Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu | University of Bucharest (original) (raw)
Papers by Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu
Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Sep 30, 2023
Sociologie Româneasca = Romanian Sociology, 2005
From Gender Studies to Gender IN Studies. Case Studies on Gender-Inclusive Curriculum in Higher Education, 2011
Research on the mechanisms, politics, and practices at work in the process of institutionalizing ... more Research on the mechanisms, politics, and practices at work in the process of institutionalizing women’s and gender studies in higher education, in Central and Eastern Europe, show a definite, albeit often uneven and sometimes precarious, dynamics of inclusion of this field of teaching and research, inside and outside officially recognized academic structures, during the last two decades or so. This paper some of the institutional mechanisms, transnational higher education structures and interests, and personal investments and strategies that shape the current configuration of gender studies in higher education in Romania, in general, and at the University of Bucharest, in particular. The author argues that the inclusion of gender studies in higher education in Romania should be integrated within the larger, multiple, and overlapping kinds of national and transnational social, economic, and political transformations started in the early 1990s and accelerated at the end of the decade and mainly at the beginning of the millennium. Within this framework, not only specific of the Romanian context, but, as shown in several studies, also of other Central and Eastern European countries, the appropriation of gender-related concerns, equal opportunities legislation, and gender studies as a valid field of teaching and research by various governmental and institutional bodies, in Romania, could be read as part of the greater endorsement of the ‘democratization agenda.’ However, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of institutional change and of the international financial and political interests as undoubtedly influencing the local options and opportunities, although not always in a uniform and unidirectional manner, in shaping the content of the teaching and research practices undertaken locally.
Gender and the (Post) 'East'/ 'West' Divide, 2004
In this paper I argue that Mary Shelley’s Monster (more widely known as Frankenstein’s Monster) i... more In this paper I argue that Mary Shelley’s Monster (more widely known as Frankenstein’s Monster) is a proto-cyborg, and, consequently, that the cyborg (Donna Haraway’s cyborg) is the modern version of Shelley’s monster. Although the argumentation might at first seem a “playful work on words and thoughts,” a thing that I myself acknowledge, I believe that the idea that leads this paper, the one according to which, since we are all cyborgs and the cyborg is the modern version of Shelley’s Monster, then we are all monsters, is by no means simple and easy to accept. However, since the Monster is not at all the evil creature the Western culture subsequently struggled to build the image of, it might not be such a bad thing to be one. Moreover, I believe that it is high time for us to question our humanity and acknowledge our cyborgosity and monstrosity in a post-human time.
Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Social Analysis, 13: 29–55, 2023
In sociological research and social intervention activities undertaken by the Bucharest Sociologi... more In sociological research and social intervention activities undertaken by the Bucharest Sociological School and coordinated by Professor Dimitrie Gusti, women participated in large numbers. In this paper, I explore how gender, conceptualized as a social, political, and material category, configures power relations within a research group, and I provide tentative and inherently partial answers to such questions as: What combination of social, economic, and political factors led to women’s massive involvement in the sociological monographic campaigns? How did women’s participation contribute to the research endeavours? What are the disciplinary and institutional mechanisms and personal strategies that produced women’s inclusion in, and later exclusion from, the research group?
Eikon Publishing House, 2022
Earlier historians of sociology studied the past of their own discipline by automatic reference t... more Earlier historians of sociology studied the past of their own discipline by automatic reference to Western sociology. Hence their perpetual complexes. Rarely, especially in Romania, did social science research extend to its Central and Eastern European neighbours. Because of this 'oversight', the scientific world was not aware of the similarities between sociological initiatives in the first half of the 20th century in this region of Europe. The aim of this volume is to present a series of studies and syntheses on the (re)institutionalisation of sociology after the Great War, because the years since 1918 have had a strong impact on every sociology and sociological school in Eastern Europe. A brief presentation of the processes of organising sociology in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia and Hungary is justified not only in view of the differences with the West, but above all because each country, in its specific way, gave sociology a vocation to modernize society as a whole. This militant vocation can be noticed at first glance. We hope that reading these texts will inspire real comparative studies in the future.
