Studies:
2005, PhD degree, “Parable and Allegory in Post-War Romanian Fiction” – “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu
1978-1982, MA in Romanian and English – “Oradea College of Higher Education”, at present the University of Oradea,
1974-1978, “Emanuil Gojdu” High-School, Oradea
Area of specialty:
Literary Theory, American and British Literature and Culture, Creative Writing
Currently Teaching:
Travel Literature, MA, 3rd & 4th semester
American Literature (Postmodernism), BA, 6th semester
American Literature (Modernism), BA, 4th semester
Literary Translation, BA, 3rd & 4th semester
Introduction to American Culture and Civilization, BA, 2nd semester
Elements of Style, BA, 4th semester
Other courses taught:
Anglo-American Literary Theories
Mass Culture (Anglo-American space)
American Political System
Religion and Multiculturalism in America
North-American Science-Fiction
Academic Writing
Vocabulary Development
Research interests:
American literature (Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Pynchon); British literature (Lawrence Durrell); Comparative literature (Jorge Luis Borges); Literary theory (Psychoanalysis, Feminisms, Archetypal Criticism, Structuralism, Narratology, Parable and Allegory); Popular Culture (Comic books); Travel Literature; Creative Writing
Current Research Projects:
2013 to present – “Travel & Living in Central European Countries”, a study of some British and American works of fiction & non-fiction dealing with major aspects of Central European cultures; presented 3 papers so far, published 1
2011 to present – “The Batman Franchise”, a study of various aspects of the iconicity of the popular comic books character; presented 5 papers so far, published 2
2008 to present – the study of the reception of American literature of the first half of the 20th century in the cultural press (including that written in Hungarian) in Romania, between 1945-1989; presented 6 papers so far, published 3
Exposure to the international higher education arena (selective):
2014 – November: Erasmus exchange, Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church, Budapest, Hungary; taught courses and workshops on American Literature and Creative Writing
– August: attended the ESSE Biennial Conference, in Kosice, Slovakia; co-convenor Literature Seminar 11, “Conformism and Anti-Conformism Reconsidered: From Postmodernism to Contemporary Sensibility in British and American Literature and Arts”; paper presented, “Vineland or Thomas Pynchon against His Older Self”
– April: attended the EAAS Biennial Conference, in the Hague, the Netherlands; co-convenor Seminar 30, “From Domestic Conflicts to Justice through Underground Culture of the Last Decades (in American Culture, Arts and Life)”; paper presented, “From High Ground to Underground: Performance and Disruption in Carla Harryman’s Work”
2013 – October: Erasmus exchange, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; taught courses and workshops on Literary Theory, American Literature and Creative Writing
2012 – September: attended the ESSE Biennial Conference, in Istanbul, Turkey: co-convenor Seminar 40, “Freudiana – the therapist in contemporary fiction: narrative and ideological functions”; paper presented, “Hatching Freud – from Merlin to the Woman Therapist in Durrell’s The Avignon Quintet”
2011 – October, attended SSASAA 08 at Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria, Continuity and Change in US Presidential Foreign Policy: Plans, Policies and Doctrines;
2010 – August: attended the ESSE Biennial Conference, in Torino, Italy; co-convenor Seminar 72, “The Missing Link in Academia: Creative Writing”; paper presented, “A Writer’s Digest: Creative Writing and Re-Writing”; (on Angela Carter and James Finn Garner)
2009 – September: attended the SSASAA 06 at Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria, Globalization and American Popular Culture;
2008 – August: attended, as recipient of a grant from the Press & Culture Section of the US Embassy in Bucharest, the ESSE Biennial Conference, in Aarhus, Denmark; paper presented, “Cutting the Edge of Hysterical Realism”; (on Jonathan Frazer and Zadie Smith)
