Arleen Ionescu
Biographic Data
| ID | 1015402 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Arleen Ionescu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Arleen |
| FAMILY NAME | Ionescu |
| SIGNATURE | IONESCU A |
| AFFILIATIONS | West University of Timişoara |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5764-8612 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The laughter of ghosts
This article deals with representing the Holocaust through a humorous lens. After discussing the pros and the cons of using humour in different works since the 1990s to represent such a tragedy as the Holocaust, in the second section, we will present the author that our case study focuses on, Cătălin Mihuleac, and his novel Deborah. The other sections attempt to answer three main research questions: How does Mihuleac use humour in Deborah to depi…
Fail Better, Fail Worse
This review essay of Costica Bradatan’s In Praise of Failure and Steven Matthews’s Beckett and Cioran puts these two volumes in dialogue, since their common character, E. M. Cioran, features in both books. Samuel Beckett is also the character in absentia in Bradatan’s study, which is a self-proclaimed Beckettian work. This essay first presents the four circles of failure in Bradatan’s book. Then it analyzes Matthews’s interpretations of the affin…
Representations of the Romanian Holocaust in testimonial literature and films
Synthesizing the way in which the Romanian Holocaust has been represented in testimonial literature and films, this article deals with notions such as Holocaust trivialization and denial, as well as with “mastering the Romanian past” of the interwar period and WW2. The article is a cartography of the representations of the Romanian Holocaust; to that end, it follows the chronology of post-1945 published literary works (documentary texts, memoirs …
Representations of the Romanian Holocaust in testimonial literature and films
Synthesizing the way in which the Romanian Holocaust has been represented in testimonial literature and films, this article deals with notions such as Holocaust trivialization and denial, as well as with “mastering the Romanian past” of the interwar period and WW2. The article is a cartography of the representations of the Romanian Holocaust; to that end, it follows the chronology of published literary works (documentary texts, memoirs and fictio…
Toward a memorial ethics of hope? Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum
Taking further Ann Rigney’s urge to expand her case study on memories of hope, this article investigates the positive turn in memory studies by focusing on Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum as a memorial ethics of hope yet pointing out the museum politics that prevents it from achieving its aim. After defining the concept of memorial ethics of hope, the next sections look into the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum’s exhibiting strategies and tropes: …
Lastness
Blanchot's writings evince a recurrent preoccupation with figures of lastness, such as the last man or the last writer. However, within his adaptation of Nietzsche's Eternal Return, ‘lastness’ not only calls up (what may or may not come after) death and extinction but is indissociable from an ‘always already’ joining first and last, originariness (the ‘first man’) and destination (the ‘ends of man’). The essay will first clarify Blanchot's rework…
Memory in Exile (for the Non-Captured Witness)
This academic essay features a dialogue on memory in exile with a focus on several works belonging to an accomplished multidisciplinary artist, teacher and lecturer, born in Buenos Aires, Mirta Kupferminc. We discuss different paradigms to account for a diversity of memorial approaches, the concepts of ‘memorial candles’ and ‘bearing witness’, analysing different aspects of Kupferminc’s life, especially that she is the daughter of two Holocaust s…
Memory in Exile
This the introduction to the volume which presents the main concepts used and the articles included in the volume
Beckett in the Posthuman Technocene
Beckett in the Posthuman Technocene Laurent Milesi and Arleen Ionescu Beckett in the Posthuman Technocene: Jonathan Boulter, Posthuman Space in Samuel Beckett's Short Prose Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. viii + 222 pp.); Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar, and Mark Nixon, eds. Beckett and Technology ( Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. xvi + 269 pp.) Allow us to begin by recalling a private conversation one of the reviewers had…
Scriptotherapy
Introduction
This is the introduction to the volume
A Tale of Two Theories