Eikon Publishing House, 2018
In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s several sociological monographic campaigns were carrie... more In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s several sociological monographic campaigns were carried out in a few villages on the territory of Romania. Each such campaign gathered dozens of students and researchers who explored rural life using an integrated theoretical system and multidisciplinary methods and instruments. In all these organizations and activities women participated in large numbers. Women’s massive involvement in university organized social research and, later, state-sanctioned social reform was unusual for the interwar period in Romania and has so far been unnoticed, thus it has gone unrecognized and uninvestigated by the scientific community.
This volume gathers some of the publications by women researchers who had professional links with or were members of the Bucharest Sociological School. I have selected the two most important academic journals published by the Gustian organizations: Arhiva pentru știința și reforma socială (The Archive for Social Science and Reform) and Sociologie românească (Romanian Sociology). The former includes articles of a more general persuasion in the social sciences and it benefited from a larger public and distribution, while the latter was conceived as a specific space for circulating the results of the sociological monographic research undertaken by the School. The women researchers and activists present in this book published substantially in many other periodicals, scholarly journals, and volumes. Consequently, this editorial endeavor is limited to their work included in the two main journals issued by the Bucharest Sociological School and hence it requires future extensive additions in order to recover and include in the sociological and historical cannon women’s valuable and vast research enterprise.
Quality Press in Southeast Europe. Sofia: …, 2004
Zoltán Rostás and Florentina Ţone (eds.), 2012, Tânăr student caut revoluţionar. Voiam altceva, dar nu aveam in gând ceva anume (vol. II), pp. 396-431.
Laura Grünberg (ed.), Sociologia corpului, Iaşi: Polirom, 2010, pp. 141-175
Books by Theodora-Eliza Vacarescu
Bucharest, Transcena, 2023
This books is a rich and accessible introduction to women's history, women's movements and gender... more This books is a rich and accessible introduction to women's history, women's movements and gender studies in Romania. The objective of this introduction is, among others, to contextualize the life and letters left by Elena Muresianu (1862-1924), a Romanian woman from the city of Brasov who studied in Vienna and later returned to Brasov and became one of the first women entrepreneurs - she coordinated the activities of the most important Romanian newspaper from Brasov, "Gazeta Transilvaniei."
![Research paper thumbnail of Cealalta jumatate a istoriei. Femei povestind [The Other Half of History. Women Telling Stories]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/41894815/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](
Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Sep 30, 2023
Sociologie Româneasca = Romanian Sociology, 2005
From Gender Studies to Gender IN Studies. Case Studies on Gender-Inclusive Curriculum in Higher Education, 2011
Research on the mechanisms, politics, and practices at work in the process of institutionalizing ... more Research on the mechanisms, politics, and practices at work in the process of institutionalizing women’s and gender studies in higher education, in Central and Eastern Europe, show a definite, albeit often uneven and sometimes precarious, dynamics of inclusion of this field of teaching and research, inside and outside officially recognized academic structures, during the last two decades or so. This paper some of the institutional mechanisms, transnational higher education structures and interests, and personal investments and strategies that shape the current configuration of gender studies in higher education in Romania, in general, and at the University of Bucharest, in particular. The author argues that the inclusion of gender studies in higher education in Romania should be integrated within the larger, multiple, and overlapping kinds of national and transnational social, economic, and political transformations started in the early 1990s and accelerated at the end of the decade and mainly at the beginning of the millennium. Within this framework, not only specific of the Romanian context, but, as shown in several studies, also of other Central and Eastern European countries, the appropriation of gender-related concerns, equal opportunities legislation, and gender studies as a valid field of teaching and research by various governmental and institutional bodies, in Romania, could be read as part of the greater endorsement of the ‘democratization agenda.’ However, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of institutional change and of the international financial and political interests as undoubtedly influencing the local options and opportunities, although not always in a uniform and unidirectional manner, in shaping the content of the teaching and research practices undertaken locally.
