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            The research project on the topic MEMORY PRACTICES IN AN INTERCULTURAL CONTEXT. STUDY CASE: THE BANAT is an interdisciplinary program, joined by specialists in the fields of cultural anthropology, comparative literature, literary theory, sociology and history. But they all share a common work practice. The methods and instruments, belonging to all the above-mentioned fields, are common to all the participants, each of them applying them to their own research segment. This work model is meant primarily to enlarge substantially the research database, as each member offers the group all the sources he has access to, with his own instruments.
            Most of the participants are celebrated specialists in their respective fields. This recognition is the result of their numerous scientific contributions, which guarantee the success of the present research project. Moreover, the researchers working in this project are not together for the first time. On the contrary, they have a vast experience of group research.


Senior Lecturer Dr. Smaranda VULTUR – project director

The Faculty of Letters, History and Theology, West University, Timisoara.
Research fields : Romanian and Comparative literature, oral history, semiotics, Poetics, Cultural anthropology.
1997-present: coordinates the Group of Oral History and Cultural Anthropology of the “Third Europe” Foundation in Timișoara.
Published work: Infinitul mărunt. De la configurația intertextuală la poetica operei (The Small Infinite. From Intertextual Configuration to the Poetics of the Literary Work) Editura "Cartea Românească", București,1992; Istorie trăită, istorie povestită. Deportarea în Bărăgan, 1951-1956 (Lived History, Retold History. The Deportation to Bărăgan, 1951-1956. Editura Amarcord, 1997, Timișoara.
Editor and coordinator of the following volumes:
Lumi în destine. Memoria generațiilor de început de secol din Banat (Worlds in Destinies. The Memory of the Generations at the beginning of the 20th
Century in Banat), Ed. Nemira, București 2000;
Germanii din Banat prin povestirile lor (The Banat Germans in their Stories), Ed. Paideia, București, 2000;
Memorie și diversitate culturală. Timișoara 1900-1945 (Memory and Cultural Diversity. Timișoara 1900-1945) (with Antonia Komlosi), bilingual album, printed with the support of the French Cultural Centre in Timișoara, Editura Polirom, Iași, 2001;
Memoria salvată. Evreii din Banat, ieri și azi (The Rescued Memory. The Banat Jews in the Past and at Present), Ed. Polirom, Iași, 2002.


Prof. Dr. Adriana BABEȚI

The Faculty of Letters, History and Theology, West University Timișoara
Research fields: Comparative literature, cultural anthropology, literary theory, cultural history (Central and South-East European Europe);
Executive manager of the “Third Europe” Foundation and the Central and South-East European Cultural Studies centre of the foundation. Visiting professor at University Paris IV Sorbonne ( 2006).
Selected published work: Bătăliile pierdute. Strategii de lectură (Lost Battles. Reading Strategies), Editura Amarcord, 1998 ; Dilemele Europei Centrale(The Dilemmas of Central Europe), Editura Mirton, Timișoara, 1998; Arahne și pânza (Arahne and the Web), Editura Universității de Vest, Timișoara, 2003; Dandysmul. O istorie (The Dandyism. A History), Editura Polirom, Iași, 2004; Europa Centrală - nevroze, dileme, utopii, (Central Europe- Neuroses, Dilemmas, Utoipias) Editura Polirom, 1997 (editor with C. Ungureanu); Europa Centrală - memorie, paradis, apocalipsă (Central Europe – Memory, Paradise, Apocalypse), Editura Polirom, 1998, 525 p. (editor with C. Ungureanu); Le Banat: Un Eldorado aux confins, ( coord.) Editions de l’Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2007;


Junior Lecturer Dr. Simona BRANC

The West University of Timisoara, Department of Teacher Training.
Research fields: Sociology, Intercultural Education, Oral History
Researcher, as part of the group of Cultural Anthropology and Oral History at the “Third Europe” Foundation in Timisoara, having participated in the following projects:
2004-2006 - City and Collective Memory in Central and South –Eastern Europe”, funded by the Volkswagen foundation, Dresda;
2004 - „Feminine Destinies: Family education, life projects and strategies of survival”, funded by the „Aspera” foundation in Brașov;
2000-2001 - „Living Together, Sharing Memory – Timișoara – Plovdiv”, funded by the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam;
1999-2000 - „Identity solidarities –value Solidarities”, funded by the Open Society Foundation;
Simona Branc has taken part in many international conferences and publications in the field of the sociology of education, interethnic relations, intercultural education.