The birthplace of narratology is inextricably linked to France,1 with initial forays into what became one of structuralism’s disciplinary cornerstones stretching as far back as 1946 and Jean Pouillon’s distinction between “the interior” or “psychic life” (le dedans, la vie psychique) and “the outside” or “the behavior of the individual” (le dehors, la conduite de l’individu) in novels. Among the landmarks in the field stands volume 8 of Communica…
Holocaust Narratives in the Post-Testimonial Era
Preserving Memory in the Twenty-First Century
Samuel Beckett and E. M. Cioran
In this article I will focus on three major intersections between Samuel Beckett’s and E. M. Cioran’s works, irrespective of the fact that Beckett chose mainly the medium of prose and theatre, while Cioran chose the philosophical essay. Starting from several biographical encounters mentioned in Beckett’s Letters and Cioran’s Cahiers and the section on Beckett from Anathemas and Admirations, I will first explore autobiography as a “figure of readi…
Trauma, Affect, Memory and 21st-Century Poetry
This interview with contemporary poet and historian Cristina A. Bejan, conducted over email, examines several contemporary meanings of 21st-century poetry through a personal lens. The interview starts from Bejan’s academic work and continues with her creative work, focusing on her ‘spoken word’ in the volume Green Horses on the Wall, published in 2020 and translated in Romanian this year. Notions such as memory, trauma, affect that represent the …
Makarenko's and Țurcanu's Re-Education Projects
Makarenko's and Țurcanu's Re-Education Projects:Debunking a Myth in Romanian Historiography Arleen Ionescu This article discusses two "re-education" campaigns that have often been colocated by Romanian historiography: Anton Semyonovich Makarenko's re-education of delinquents in the Soviet Union (1917–1936), and Eugen Ţurcanu's re-education of prisoners in Romania (1949–1952). My aim is to demonstrate that although Makarenko's and Ţurcanu's projec…
Hospitality in Shanghai
This article is an exploration of three exile memoirs penned by Eastern European Jewish refugees who documented a notable world history event: during WW2, when 6 million European Jews perished in Nazis concentration and death camps, Shanghai was the city where more than 20,000 Jews were saved. Through a conceptual framework inspired by Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, this article interprets instances of hospitality in these memoirs
Towards an Affective Ludo-ethics of Re-enactment
Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsArleen IonescuArleen Ionescu is Tenured Professor of English Literature and Critical Theory at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her major research interests are in the fields of Modernist prose, Critical Theory, Memory Studies, Holocaust and Trauma Studies. Her work on James Joyce and related aspects of Modernism, Maurice B…
Re-Membering – A Plea for Togetherness
Starting with a recall of the overwhelming feeling, voiced by many thinkers, that the post-WWII era brought about the ‘sense of an ending’ of history as Mitsein (being-in-common), the essay explores the renewed necessity to re-learn to be together in the wake of the worst modern pandemic by appealing to Jean-Luc Nancy’s imagination of a community without community. Nancy’s plea for a singular togetherness will be re-examined in relation to his vi…
Anathematizing Barthes and Admiring Beckett with Eugène Ionesco
This article explores the world of theatre from within and beyond the stage and brings together Roland Barthes as a critic and Samuel Beckett as a playwright via a third character, the Romanian-born playwright Eugène Ionesco, who anathematized the former and admired the latter. The article starts from Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), which defined Beckett's and Ionesco's art, pointing out that whilst Esslin showed why their works…
Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania
To download this article, please click here
Chinese Versions of the Uncanny
Spacing Literature between Mallarmé, Blanchot and Derrida
Additional informationNotes on contributorsArleen IonescuArleen Ionescu is Professor in the Department of Philology and Foreign Languages at University of Ploie ̧ti (UPG), Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Sciences and Executive Editor of Word and Text, a leading journal in the humanities in Romania. Her major research and teaching interests are in the fields of Modernist prose and, increasingly, Critical Theory. She has published widely on…
Holocaust Narratives in the Post-Testimonial Era
Scriptotherapy
Towards an Affective Ludo-ethics of Re-enactment
Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsArleen IonescuArleen Ionescu is Tenured Professor of English Literature and Critical Theory at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her major research interests are in the fields of Modernist prose, Critical Theory, Memory Studies, Holocaust and Trauma Studies. Her work on James Joyce and related aspects of Modernism, Maurice B…
Spacing Literature between Mallarmé, Blanchot and Derrida
Additional informationNotes on contributorsArleen IonescuArleen Ionescu is Professor in the Department of Philology and Foreign Languages at University of Ploie ̧ti (UPG), Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Sciences and Executive Editor of Word and Text, a leading journal in the humanities in Romania. Her major research and teaching interests are in the fields of Modernist prose and, increasingly, Critical Theory. She has published widely on…
Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania
To download this article, please click here
Chinese Versions of the Uncanny
Trauma, Affect, Memory and 21st-Century Poetry
This interview with contemporary poet and historian Cristina A. Bejan, conducted over email, examines several contemporary meanings of 21st-century poetry through a personal lens. The interview starts from Bejan’s academic work and continues with her creative work, focusing on her ‘spoken word’ in the volume Green Horses on the Wall, published in 2020 and translated in Romanian this year. Notions such as memory, trauma, affect that represent the …
Makarenko's and Țurcanu's Re-Education Projects
Makarenko's and Țurcanu's Re-Education Projects:Debunking a Myth in Romanian Historiography Arleen Ionescu This article discusses two "re-education" campaigns that have often been colocated by Romanian historiography: Anton Semyonovich Makarenko's re-education of delinquents in the Soviet Union (1917–1936), and Eugen Ţurcanu's re-education of prisoners in Romania (1949–1952). My aim is to demonstrate that although Makarenko's and Ţurcanu's projec…
Hospitality in Shanghai
This article is an exploration of three exile memoirs penned by Eastern European Jewish refugees who documented a notable world history event: during WW2, when 6 million European Jews perished in Nazis concentration and death camps, Shanghai was the city where more than 20,000 Jews were saved. Through a conceptual framework inspired by Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, this article interprets instances of hospitality in these memoirs
Towards an Affective Ludo-ethics of Re-enactment
Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsArleen IonescuArleen Ionescu is Tenured Professor of English Literature and Critical Theory at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her major research interests are in the fields of Modernist prose, Critical Theory, Memory Studies, Holocaust and Trauma Studies. Her work on James Joyce and related aspects of Modernism, Maurice B…
Re-Membering – A Plea for Togetherness
Starting with a recall of the overwhelming feeling, voiced by many thinkers, that the post-WWII era brought about the ‘sense of an ending’ of history as Mitsein (being-in-common), the essay explores the renewed necessity to re-learn to be together in the wake of the worst modern pandemic by appealing to Jean-Luc Nancy’s imagination of a community without community. Nancy’s plea for a singular togetherness will be re-examined in relation to his vi…
Anathematizing Barthes and Admiring Beckett with Eugène Ionesco
This article explores the world of theatre from within and beyond the stage and brings together Roland Barthes as a critic and Samuel Beckett as a playwright via a third character, the Romanian-born playwright Eugène Ionesco, who anathematized the former and admired the latter. The article starts from Martin Esslin's The Theatre of the Absurd (1961), which defined Beckett's and Ionesco's art, pointing out that whilst Esslin showed why their works…
Introduction
This is the introduction to the volume
A Tale of Two Theories
The birthplace of narratology is inextricably linked to France,1 with initial forays into what became one of structuralism’s disciplinary cornerstones stretching as far back as 1946 and Jean Pouillon’s distinction between “the interior” or “psychic life” (le dedans, la vie psychique) and “the outside” or “the behavior of the individual” (le dehors, la conduite de l’individu) in novels. Among the landmarks in the field stands volume 8 of Communica…
Holocaust Narratives in the Post-Testimonial Era
Preserving Memory in the Twenty-First Century
Samuel Beckett and E. M. Cioran
