Dan Horatiu Popescu | Partium Christian University (original) (raw)

Papers by Dan Horatiu Popescu

Papers in Arts and Humanities

In 2020, the distinguished professor and scholar from the University of Craiova, Emil Sîrbulescu ... more In 2020, the distinguished professor and scholar from the University of Craiova, Emil Sîrbulescu published the above mentioned book with a view to consolidating the academic research in Romania pertaining to race and ethnicity in the context of American culture and literature. If in the title the readers are threatened with the perspective of a magnum opus—“the challenge of ethnicity”—in the subtitle items seem to be subdued and thus confined to the still complex and complicated space of the African-American novel. Following the introduction, “About cultural diversity,” a first part of the book is dedicated to that particular challenge, as implying the “construction of a multicultural model.” The second part details “the maturing of the African-American novel,” whereas the third provides the readers with a case-study, i.e. Toni Morrison’s works. And last, but not least, the section devoted to conclusions addresses a question that might prove emblematic—whether “the African-American ...

Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies, 2019

The article aims at retrieving, based on novel documents and on our own individual research, a de... more The article aims at retrieving, based on novel documents and on our own individual research, a defining moment in the history of the Romanian PEN Club, i.e. its foundation in the years right after WWI. The episode is integrated within the enlarged historical, political, social and cultural context of the time. The figure of Marcu Beza, the Romanian Anglicist and diplomat in London in the 1920s, draws our attention due to his determination in engaging Romanian writers in the emergent circuit of democratic values specific to western societies.

Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies, 2018

My paper aims at identifying the images and episodes – in the texts Hemingway dedicated to Scott ... more My paper aims at identifying the images and episodes – in the texts Hemingway dedicated to Scott Fitzgerald in A Moveable Feast – that reveal the interplay between memories and forgiving oneself, and therefore underlining the therapeutic value of those particular texts for the author. While tracing back the events in the Paris of the 1920s, he exposes the vulnerability not only of his individual self, but of Fitzgerald's as well. Less obvious because of Hemingway's compulsion to dominate, but even striking due to Fitzgerald's "complementary need to be dominated", (their) vulnerability hints at various degrees of self-destructive behavior. Hemingway's late awareness of all these and his attempts at protecting Fitzgerald, both physically and textually, raise the issue of who speaks, who listens and who responds, or of the critical trust in individual testimony, of a "hermeneutics of suspicion", as Ricoeur once formulated when referring to psychoanal...

Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies, 2018

The paper aims at identifying, through topoi like food and dining, cultural and identity codes in... more The paper aims at identifying, through topoi like food and dining, cultural and identity codes in 1930s Romania, as reflected in a famous travelogue. The British poet and art critic Sacheverell Sitwell produced this very interesting book on Romania one year after his four-week travel in 1937. Some episodes and aspects will be approached in relation to the writings of another British traveller in the 1930s, Patrick Leigh Fermor, with whom Sacheverell Sitwell shared a deep intellectual friendship.

Papers in Arts and Humanities

This review of a 1971 book is meant to invite readers to reflect on the role P.E.N. International... more This review of a 1971 book is meant to invite readers to reflect on the role P.E.N. International—a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote literature and intellectual co-operation among writers—might have given the increasing challenges in our contemporary society. Describing the beginnings of the organization, the book marked P.E.N.’s Golden Jubilee. Therefore, I felt it appropriate to discuss some of the issues it addressed—that is, socializing vs. political activism—as this year, P.E.N. International turned 100.

Swedish Journal of Romanian Studies, 2021

The article, actually a would-be 3rd chapter of an intended piece of literary history, aims at re... more The article, actually a would-be 3rd chapter of an intended piece of literary history, aims at retrieving, based on novel documents and on our own individual research, other defining moments in the history of the Romanian PEN Club, i.e. the activity with a view to consolidation in the years right after WWI. The recuperated sequences are integrated within the enlarged historical, political, social and cultural context of the time. The figure of Marcu Beza, the Romanian Anglicist and diplomat in London in the 1920s, is in close-up, together with that of Emanoil Bucuţa, the Secretary of the Romanian P.E.N in its first decade of activity, due to their determination in engaging Romanian writers in the emergent circuit of democratic values specific to western societies.

Analele Universității din Oradea: Fascicula Limba și Literatura Română, 2008

Scris în limba română, studiul de față își propune să analizeze sursele abordării și practicii al... more Scris în limba română, studiul de față își propune să analizeze sursele abordării și practicii alegorice din Țiganiada lui Ioan Budai Deleanu, operă de referință pentru barocul literar românesc.

Meridian Critic, 2012

Abstract: The present paper is part of a larger study, dealing with aspects related to Batman as ... more Abstract: The present paper is part of a larger study, dealing with aspects related to Batman as an iconic figure in American popular culture. One of the issues is that of technological devices employed by the superhero in the comic books and their by-products – graphic novels, animated series, movies, novelizations –, and of their relation with the different phases in the development of the capitalist society, from industrialization to consumerism. We found it necessary to trace that in older works of non main stream literature, such as Jules Verne’s featuring Captain Nemo, in order to better understand the evolution of technology and its impact on the reading public.
Keywords: modes of production, ideological project, state-of-the-art technology

Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies, 2019

Abstract: The article aims at retrieving, based on novel documents and on our own individual rese... more Abstract:
The article aims at retrieving, based on novel documents and on our own
individual research, a defining moment in the history of the Romanian PEN Club, i.e. its
foundation in the years right after WWI. The episode is integrated within the enlarged
historical, political, social and cultural context of the time. The figure of Marcu Beza,
the Romanian Anglicist and diplomat in London in the 1920s, draws our attention due to
his determination in engaging Romanian writers in the emergent circuit of democratic
values specific to western societies.
Keywords: Romanian PEN Club, Marcu Beza, World War I and after

