in two Romanian adaptations derived from French and German texts.
Linguaculture, Feb 1, 2014
The paper discusses the stage adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet that were ... more The paper discusses the stage adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet that were circulated in the German Länders and the Habsburg Empire in the late 18th and early 19th century. The various forms of rewriting Shakespeare are linked with processes re-contextualizing the text and are discussed as forms of localizing a transnational Shakespeare. The analysis zooms in on the contexts of performance of the German adaptations in two Transylvanian cities. The paper highlights the cultural and linguistic negotiations performed when further translating the already multilayered rewritings of the Shakespearean text and focuses on a Romanian translation of a German adaptation of Hamlet.
Springer International Publishing eBooks, 2022
Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, 2019
The focus of the article is the investigation of the stage version commissioned for the 1965 prod... more The focus of the article is the investigation of the stage version commissioned for the 1965 production of Troilus and Cressida directed by David Esrig. It looks at the tradition in Romania not to publish translations of Shakespeare produced for the stage before focusing on the differences between the two types of translation (page and stage) in the socialist period. Esrig’s production is further discussed as a case study, comparing this version, by Florian Nicolau, with Leon Leviţchi’s canonical one, published in 1960.
Messages, Sages and Ages, 2016
The paper discusses recent Romanian Shakespeare productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’... more The paper discusses recent Romanian Shakespeare productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Bucharest. It argues that global mass culture, in the form of TV sitcoms and musicals, YouTube clips and computer games, is re-circulated on Romanian stages with the result of re-mediating the older forms of Romanian Shakespeare performances. The paper interrogates the popular character of the new type of productions, which are largely unpolitical and motivated by commercial reasons. The last part of the paper presents a radical deconstruction of Shakespeare’s text in the form of a computer game, which, however, re-introduces the political orientation of older, pre- 1989 performances.
Gender Studies, 2015
this paper sets out to discuss the situation of Romanian migrant women as represented in their st... more this paper sets out to discuss the situation of Romanian migrant women as represented in their stories. A major issue the paper broaches is the degree of agency and choice migrant women enjoy and the strategies they seek to expand them. Other topics discussed refer to the dominant migration ideology in the source country as well as the restrictions writers have in dealing with more problematic aspects.
Southeastern Europe, 2002
Perspectives, 2012
The paper explores the participation of translations of Shakespeare in the promotion of dominant ... more The paper explores the participation of translations of Shakespeare in the promotion of dominant political and cultural values in socialist and post-communist Romania. The shift that the retranslation of Shakespeare in the post-communist period effects is understood to be one of redirecting interest away from values associated with Romanian localism (nationalism) and towards values and discourses associated with globalization and
Journal of Women's History, 1994
In most East European sodeties women welcomed and even partidpated in the 1989 uprisings against ... more In most East European sodeties women welcomed and even partidpated in the 1989 uprisings against Communist regimes. Did subsequent poUtical changes also bear the imprint of their partidpation? Î"Ε this artide I focus on women's involvement in poUtical events in post-Communist Romania, based on first-hand experience. As Western countries were rather late finding out, the difference between Ceaucescu's sodalist regime in Romania and the government of other East European countries consisted largely in the former's intensification of StaUnist, totaUtarian features.1 Unlike Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and even Poland, whidi had embarked upon a process of "de-StaUnation," Ceausescu's personalist and absolutist rule blocked the economic and poUtical process of reforms condudve to the emergence of a more Uberal, post-totaUtarian sodety.2 Having securely isolated Romania not only poUticaUy and culturaUy but also economicaUy, Ceausescu felt free to set up a despotic power system that brought the StaUnist system to unprecedented hdghts in postwar Europe. In the process he added dements from Maoist China and the North Korean cult of personaUty. Viewed from a Foucauldian perspective, Ceausescu's power systemÂ-impressive and impregnable as it appeared to beÂ-was wasteful and ineffident in its employment of technology. Its strategies proved counterproductive and self-destructive, undermining rather than rdnfordng the system.3 Ceausescu's handling of the problem of women serves as a case in
Shakespeare and War, 2008
There is a long history of the reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s plays for political purposes on ... more There is a long history of the reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s plays for political purposes on the East European stage, usually translated into the local language. Translations are too often assumed by the ordinary reader to be faithful, but like stage performances and to some extent critical readings, they are likely to reinvent Shakespeare for different cultural and historical circumstances.
Early Modern Culture Online, 2010
This paper focuses on two 2009 translations of The Tempest in Romania. I would like to argue tha... more This paper focuses on two 2009 translations of The Tempest in Romania. I would like to argue that they pursue an ideological and political stand shaped on the Habermasian conception of a post-national, cosmopolitan Europe.
Sederi
Shakespeare was introduced into the Romanian Principalities between 1830 and 1855, beginning with... more Shakespeare was introduced into the Romanian Principalities between 1830 and 1855, beginning with a production of The Merchant of Venice, translated from a French adaptation of the play. This essay considers the dearth of critical attention paid to the influence of French melodrama in Southeastern Europe, and in Romania in particular; examines the circulation of Shakespearean productions in this area; and investigates the various processes of de-and re-contextualization involved in the melodramatic adaptation of The Merchant of Venice in France in the 1830s and in its translation/performance in the Romanian Principalities in the 1850s.
Canadian Woman Studies, 1995