Assistant, PhD candidate Daciana BRANEA

PhD candidate in Romanian Literature at the West University in Timisoara, with the thesis „Confessive Central-European Literature. Banat - Case Study”, coordinated by Professor Cornel Ungureanu
Research fields: Romanian Literature, Political Cultures
1998-2004 – editor-coordinator at the Polirom publishing house, Iasi
(over 100 edited titles, in Literature, Theory of Literature, Political Sciences, History, Sociology, Psychology)
2004-publishing director at the Brumar publishing house
Papers, articles:
Essays, tranlations, chronicles and book reviews in literary journals, such as Orizont, The Third Europe, The Tuesday Supplement, The Other Supplement, and also in the volumes: Michael Heim, A Happy Babel, Iasi, Polirom publishing, 2000, Adam Michnik, The Velvet Restoration, Iasi, Polirom publishing, 2002, Grotesque and Bufoonery in Bohumil Hrabal’s Works in The Third Europe journal, no. 1/1997, Iasi, Polirom publishing
Nicolae Breban and the Alteration of the Self
, in The Third Europe journal, no. 2/1998, Iasi, Polirom publishing
Foreword in the volume by
Ivan Klima, Waiting for Darkness, Waiting for Light, Bucharest, Univers publishing, 1999;


Prof. Dr. Pia BRÎNZEU

The West University of Timișoara, English Department, Vice-Rector
Research f
ields : comparative literature, semiotics, cultural anthropology, feminism.
Editor of
B.A.S. ( British and American Studies) and of Caiet de semiotică.
Publications: 4 individual books among which Corridors of Mirrors, University Press of America, 2000; 4 books in co-authorship (the fifth, Translating the Body, is forthcoming in Germany); 87 studies published in foreign and Romanian books and journals (Poetics, Degres, Zeitschrift für Semiotik, Semiotica, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, etc.).
Visiting professor at theUniversity of Urbino, 1995; University of Georgia, Athens, S.U.A., 1998; University “Rovira i Virgili “, Tarragona, Spain 2000; Viadrina University, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany, 2004; University of Szeged, 2006.


Senior Lecturer Dr. Vasile DOCEA

Faculty of Political Studies, Philosophy and Communication Sciences, West University Timisoara.
Fields of research: history, European studies, international relations
Pubished work (selection):
2000 - Relații romano-germane timpurii. Incercari si esecuri in prima jumatate a secolului XIX (Early German-Romanian Relations. Attempts and Failures in the First Half of the 19th Century), preface by Al. Zub, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Presa Universitara Clujeana, 212 p.
2003 - Relații romano-germane. Studii istorice / Deutsch-rumanische Beziehungen. Historische Studien, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Accent, 182 p. (coordinator).
2006 - Străinii de-alături. Explorări în istoria minorităților și a comunicării interculturale (The Strangers Next Door. Explorations in the History of Minorities and Intercultural Communication), Timișoara, Editura Universității de Vest, XIV+234 p.


Junior Lecturer Dr. Gabriela GLAVAN

The West University of Timișoara, the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology
Research fields: Comparative and Romanian Literature, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies
Relavant publications:
Obituary Literature in „A Treia Europă”, / The Third Europe no.5 / 2001, pp.127-   136 
Against Matter, Against Identity  in „Studies in Romanian and Comparative Literature” vol. XVIII-XIX / 2002-2003, The Publishing House of the West University, pp. 249-257
Complementary Identities in „A Treia Europă”,/ „The Third Europe”, no. 3-4 / 2000,   pp.242-243
Around an Absence. The Metamorphosis in Temptation of an Idea, Târgu Lăpuș, 2004, p. 59-66 
Participant in the CNCSIS project The Dictionary of Writers from Banat, the Publishing House of The West University in Timișoara, 2002-2006
Research contract with the Open Society Foundation, The Academic Fellowship Program, September 2004-July 2005
Course Development Competition grant, Curriculum Resource Center, Budapest, 2007-2008.


