CORINA CRISU
CURRICULUM VITAE
Name
Crisu (née Anghel)
First Names
Corina Ana
E-mail
e-mail: corina.crisu@btinternet.com
Posts Held
Lecturer, Faculty of Foreign Languages, The University of
Bucharest (October 1998–present)
Education
Ph.D. in Philology (American Studies), The University of
Bucharest (December 2005).
Master of Arts in Literatures in English, Faculty of Foreign
Languages, The University of Bucharest (September 1997).
Bachelor of Arts in Philology, Faculty of Foreign Languages,
The University of Bucharest: Double Major in English and
Romanian (June 1996).
Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy,
University of Bucharest: Major in Philosophy of Culture (June
1998).
International
Awards
Junior Fulbright Award, Oregon State University, Corvallis,
USA (October 2001-July 2002).
Open Society Institute Award (Soros Foundation Award),
University of Oxford, UK (October 2000-July 2001).
International Women’s University ( Ifu) Award, Project Area:
Migration, University of Hannover, Germany (15 July-15
October 2000).
List of Publications
Book
Rewriting: Polytropic Identities in the Postmodern African
American Novel. Bucharest: Paideia, 2006.
Articles in Books
“Inter-War Variations: Urbanism as a Way of Life in Christian
Haller’s Swallowed Music.” (forthcoming) Outline of the
Modern City: Images, Formats, Styles. Eds. Mariana Net, Sorin
Alexandrescu, and Asunción López-Valera. Amsterdam and
New York: Rodopi, 2011 (15 pp.).
“British Geographies in the Eastern European Mind: Rose
Tremain’s The Road Home.” Facing the East in the West:
Images of Eastern Europe in British Literature, Film and
Culture. Eds. Barbara Korte, Ulrike Pirker, and Sissy
Helff. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2010. 365-79.
“Bosnian Ways of Being American: Aleksandar
Hemon’s Nowhere Man.” When the World Turned UpsideDown: Cultural Representations of Post-1989 Eastern
Europe. European Journal of English Studies (EJES). Ed.
Kathleen Stark. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 24-35.
“Crossing Territorial and Biographical Boundaries: Eva
Hoffman’s Lost in Translation and Irina Pană’s Melbourne
Sundays.” Women’s Voices in Post-Communist Eastern Europe,
Ed. Sabina Draga Alexandru. Bucharest: University of
Bucharest Publishing House, 2006. 117-32.
“Reconfiguring Female Characters of the American West:
Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.” Selected Proceedings of
the First World Congress of the International American Studies
Association. Eds. Theo D’Haen, Paul Giles, Djelal Kadir, and
Lois Parkinson Zamora. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi,
2005. 415-440.
“‘A Plunge into the Abyss:’ Textual Authority in Harriet
Jacobs’s Incidents.” Our America: People, Places, Times.
Eds. Rodica Mihăilă and Irina Pană. Bucharest: Univers
Enciclopedic, 2005. 220-232.
“Eva Hoffman’s Translated Identity.” East-West American
Studies Conference: Communism, Capitalism, and the Politics
of Culture. Center for North American Studies.
Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, 2004. 203-16.
“Eastern European Writers in Exile.” Central European
University Reader, Budapest, 2000. 13-26.
“Margaret Atwood’s Versions of the Past.” Ecrits sur
l’avantgarde. Bacau: Vinea, 2000. 65-67.
Articles in Refereed
Journals
“Transgressing Eastern and Western Borders: Domnica
Radulescu’s Train to Trieste.” (forthcoming) Women: A
Cultural Review EJES. Routledge, 2011 (15 pp.).
“Cultural and Theoretical Contexts: Rewriting, Revision, and
Black Postmodernism.” (forthcoming) Euresis, University of
Bucharest Press, 2011 (12 pp.).
“Stowe and Brown Revisited: Fiction-Made Characters in
Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada.” ZAA 58.2 (2010): 103-18.