Analele Universității din Oradea Fascicula LImba și LIteratura Română, 2019

Literary and Visual Dimensions of Contemporary Graphic Narratives, 2012

The paper/chapter is based on the author’s experience of translating Batman & Robin, by Michael J... more The paper/chapter is based on the author’s experience of translating Batman & Robin, by Michael J. Friedman – a Star Treck series author –, for an obscure Romanian publishing house, in 1997. It inevitably deals with the iconicity of Batman within the American popular culture – the urge for a superhero, for instance –, in what we have meant to be a slightly psychoanalytical and feminist approach.
But what we would particularly like to emphasize is how the cannibalization of genres has become a cultural modus vivendi in the years of postmodernism and of its aftermath. Practitioners of novelization, for instance, are held in contempt by critics and writers belonging to the „main-stream”, whose appraisal of such products may sound extremely caustic: “that bastard, misshapen offspring of the cinema and the written word”, (according to Jonathan Coe). Though such artisans (ghostwriters included), through the rewording of the screenplays written by other people supplement the images furnished by the film directors and sometimes add “an eloquence and turn of phrase” not always available to original authors, limited as they are by the imposition of certain requirements of the other genres.
Movies or TV series such as The Underworld, Night at the Museum, Transformers, Terminator and Star Trek have definitely been made easier to understand through novelization. And things are even more peculiar in the case of comic books and their way to such “manufactured books”, via graphic novels or/and scripts. A number of significant questions may arise: How much of the visual dimension is retained in the far-end by- product? What is the literary quality of such translation of the images into words? What prevails in the new type of narrative? Dialogues, descriptions, action scenes, which is the “dominant”, and, as a consequence, what are the real challenges for the translators in other languages (to what extent should they mind the script, if available, the movie or, better, the original artifact)?

Transilvania, 2018

Scris în limba română, articolul, care introduce un text aproape canonic, aparținând lui Margaret... more Scris în limba română, articolul, care introduce un text aproape canonic, aparținând lui Margaret Atwood, este o tentativă de a sublinia forța iradiantă a opțiunilor auctoriale și autoritatea vocilor narative în cadrul artefactului textual. Relația cu cititorul, atât cel din interiorul cât și cel din afara textului, este de asemenea abordată prin urmărirea evoluției modului în care sunt completate tiparele de așteptare.
Cuvinte cheie: decizii auctoriale, logica posibilităților narative, pactul ficțional

Anuarul Institutului de Cercetări Socio-Umane Sibiu XIII-XIV 2006-2007, 2007

Articolul de față își propune să analizeze și să evidențieze strategiile textuale utilizate de sc... more Articolul de față își propune să analizeze și să evidențieze strategiile textuale utilizate de scriitor cu scopul de a submina mai vechi structuri/tipare alegorice și de a impune un discurs mai ambiguu, de factură mitică, prin tiparul parabolei.

Analele Universităţii din Oradea Fascicula Limba şi Literatura Română, 2009

Lucrarea îşi propune să identifice paradigme moderniste şi postmoderniste care au influenţat oper... more Lucrarea îşi propune să identifice paradigme moderniste şi postmoderniste care au influenţat opera autorului român Aurel Antonie, precum şi a altor autori din generaţia sa, cu o focalizare pe povestirile de factură parabolică.

Cercetări de Limbă și Literatură Tom XII Universitatea din Sibiu , 2005

Scris în limba română, ca parte a unui studiu mai amplu, acest fragment pune premisele - și de ac... more Scris în limba română, ca parte a unui studiu mai amplu, acest fragment pune premisele - și de aceea am început cu opera lui Franz Kafka - unei investigații asupra fragilei distincții dintre parabolă și alegorie în ficțiunea modernă și postmodernă, prin prisma conceptelor de indeterminare și referință.

Written in Romanian, as part of a larger study, this fragment is meant to settle the premises - and that is why we have started with the work of Franz Kafka - for investigating the edgy distinction between parable and allegory in both modern and postmodern fiction, in light of concepts of indeterminacy and reference.

Analele Universităţii din Oradea Fascicula Limba şi Literatura Română, 2004

Written in Romanian, the paper intends to present a few aspects related to the allegorical tradit... more Written in Romanian, the paper intends to present a few aspects related to the allegorical tradition in the Hellenistic world, and the ways this hermeneutic tradition acted against the development of a true parabolic discourse.

Analele Universităţii din Oradea Fascicula Limba şi Literatura Română, 2002

Written in Romanian, the paper intends to underline the allegorical potential of certain (post)mo... more Written in Romanian, the paper intends to underline the allegorical potential of certain (post)modernist fiction, and its relationship with the (con)text of the Gospels.

Cercetări de Limbă şi Literatură Tomul XI Universitatea Lucian Blaga din Sibiu, 2000

Written in Romanian, the present paper intends to demonstrate the possibility and the necessity -... more Written in Romanian, the present paper intends to demonstrate the possibility and the necessity - at least on a preliminary level - of a structuralist approach of the parables of the New Testament and of the so-called "parabolic fiction" of the 20th Century.

Analele Universităţii din Oradea Fascicula Limba şi Literatura Română, 2001

Written in Romanian, the present paper intends to demonstrate the possibility and the necessity -... more Written in Romanian, the present paper intends to demonstrate the possibility and the necessity - at least on a preliminary level - of a structuralist and textualist approach of the parables of the New Testament and of the so-called "parabolic fiction" of the 20th Century.