Iasi, May 8-9, 2025
A Hybrid Conference
In the hallowed halls of the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi and also in a hybrid format, scholars from all over Romania, as well as abroad, gathered to mark a momentous occasion: the centennial celebration of the founding of the English Department (one of the many of the Faculty of Letters). The conference, aptly titled Facing Ideology and its Discontents, provided a fertile ground for intellectual discourse, drawing attention to the ever-evolving landscape of ideologies that shape our world through various mechanisms of our language(s).
The centenary celebration was opened by Dr. Dana Bădulescu (Head of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures) and featured speeches by Dr. Nicoleta Laura Popa (Vice-Rector of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași), Dr. Oana Cogeanu-Haraga (Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Letters), and Dr. Codrin Liviu Cuțitaru (Member of the Scientific Committee).
The Conference opened each day with a plenary session featuring keynote speakers from Romania and abroad.
The first plenary session of the day set the scene with a full-scale reassessment of Shakespearean criticism under the sway of 20th- and 21st-century critical theory. Dr. Adrian Papahagi (Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj) gave the keynote address The English Bard and French Theory, questioning the ideological assumptions underlying the marginalization of traditional aesthetic approaches. His address drew attention to the need to reclaim literary value without renouncing complexity. “The literary canon,” he argued, “has become hostage to a school of resentment, in which Shakespeare is no longer read as a great artist but deconstructed as a white, male, imperialist ideologue.” He noted that “we are witnessing the transformation of literature departments into ideology departments,” warning against what he called the “totalitarian temptation” of contemporary theory, where every text must be reduced to its complicity in structures of oppression. “Shakespeare’s greatness is no longer measured by the universality of his insight or the beauty of his language, but by his potential to serve an agenda – feminist, postcolonial, queer, or ecological. And if he resists, he is condemned.” Invoking the clash between authors who write in a symbolic paradigm and scholarship which reads them in a materialistic, realistic, ideological paradigm, Dr. Papahagi questioned whether we have not, in the name of progress, replaced the complexity of literary engagement with a checklist of ideological grievances.
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Entitled Language Spread and Language Competition in the 21st Century: The Digital Factor, the next keynote address was delivered online by Dr. Christian Mair (University of Freiburg), who explored the role of English as a global linguistic force within the contemporary digital ecosystem. Grounded in sociolinguistic theory and supported by compelling empirical evidence, Dr. Mair examined how digital infrastructures – from search engines to large language models – reinforce the centrality of Standard American English, often at the expense of other codified or emerging varieties. In a particularly revealing example, Dr. Mair demonstrated how British English spellings are routinely corrected or penalized by AI platforms, while varieties such as Nigerian Pidgin gain prominence via the sheer demographic momentum of social media. This dual dynamic – simultaneous standardisation and diversification – is, by Dr. Mair’s admission – at the heart of a new linguistic paradox. This has serious implications not only for languages like French or German, but for Romanian as well. Romanian, he noted, is a “central language” – fully institutionalized within national borders, but still fighting for space in the global digital sphere. And the question, he insisted, is not abstract: “Does the language have corpus linguistic infrastructure? Are there enough digitized data preserving the linguistic heritage of Romanian? Are there enough linguistic corpora enabling the study of the history and the present diversity of Romanian in Romania, among Romanians in the global diaspora, among Romanians as minority speakers elsewhere?” The answer, Dr. Mair suggested, is still in progress – and that is what academics can work on.
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The rest of the day unfolded in parallel panel streams that reflected the intellectual diversity of the department’s legacy and its evolving scholarly concerns. Thus, the event was not merely a commemoration of the past but a vibrant engagement with present-day challenges. Against the backdrop of a century of academic excellence, the conference delved into pressing global issues. Themes of ideology, feminist perspectives, language and translation, poetry, myth and fantasy, as well as society and language were at the fore, reflecting the Department's long-standing tradition of rigorous scholarship and its commitment to addressing contemporary concerns and attempting to start a fruitful dialogue.
One of the topics was the exploration of feminist themes, analyzing the intersection of gender and ideology. Discussions illuminated how feminist theory redefined literary criticism, opening new avenues for understanding texts. The conference highlighted the importance of poetry across various genres and contexts, focusing on works that challenge norms and ideological boundaries. The tandem of language and translation was also discussed, with scholars focusing on familiar expressions, neurodivergence, and biblical idioms. The Flowers and Flappers panel, in celebration of 100 years since the publication of two key-novels of modernism (Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and F. Scott Firzgerald’s The Great Gatsby) on either side of the Atlantic, provided further insight into modernist experimentation and gendered literary spaces.