“Transatlantic Forms of Lived Religion: Anthony
Bukoski’s Polonaise.” The Glass 21 (Spring 2009): 20-27.
“‘A Cultural Mongrel:’ Transatlantic Connections in Charles
Johnson’s Middle Passage.” Comparative American Studies. An
International Journal 6.3 (2008): 265-80.
“‘Tell Nannan I Walked:’ Reconstructing Manhood in Ernest J.
Gaines’s A Lesson before Dying.” ZAA 2 (2007): 155-172.
“‘Speak up, Ike, an ‘Spress Yo’se‘f:’ Sentimental Romance
Revisited in Ntozake Shange’s Betsey Brown.” Americana – A
Hungarian E-Journal of American Studies. http://primus.arts.uszeged.hu/american/americana/volIIno1.htm, 2.1 (Spring 2006).
“African American Postmodernism.” University of Bucharest
Review: A Matter of Taste 7.3 (2006): 145-51.
“‘The Quilt as Text, the Text as Quilt.” (Co-authorship with
Jennifer MacArthur). Analele Științifice ale Universității
Ovidius. Constanţa, TOM XVII (2006): 25-39.
“From Stereotypical to Polytropic Black Identities: Excavating
Literature and History.” The Journal of Semiotics 16 (2005): 918.
“I’ve Always Been a Good Girl: (Re)Writing the Body-Text in
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.” University of Bucharest
Review 6.4 (2004): 55-65.
“Trauma and Memory in the American West.” University of
Bucharest Review: Sites of Memory 5.4 (2003): 168-80.
“Re-Visions of the Unspeakable: Toni Morrison’s Beloved.”
Revista Româno-Americană 7-8 (December 2003): 146-52.
“Racial Self-Loathing in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.”
Conference Proceedings, The National Conference on English
and American Studies. University of Brasov, 2003. 9-18.
“Romanian Writers in Exile.” Genre, Long Beach, California,
23 (2002): 128-40.
“The Difficulty of Returning in Kurt Vonnegut’s
Slaughterhouse Five.” University of Bucharest Review (2002):
212-22.
“Emily Dickinson’s Voyages, against Eternity.” Analele
Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii Ovidius/Scientific Annals of Ovidius
University, Philology Series, Vol. XII, Constanta: Ovidius
University Press, 2001. 5–17.
“Polytropic Identities in Woolf’s The Years and Morrison’s The
Bluest Eye.” A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies,
University of Bucharest 3.12 (2001): 62-72.
“Imaginary Voyages: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.”
Journal of Indo-Canadian Studies, Kerala, India, (October
2001): 15-31.
“Emily Dickinson’s Seclusion.” Entre Lineas. Revista de
Critica Literaria, Sevilla, 1 (June 2001): 44-49.
“Emily Dickinson: An Exile at Home.” Anglofiles Journal of
English Teaching, The Danish Association of Teachers of
English, Denmark, 120 (May 2001): 40-46.
Emily Dickinson’s Voyages toward Escape.” Studii de Limbi si
Literaturi Moderne/Studies of Modern Languages and
Literatures. Timisoara: Mirton, 2000. 244-47.
“Voyages and Places of Return in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.”
Transatlantic Connections: Essays in Cultural Relocation. Eds.
Rodica Mihăilă and Irina Pană. Bucharest: Integral Publishing
House, 2000. 61-78.
“David Malouf’s and Michel Tournier’s Sub-Versions of Exile.”
British and American Studies. Timisoara: Hestia, 2000. 9-13.
“Patrick White’s Voss – A Polytropic Hero.” University of
Bucharest Review (1999): 123-33.
“(Post-)Modern Voyages in the Desert.” Kronstadter Beitrage
Zur Germanistischen Forschung. Kronstadt: Aidus Verlag,
1999. 206-11.
“Emily Dickinson’s Second World: Metamorphoses of the
Self.” Alternative Approaches to English Language Cultures in
the Nineteenth Century. Kossuth University, Debrecen, 1999.