Prof. Dr. Otilia HEDEȘAN

The West University of Timișoara, the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology
Research fierlds: Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology
Relevant publications:
2000 – For a diffuse mythology, Timișoara, Marineasa, 307 p., ISBN 973-9485-88-X.
2001 – Folklore. What should we do with it?, Timisoara,West University Publishing house, 175 p., ISBN 973-85552-3-X.
2002 - Les fetes urbaines a Timisoara apres 1989: une quete identitaire, in Il bianco e il nero, Studi di filologia e di letteratura, Universita degli studi di Udine, Anno 5, n. 5, p. 27 — 37, ISSN 1127-3925
2003 – 2004 – Ignored Texts and the re-mapping of Folklore, in the Yearly of the Constantin Brăiloiu Insitute of Ethnography and Folklore, New Series, tome 14 – 15, Bucharest, Romanian Academy publishing p. 59 – 70.
2000 - Les lautari d'un village de Timoc: repertoire et style interpretatif, la 30th International Ballad Conference, Bucuresti, 15 — 20 august 2000, Bucharest, published in Ballad and the Ballad Studies at the Turn of the Century, Proceedings of the 30th International Conference of the Ballad Commission of S.I.E.F. 15 — 20 August 2000, Bucharest, Romania, p. 87 — 94;
2001 - Les fetes de la ville comme forme de quete identitaire, la colocviul Histoire et memoire en Roumanie et Bulgarie, Paris, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociale, 25 mai 2001 ;
2002 - Ljudi vuci (rumunske verzije), at the Symposium International Mitski i demonski svet, organizat de Etnografski Institut SANU (The Ethnography Institute of the Serbian Academy)— Beograd, 22 — 25 August 2002;
2004 - Le Jeudi-Saint et les feux des morts en Banat, la La spirale del tempo, Pratiche e simboli del calendario cerimoniale in Sicilia e Romania, Universita degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo – Terrasini, 6 – 8 ottobre 2004;
2005 - Des ponts vers l´au dela, Colloque bilingue interdisciplinaire / Bilingual Interdisciplinary Conference La mer, le pont , la terre: histoire(s) et Histoire de la communication / The Sea, the Bridge, the Land: (Hi)Stories of Communication, Charlottetown, Ile-du-Prince-Edouard / Prince Edward Island, Canada, 26-28 aout 2005.


Junior Lecturer Dr. Dana Andreea PERCEC

The Faculty of Letters, History and Theology, West University Timișoara
Research fields: English literature, Comparative literature, autobiographical writings.
Published work ( selection)
2001 -  Fascinația corpului degradat in Vizitatorul lui Konrád György, (The Fascination of the Degraded Body in George Konrad’s The Case Worker), in Dinamica dreptului in societatea contemporana, Augusta, Timisoara, pp.364-371
2004 - The Horror of Mimesis and the Abject Body in Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden and George Konrad’s The Case Worker, in British and American Studies, EdituraUniv. de Vest, Timisoara, pp. 7-14
2005 - Fictionalizarea memoriei: Kusniewicz si Crnjanski, (Fictionalizing Memory: Kusniewicz si Crnjanski) in Cultura si memorie in Europa Centrala, Editura Universitatii de Vest, Timisoara, pp. 5-20
2005 -La déportation des Allemands du Banat dans l’URSS. Comparaison des données historiques avec le récit de vie, (The Deportation of the Germans in Banat to the Soviet Union. A Comparison between Historical Data and the Life’s Story) in Fragilitatea spiritului, Editura Napoca Star, Cluj-Napoca, pp. 22-33
2007- De la Gargantua la Google (essays about the city of Timisoara and the Banat identity), Editura Napoca-Star, Cluj-Napoca, 188 pp.


Prof. Dr. Cornel UNGUREANU

The West University of Timișoara, the Faculty of Letters, History and Theology
Research fields: Romanian Literature
Deputy director at the Orizont journal, secretary at the Writers’ Union in Banat, President of the Writers’ Union, Timisoara branch. Coordinator of the literary and theoretical series of the “Third Europe” collection, President of the “Third Europe” Foundation in Timisoara.
Volumes (recent selections):
2004 – On the Literary Group in Sibiu, West University publishing, Timisoara
2004- Aurel Buteanu – On This Side and on the Other Side of Silence, Marineasa publishing, Timisoara
2004 – The Literary Geography of Romania, Today, volume I, Muntenia, Paralela 45 publishing, Pitesti
2005- A History of Romanian Theatre in Ardeal and Banat, Marineasa publishing, Timisoara
The Literary Geography of Romania, Today, volume IV, Banat, Paralela 45 publishing, Pitesti (in printing)
2004-2006 – Forms of the Urban Culture of Memory in Central Europe (Tmisoara- Dresda), (partnership with professor Walter Schmitz- Mitteleuropazentrum Dresda and with Professor Andrei Corbea Hoisie – Al I. Cuza University, Iasi); a program of the Wolkswagen Foundation (Germany)