2007 – March: attended, as recipient of a grant awarded by the Central European University, the one-week seminar “New Paradigms in Writing and Teaching History in Eastern-Europe after 1989”, in Budapest, Hungary;
2006 – April: attended, as recipient of a grant from the Press & Culture Section of the US Embassy in Bucharest, the EAAS Biennial Conference “Conformism, Non-conformism and Anti-conformism in the Culture of the United States”, co-convenor Workshop 2, “From the Melting Pot of Entropy to a Crack-Potting Ecriture”; in Nicosia, Cyprus;
2005 – April: attended, as recipient of a grant awarded by the British Council Seminars, “Reading Reputations’, the one-week Oxford Conference for the Teaching of Literature, in the UK;
2004 – June: attended, as recipient of a grant, the one-week East-West American Studies Conference on “Artists and Intellectuals and the Challenge of Political Commitment” at “J. W. Goethe’ University” of Frankfurt, Germany; paper presented, “Peeping Through the Iron Curtain: From Kafka to Vonnegut”;
2003
– July-August: completed a three-week research stay for my PhD, as recipient of an Intra-European grant awarded by EAAS, at the University of London, the UK;
– June-July: attended, as recipient of a grant awarded by the School of Criticism and Theory, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, the six-week course “Psychoanalysis and Literature”; in Ithaca, the USA;
– March: attended, as recipient of a grant awarded by the Central European University, the one-week seminar “Theoretical and Applied Approaches to Gender”, in Budapest, Hungary;
2001 – August: attended, as recipient of a grant from the Arvon Foundation, the one-week Creative Writing course “Starting to write”, in Totleigh Barton, the UK;
1997 – September: attended, as recipient of a grant, the one-week Salzburg Seminar Workshop on TEFL, “Neglected Genres in the Classroom: Travel Writing, Autobiography, Diaries, Detective Fiction and Science Fiction”; project developed, “On Translating Batman”, in Austria;
1995 – August: attended, as recipient of a grant, “Re-Writing History”, the two-week fourth Session of the Stuttgart Seminar in Cultural Studies, in Germany;
1993 – July: attended, as recipient of a grant, the two-week Salzburg Seminar Session 306, “Literature as a Political Force”, in Austria;
Affiliation and Membership (selective):
Editor-in-chief of The Roundtable: Partium Journal of English Studies. www.the roundtable.ro
EAAS (European Association for American Studies)
ESSE (European Society for the Study of English)
RAAS (Romanian Association for American Studies)
RSEAS (Romanian Society for English and American Studies)
Hemingway International Society
Lawrence Durrell International Society
Contact:
- e-mail: dhpopescu@partium.ro
Publications
Books (selective)
2014 – co-edited Tiberiu Ciorba: Capitol dintr-o carte pierdută/ Tiberiu Ciorba: Chapter From a Lost Book, Editura Biblioteca Revistei Familia/ Familia Publishing House, Oradea 2014, ISBN 978-973-1946-05-4, 314 p.
2011 – translated Peter Ackroyd’s The House of Doctor Dee, published in Bucharest by Corint Publishers, ISBN 978-973-102-363-2, 416 p.
2009 – translated Brian McHale’s Postmodernist Fiction, published in Bucharest by Polirom Publishers; ISBN 978-973-46-1384-7, 408 p.
2006 – authored Efectul de parabolă/The Parable Effect, published by Editura Universităţii din Oradea/ Oradea University Press; ISBN (10)973-759-137-2, 200 p.
2002 – translated Linda Hutcheon’s A Poetics of Postmodernism, published in Bucharest by Univers Publishing House; ISBN 973-34-0858-1 ; 406 p.
1999 – co-edited a bilingual anthology of Contemporary British Writers, jointly published by Familia Publishing House and Oradea University Press; ISBN 973-9401-04-X ; 141 p.
1997 – translated Batman and Robin, by Michael J. Friedman, published in Oradea by Papyrus Press; ISBN 973-97799-6-4; 256 p.
1995 – translated Poems by John Drew, published in Oradea by Familia Publishing House; ISBN 973-97448-0-X ; 63 p.