41-49.
Essays and Reviews
in Non-Refereed
Journals
and Annuals
“A Self-Portrait Book.” Apostrof 8 (2010): 20.
“Conjugating the Present in the Past.” Observator Cultural 450
(2008): 12.
“A Book, a Self-Portrait: Marina Cap-Bun’s Lecturi Critice.” Ex
Ponto 1-2 (January-March 2004): 101-5.
“Under the Sign of Close Distance: Ioana Ieronim’s Poetry.”
Steaua 1-2 (2004): 53-4.
“Corvallis.” To See the World as the Others See It: American
and Romanian Alumni Share Their Fulbright Impressions. Eds.
Liliana Ursu, Ioana Ieronim, and Archbishop Chrysostomos.
Bucharest: Vremea, 2003, 19-21.
“Intimating Immensity: Reflections on America.” Revista
Romano-Americana 5 (July 2002): 55-58.
“Oregon State University.” Revista Romano-Americana 4
(December 2001): 106-7.
“Polytropic Identities.” American Studies in Romania 2 (2001):
10.
“Eternal Return – Essay on Cornelia Pillat’s Memoir.”
Contrapunct 5 (1997): 21.
Research Activity

Main professional research and publication areas:
Main directions in the Twentieth-Century American and
Comparative literature
Transatlantic perspectives and transnational identity
constructions; the case of Eastern Europe in contemporary
American fiction.
Contemporary cultural criticism: trauma studies, feminism,
post-communist studies, post-colonial studies, translation
studies.

Research in the field of American Studies:
Ph.D. thesis: Rewriting: Polytropic Identities in the Postmodern
African American Novel (defended December 2005, published
April 2006).
Articles, conference papers, reviews on American and
comparative literature.
Joint Projects,
Training Workshops
and Summer
Schools
Transnational Feminisms Project, University of Manchester,
fully-funded participant, project: “Transgressing Eastern and
Western Borders: Romanian American Identity in Recent
American Fiction (4-6 December 2009).
US Embassy Award for Creative Writing Project, Embassy
of the US, Bucharest (8 March 2005).
Elias Foundation Reasearch Scholarship, University of
Leiden (May 2003).
American Values and Identity in a Time of National Trial,
Fulbright Alumni Workshop, fully-funded participant in
Fulbright Foreign Student Program, sponsored by the US
Department of State, Los Angeles, USA (7-10 March 2002).
Regional Seminar on Gender and Culture: Women’s Writing
and Literary History – sponsored by Open Society Institute and
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary (four sessions:
29-31 October 1999, 10-12 March 2000, 10-12 June 2000, and
10-12 October 2000); “Eastern European Writers in Exile” –
talk on March 11, 2000.
Scottish Universities Summer School: “Text and Context:
Literature in the 20th Century Britain,” sponsored by The Elias
Foundations, Edinburgh, UK (2-20 August 1999).
British-Romanian Contemporary Writing Symposium,
sponsored by the British Council, Oradea, Romania (22-25
April 1999).
English for Specific Purposes – Training Workshop,
sponsored by the British Council, Bucharest, Romania (17-19
February 1999).
A Literary Project, sponsored by the British Council, Iasi,
Romania (4-6 December 1998).
Literature for University: Summer School, joint academic
project, sponsored by University of Iasi and University of
Oxford Brooks, Iasi, Romania (14-25 September 1998).
Modernity and its Crises Summer School, Open Society
Institute Award, Tescani, Romania (15-31 August 1998).
Papers Presented at
International
Conferences
“Transgressing Racial Borders through Self-Sacrifice: Ernest
Gaines’s A Lesson before Dying.” The Carnival of
Death: Perceptions of Death in Europe and the
Americas Conference, The Institute of Germanic and Romance
Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2426 February 2011.
“An Interstice of Silence: Narrating Rape in Oates’s “The Girl
with the Blackened Eye” and Sebold’s The Lovely
Bones.” Trauma Narratives and Herstory Conference,
University of Northampton, 12-13 November 2010.