The day ended with a guided tour of Iași, courtesy of Dr. Bulai, in an attempt to situate the scholarly dialogue within the layered history of a city that has shaped, hosted, and supported English studies for a century. After the tour, the conference dinner offered an opportunity for attendees to reconnect with old and new friends, as well as with faculty members.
May 9th, the second day, started off strong with a plenary session titled Where is the Light? English and North American Studies in Times of Hybrid Wars, a stirring talk by Dr. Wolfgang Hochbruck (University of Freiburg), who covered the intersection of academia, politics, and contemporary issues, emphasizing the role of scholars in addressing hybrid warfare, climate crises, and cultural conflicts, while advocating for a collaborative approach to teaching and public service. Moreover, touching upon the current political and economic climate, he stated that the current geopolitical landscape reflects a dangerous hybrid war scenario, marked by authoritarian regimes and unstable alliances, therefore scholars must assess their roles amidst this evolving conflict to contribute meaningfully to its assessment and analysis. Referencing British-American writer and political pamphleteer Thomas Paine’s concept of common sense, which emphasizes forming a collective to establish a government, dr. Hochbruck talked about how this approach encourages moderated agreements based on mutual aid and trust among participants. The scholar concluded by highlighting the fact that education should focus on fostering trust and cooperation among individuals to address global issues like climate change and social divisions.
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The second plenary session saw Dr. Patty Seyburn, professor at California State University, former Fulbright scholar at AICU and poet, and Dr. Edward Hirsch, poet, former academic at Wayne State University and the University of Houston and president of the Guggenheim Foundation, who was a guest of the FILIT Festival in 2014, engage in an online dialogue on the importance of memorizing poetry, the evolution of the literary canon, and the exclusion of certain poets, particularly women, from mainstream recognition. They explored how emotional intensity and societal context influence poetry, while highlighting the significance of lesser-known poets and the complexities of translating poetry across cultures. The matter of the challenges of translating poetry across languages and how they can lead to significant differences in understanding the original work was also among the topics discussed; some poets resonate well in translation, while others lose their essence and depth. Toward the end, the discussion highlighted the contrasting approaches of poets towards madness and emotion, focusing particularly upon the tension between rationalist/cerebral poets and romantic poets, while also emphasizing the significance of emotional intensity in poetry, especially in the context of cultural differences. In response to one of the questions from the attending public, Dr. Hirsch accounted for duende, a concept in Andalusian folklore translated by the Spanish poet Fererico Garcia Lorca into an exceptionally intriguing aesthetic concept.
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The academic sessions of the second day extended the discursive terrain of the conference, traversing and calling into question paradigm shifts in English Language Teaching, neuroeducation, ideological critique, adaptation studies, feminist hermeneutics, and corpus-based discourse analysis. Unfolding across interrelated sessions, the panels operated in tandem to probe the role of literature and language in shaping – as well as resisting – dominant cultural paradigms. Questions of neutrality, cultural transfer, and ideological encoding emerged repeatedly: from Shakespearean tragedy and literary biofiction, to the feminization of the Western, from modulations of negation to geocriticism and the teaching of English syntax in Romanian classrooms. The common denominator of such diverse interventions was the attentiveness to the mechanics of form, the ethics of representation, and the epistemological tensions between text and world. A lively exchange of ideas followed each panel, sometimes extending beyond the time allotted.
Overall, continuing a century-long tradition created by former heads and members of the Department, the conference was a testament to its enduring legacy, celebrating its history while boldly confronting the eternal discontents of contemporary ideologies. It was more than a milestone; it was a beacon of scholarly inquiry, a window into our hopes and dreams as scholars and teachers, into the limits and endless possibilities of English, honoring the past and paving the way for future intellectual endeavors. As the English Department of Iasi marches into its next century, the insights and dialogues from this conference will undoubtedly continue to resonate within the academic community and beyond, challenging us to return to its overarching topic with a renewed sense of its relevance, its vitality, and its pleasure.
Written by Dr. Alexandra Vrînceanu and Dr. Mădălina Mandici
For further details about the conference, click here.
