6533b85dfe1ef96bd12bdbb1

RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Romanian Academic Novel and Film through the Postcommunism/Postcolonialism Lens

subject

description

The last two decades have witnessed an intensified academic interest in a potential rapprochement between Postcolonial Studies and Postcommunist Studies, the former a firmly established discipline in global academia, while the existence of the latter as a discipline in its own right is still debatable. As the possibility of this alliance is – as was to be expected – both contested and supported by various scholars, this article attempts to investigate this issue as illustrated by the postcommunist Romanian academic novel. Aware as it is of contemporary intellectual debates, the genre of the academic (or campus) novel seems particularly suitable for shedding light on the matter: academic fiction frequently engages in a more or less explicit dialogue with academic criticism. A brief overview of the main arguments against and in favor of the Postcolonialism/Postcommunism juncture will constitute the first part of the article, followed by a survey of Romanian academic novels published and films released after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Finally, the applicability of postcolonial concepts to postcommunist cultural phenomena will form the concluding argument.