Main Articles (selective)
2013 – “It’s only a century!” introduction to and translation from M. H. Abrams’s The Mirror and the Lamp, in Transilvania 11-12/ 2013, Sibiu, ISSN 0255 0539, p. 56-63
2012
– „In Clashing Hues: Images of the Gypsies in Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor”; Annals of the University of Craiova, Series Philology – English, Year XIII, No.2, Craiova, Ed. Universitaria, ISSN 1454-4415, p. 93-102
– „Memory and Mistake”; Studia Universitatis „Petru Maior” Philologia 12, Editura Universităţii „Petru Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, 2012, ISSN 1582-9960, p. 154-163; (on Paul Bailey and Timothy Findley)
– „Amicus Batman: in the Steps of Captain Nemo”, in Meridian critic, Tom XVIII, 1/ 2012, „Literature and Technology”, ISSN 2069-6787, p. 121-134
– „On Translating Batman: from Comics to Novelization”; in Literary and Visual Dimensions of Contemporary Graphic Narratives, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia, 2012, ISBN 978-80-558-0099-8, p. 156-187
2011– „In America a Writer Is Less Than a Clown and More Than a Tramp”; Studia Universitatis „Petru Maior” Philologia 10, Editura Universităţii „Petru Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, 2011, ISSN 1582-9960, p. 222-231; (co-author; on John Steinbeck)
2010
– “Cognitive vs. Cock-nitive Mapping of London in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow”; in Studia Universitatis „Petru Maior” Philologia 9, „Petru Maior” University Press, Târgu-Mureş, 2010, ISSN 1582-9960, p. 277- 281
– translated fragments from The House of Doctor Dee, by Peter Ackroyd; with an introduction; in Tomis, March 2010, Constanţa, ISSN 12208167, p. 62-67
2009
– „The Ideolo(Ma)gical Mirror”, co-author; in Studia Universitatis „Petru Maior” Philologia 8, „Petru Maior” University Press, Târgu-Mureş, 2009, ISSN 1582-9960, p. 179-186; (co-author; on William Faulkner)
–„The Human(e) Parrot”, co-author ; in Americana, E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary, Volume V, Number 2, Fall 2009, Special Issue: Proceedings of the 2008 HAAS Conference (co-author; on Ernest Hemingway)
2007 – translated poems by Matthew Sweeney; with an introduction; in Transilvania, 6/2007, Sibiu, ISSN 0255 0539, p. 50-51
2006 – translated „Postmodern and the Past”, a fragment from Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, by Fredric Jameson; with an introduction; in Transilvania, 7/2006, Sibiu, ISSN 0255 0539, p. 31-34
2004 – „Peeping Through the Iron Curtain; From Kafka to Vonnegut”, in Artists and Intellectuals and the Challenge of Political Commitment, ZENAF CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, East-West American Studies Conference 24-27 June, 2004, Center for North American Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, p. 111-127;
2003 – „The Pudding of Déjà-vu”, lesson project; in This is the Muse speaking, don’t hang up, you are through … Creative Writing Handbook for English Teachers, ed. by British Council Slovakia, ISBN 80 – 7164 – 367 – X, p. 84-85. (co-author)
2003 – translated „Freud and the influence of psychoanalytical thought”, a fragment from Sexual Politics, by Kate Millet; with an introduction; in Familia, 3-4/2003, Oradea, I.S.S.N. 1220-3149, p. 152-159
2000 – translated a fragment from A Poetics of Postmodernism, by Linda Hutcheon; with an introduction; in Familia, 11-12/2000, Oradea, I.S.S.N. 1220-3149, p. 153-157
1997 – translated poems from „Hungarian Sonnet for An Irish Singer”, by George Szirtes; with an introduction; in Familia, 10/1997, Oradea, I.S.S.N. 1220-3149, p. 48-49
1995 – „An Odd Messiah”; in HUSSE PAPERS 1995, Szeged, 1995, ISSN 0230-2780, p. 163-165; (on Frank Herbert’s Dune)
1995 – translated fragments from „Funeral Rites”, by Seamus Heaney; with an introduction; in Familia, 10/1995, Oradea, I.S.S.N. 1220-3149, p. 89-90