Gender and the (Post) 'East'/ 'West' Divide, 2004
In this paper I argue that Mary Shelley’s Monster (more widely known as Frankenstein’s Monster) i... more In this paper I argue that Mary Shelley’s Monster (more widely known as Frankenstein’s Monster) is a proto-cyborg, and, consequently, that the cyborg (Donna Haraway’s cyborg) is the modern version of Shelley’s monster. Although the argumentation might at first seem a “playful work on words and thoughts,” a thing that I myself acknowledge, I believe that the idea that leads this paper, the one according to which, since we are all cyborgs and the cyborg is the modern version of Shelley’s Monster, then we are all monsters, is by no means simple and easy to accept. However, since the Monster is not at all the evil creature the Western culture subsequently struggled to build the image of, it might not be such a bad thing to be one. Moreover, I believe that it is high time for us to question our humanity and acknowledge our cyborgosity and monstrosity in a post-human time.
Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Social Analysis, 13: 29–55, 2023
In sociological research and social intervention activities undertaken by the Bucharest Sociologi... more In sociological research and social intervention activities undertaken by the Bucharest Sociological School and coordinated by Professor Dimitrie Gusti, women participated in large numbers. In this paper, I explore how gender, conceptualized as a social, political, and material category, configures power relations within a research group, and I provide tentative and inherently partial answers to such questions as: What combination of social, economic, and political factors led to women’s massive involvement in the sociological monographic campaigns? How did women’s participation contribute to the research endeavours? What are the disciplinary and institutional mechanisms and personal strategies that produced women’s inclusion in, and later exclusion from, the research group?
Eikon Publishing House, 2022
Earlier historians of sociology studied the past of their own discipline by automatic reference t... more Earlier historians of sociology studied the past of their own discipline by automatic reference to Western sociology. Hence their perpetual complexes. Rarely, especially in Romania, did social science research extend to its Central and Eastern European neighbours. Because of this 'oversight', the scientific world was not aware of the similarities between sociological initiatives in the first half of the 20th century in this region of Europe. The aim of this volume is to present a series of studies and syntheses on the (re)institutionalisation of sociology after the Great War, because the years since 1918 have had a strong impact on every sociology and sociological school in Eastern Europe. A brief presentation of the processes of organising sociology in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russia and Hungary is justified not only in view of the differences with the West, but above all because each country, in its specific way, gave sociology a vocation to modernize society as a whole. This militant vocation can be noticed at first glance. We hope that reading these texts will inspire real comparative studies in the future.
Eikon Publishing House, 2018
In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s several sociological monographic campaigns were carrie... more In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s several sociological monographic campaigns were carried out in a few villages on the territory of Romania. Each such campaign gathered dozens of students and researchers who explored rural life using an integrated theoretical system and multidisciplinary methods and instruments. In all these organizations and activities women participated in large numbers. Women’s massive involvement in university organized social research and, later, state-sanctioned social reform was unusual for the interwar period in Romania and has so far been unnoticed, thus it has gone unrecognized and uninvestigated by the scientific community.
This volume gathers some of the publications by women researchers who had professional links with or were members of the Bucharest Sociological School. I have selected the two most important academic journals published by the Gustian organizations: Arhiva pentru știința și reforma socială (The Archive for Social Science and Reform) and Sociologie românească (Romanian Sociology). The former includes articles of a more general persuasion in the social sciences and it benefited from a larger public and distribution, while the latter was conceived as a specific space for circulating the results of the sociological monographic research undertaken by the School. The women researchers and activists present in this book published substantially in many other periodicals, scholarly journals, and volumes. Consequently, this editorial endeavor is limited to their work included in the two main journals issued by the Bucharest Sociological School and hence it requires future extensive additions in order to recover and include in the sociological and historical cannon women’s valuable and vast research enterprise.
Quality Press in Southeast Europe. Sofia: …, 2004
Zoltán Rostás and Florentina Ţone (eds.), 2012, Tânăr student caut revoluţionar. Voiam altceva, dar nu aveam in gând ceva anume (vol. II), pp. 396-431.
Laura Grünberg (ed.), Sociologia corpului, Iaşi: Polirom, 2010, pp. 141-175
Bucharest, Transcena, 2023
This books is a rich and accessible introduction to women's history, women's movements and gender... more This books is a rich and accessible introduction to women's history, women's movements and gender studies in Romania. The objective of this introduction is, among others, to contextualize the life and letters left by Elena Muresianu (1862-1924), a Romanian woman from the city of Brasov who studied in Vienna and later returned to Brasov and became one of the first women entrepreneurs - she coordinated the activities of the most important Romanian newspaper from Brasov, "Gazeta Transilvaniei."