“Postcolonialism and Postcommunism: Eastern European
Writers with an American Accent.” Reading
Conflict Conference. The Institute of English Studies,
University of London, 19 July 2010.
“Neither a Fully-Written Text, Nor a Blank Page: Eastern
European London in Rose Tremain’s The Road Home.” Literary
London Conference, The Institute of English Studies, University
of London, 7-9 July 2010.
“Mediating between Cultures: Plurilingual Eastern European
Writers in the USA” Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education:
Focus on Languages of the Wider World Conference. SOASUCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, London,
19-20 February 2010.
“Transgressing Eastern and Western Borders: Domnica
Radulescu’s Train to Trieste.” Transnational
Feminisms Conference, University of Manchester, 4-5
December 2009.
“Transatlantic Forms of Lived Religion: Anthony
Bukoski’s Polonaise.” CLSG Conference, Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, UK, 8 November 2008.
“Bosnian Ways of Being American: Aleksandar
Hemon’s Nowhere Man.” British Association for American
Studies (BAAS) 53rd Annual Conference, Edinburgh, 27-30
March 2008.
“Racial Presence/Visibility vs. Absence/Invisibility in
Contemporary African American Fiction” The Idea of
Presence Conference, University of Bucharest, Romania, 30
November-1 December 2007.
“Remembering Romania in Switzerland, France in Russia.” The
Fifth International Congress on Romanian Studies. Constanta,
Romania, 25-28 July 2007.
“Rewriting in the African American Postmodern
Novel.” Annual Conference of the Department of English,
University of Bucharest, Romania, 31 May-2 June 2007.
“From Stereotypical to Polytropic Black Identities: Excavating
Literature and History.” Legitimating Cultures, Cultures of
Legitimacy - Conference, University of Bucharest, Romania, 2325 November 2006.
“‘The Writer-Collector as Fetish-Breaker:’ Parodying
Stereotypes in Ishmael Reed’s Flight to Canada.” The
European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) Conference,
Institute of English Studies & University of London, UK, 29
August-2 September 2006.
“Rewriting, Revision, and Black Postmodernism.” Annual
Conference of the Department of English, University of
Bucharest, Romania, 2-4 June 2005.
“The Greatest of Fictions: Racial Rewriting in Charles
Johnson’s Middle Passage.” Postgraduate Conference The
Politics and Aesthetics of Postcolonialism. University of
Northampton, 9-10 April 2005.
“‘Show Me How to Do It:’ Textual Quilting in the African
American Tradition.” (Co-authorship with Jennifer MacArthur).
English Language and Literature Studies: Interfaces and
Integrations Conference. University of Belgrade, Serbia, 10-12
December 2004.
“Sentimental Romance Revisited in Ntozake Shange’s Betsey
Brown.” The Bulgarian-American Studies Association
Conference, Varna, Bulgaria, 22-24 October 2004.
“I’ve Always Been a Good Girl: (Re)Writing the Body-Text in
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.” Annual Conference of the
Department of English, University of Bucharest, Romania, 3-5
June 2004.
“Jacobs’s Garret: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” The
RAAS/Fulbright Conference, Bucharest, Romania, 5-6 February
2004.
“From East to West: Translating the Writer’s Identity.” EastWest American Studies Conference; Communism, Capitalism
and the Politics of Culture. Center for North American
Research, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2629 June 2003.
“Trauma and Memory in the American West.” Annual
Conference of the Department of English, University of
Bucharest, Romania, 5-7 June 2003.
“Reconfiguring Female Characters of the American West:
Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.” International American
Studies Association Conference: How Far Is America from
Here? First World Congress, Leiden, The Netherlands, 22-24
May 2003.
“Racial Self-Loathing in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.”
Annual Conference of the Department of English, University of
Brasov, Romania, 20-21 March 2003.