In this article I will focus on three major intersections between Samuel Beckett’s and E. M. Cioran’s works, irrespective of the fact that Beckett chose mainly the medium of prose and theatre, while Cioran chose the philosophical essay. Starting from several biographical encounters mentioned in Beckett’s Letters and Cioran’s Cahiers and the section on Beckett from Anathemas and Admirations, I will first explore autobiography as a “figure of readi…
Beckett in the Posthuman Technocene
Beckett in the Posthuman Technocene Laurent Milesi and Arleen Ionescu Beckett in the Posthuman Technocene: Jonathan Boulter, Posthuman Space in Samuel Beckett's Short Prose Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. viii + 222 pp.); Galina Kiryushina, Einat Adar, and Mark Nixon, eds. Beckett and Technology ( Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. xvi + 269 pp.) Allow us to begin by recalling a private conversation one of the reviewers had…
Scriptotherapy
Fail Better, Fail Worse
This review essay of Costica Bradatan’s In Praise of Failure and Steven Matthews’s Beckett and Cioran puts these two volumes in dialogue, since their common character, E. M. Cioran, features in both books. Samuel Beckett is also the character in absentia in Bradatan’s study, which is a self-proclaimed Beckettian work. This essay first presents the four circles of failure in Bradatan’s book. Then it analyzes Matthews’s interpretations of the affin…
Representations of the Romanian Holocaust in testimonial literature and films
Synthesizing the way in which the Romanian Holocaust has been represented in testimonial literature and films, this article deals with notions such as Holocaust trivialization and denial, as well as with “mastering the Romanian past” of the interwar period and WW2. The article is a cartography of the representations of the Romanian Holocaust; to that end, it follows the chronology of post-1945 published literary works (documentary texts, memoirs …
Representations of the Romanian Holocaust in testimonial literature and films
Synthesizing the way in which the Romanian Holocaust has been represented in testimonial literature and films, this article deals with notions such as Holocaust trivialization and denial, as well as with “mastering the Romanian past” of the interwar period and WW2. The article is a cartography of the representations of the Romanian Holocaust; to that end, it follows the chronology of published literary works (documentary texts, memoirs and fictio…
Toward a memorial ethics of hope? Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum
Taking further Ann Rigney’s urge to expand her case study on memories of hope, this article investigates the positive turn in memory studies by focusing on Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum as a memorial ethics of hope yet pointing out the museum politics that prevents it from achieving its aim. After defining the concept of memorial ethics of hope, the next sections look into the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum’s exhibiting strategies and tropes: …
Lastness
Blanchot's writings evince a recurrent preoccupation with figures of lastness, such as the last man or the last writer. However, within his adaptation of Nietzsche's Eternal Return, ‘lastness’ not only calls up (what may or may not come after) death and extinction but is indissociable from an ‘always already’ joining first and last, originariness (the ‘first man’) and destination (the ‘ends of man’). The essay will first clarify Blanchot's rework…
Memory in Exile (for the Non-Captured Witness)
This academic essay features a dialogue on memory in exile with a focus on several works belonging to an accomplished multidisciplinary artist, teacher and lecturer, born in Buenos Aires, Mirta Kupferminc. We discuss different paradigms to account for a diversity of memorial approaches, the concepts of ‘memorial candles’ and ‘bearing witness’, analysing different aspects of Kupferminc’s life, especially that she is the daughter of two Holocaust s…
Memory in Exile
This the introduction to the volume which presents the main concepts used and the articles included in the volume
The laughter of ghosts
This article deals with representing the Holocaust through a humorous lens. After discussing the pros and the cons of using humour in different works since the 1990s to represent such a tragedy as the Holocaust, in the second section, we will present the author that our case study focuses on, Cătălin Mihuleac, and his novel Deborah. The other sections attempt to answer three main research questions: How does Mihuleac use humour in Deborah to depi…
Art (14 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration (12 works) · History (11 works) · Literature (10 works) · The Holocaust (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · History (7 works)