A Transnational History of Romanian Literature

Demographic trends and the epistemic mutations of the past decades have led to numerous critiques of the nationalist-organicist model of literary history.

Furthermore, the ethnic status of the individuals identifying as Romanians has become increasingly complex upon increased migration and the emergence of a new state where they amount to an important share of the total population (Moldova).Consequently, a series of questions are yet to be properly explored and answered: How could and should a transnational history of “national” literatures be written in a post-national age?

How can we avoid the methodological protectionism typical of “smaller” cultures against the resurgence of nationalist/populist sentiments?

How can we steer clear of narrow nationalism without falling into neoliberal traps and embracing uncritically the theory of free-floating cosmopolitanism?

How should a history of Romanian literature look like in the age of globalization?The working hypothesis of TRANSHIROL – and one of its ground-breaking elements – is that a “national” literature should not be regarded mainly as a system (even if it has systemic properties), but rather as a network defined by the transnational communities into which it is integrated depending on its geopolitical situation.

Throughout our project, this hypothesis will be operationalized via two sets of innovative instruments: the dichotomy between cultural matrix and cultural model, and a fourfold taxonomy of literary operators (institutional/paradigmatic/connective/imaginary).By combining systematic theorizing with historical scholarship and close reading with distant reading, TRANSHIROL sets out to chart the over five-century-long history of Romanian literature and the progressive evolution of its network toward planetary proportions, since a transnational history of Romanian literature strives to ultimately become a history of world literature written from a Romanian perspective.