“Polytropy and Deconstruction.” Postmodern De/Constructions
Conference, University of Erlangen, Germany, 22-24 November
2002.
“Kurt Vonnegut’s Return in Slaughterhouse-Five.” American
Studies Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, 23 May 2002.
“‘Claiming Ownership of That Freed Self:’ Remembering the
Unspeakable in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Graduate Student
Conference, Department of Comparative Literature, New York
University, USA, 26-27 April 2002.
“Crossing Territorial and Biographical Boundaries in Eva
Hoffman’s Lost in Translation and Irina Pana’s Melbourne
Sundays.” Graduate Student Conference. Oregon State
University, USA, 10 April 2002.
"Polytropic Identities in Woolf’s The Years and Morrison’s The
Bluest Eye.” Conference on Virginia Woolf: Voyages Out,
Voyages Home, University of Bangor, Wales, 13-16 June 2001.
“(De/Re)Constructing Concepts.” The 16th Oxford Conference
on Teaching Literature Overseas: Firing the Canon, Oxford, 1-7
April 2001.
“Women Invested with Power in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” The
European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) Conference,
University of Helsinki, 25-29 August 2000.
“Emily Dickinson’s Voyages and Places of Return.” Annual
Conference of the Department of English, University of
Bucharest, Romania, 1-3 June 2000.
“Dickinson’s Imaginary Travels in Search for Escape.” Annual
Conference of the Department of English, University of
Timisoara, Romania, 18-20 May 2000.
“Emily Dickinson’s Voyages by Sea, against Eternity.” Annual
Conference, University of Constanta, Romania, 14-17 March
2000.
“The Polytropic Narrator in Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos.” The
RAAS/Fulbright Conference, The Romanian-American
Dialogue: Theory and Practice, Bucharest, Romania, 10-11
February 2000.
“Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing.” Annual Conference of the
Department of English, University of Bucharest, Romania, 4-5
June 1999.
“David Malouf’s and Michel Tournier’s Sub-versions of Exile.”
Annual Conference of the Department of English, University of
Timisoara, Romania, 20-22 May 1999.
“Emily Dickinson’s Second World: Metamorphoses of the
Self.” Annual Conference of the Department of English,
Kossuth University, Debrecen, Hungary, 4-5 September 1998.
“Translating the Other: Polytropic Identities in Voss by Patrick
White.” Annual Conference of the Department of English,
University of Bucharest, Romania, 5-6 June 1998.
“Reworking Identities in the Postmodern Desert.” Annual
Conference of the Department of English, University of
Timisoara, Romania, 21-23 May 1998.
“(Post)modern Deserts in Australian and Canadian Novels.”
Annual Conference of the Department of English, University of
Brasov, Romania, 24-26 April 1998.
Invited Talks,
Roundtable
discussions,
TV/Radio talkshows
Cogito Ergo Sum TV Program, Spiru Haret University,
Bucharest, Romania (July 2009).
EDUexplorer, Radio Romania Cultural, Bucharest, Romania
(July 2007).
Espresso, Radio Romania Cultural, Bucharest, Romania (July
2006).
Poetry and Music, Radio Romania Cultural, Bucharest,
Romania (February 2005).
Invited Talk: “African American Writing and Quilting,” The
American Cultural Center, Bucharest, Romania (March 2005).
The Garden of Ideas, Radio Romania Cultural, Bucharest,
Romania (January 2004).
Poetry and Voyage, Radio Romania Cultural, Bucharest,
Romania (May 2003).
Magister Marconi, Radio Romania Cultural, Bucharest,
Romania (February 2003).
Moderator, Open Society Institute Scholars' Conference,
University of York (19-22 March 2001).
Professional
Affiliation
BAAS – British Association for American Studies (2008 –
present)
RAAS – Romanian Association for American Studies (2000 –
2008)
FULBRIGHT ASSOCIATION (2001 – present)
CITIC – The Centre for Translating and Interpreting the
Contemporary Text (2006 – present)