Ruxandra-Mihaela Cesereanu or Ruxandra-Mihaela Braga (born August 17, 1963) is a Romanian poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and literary critic. Also known as a journalist, academic, literary historian and film critic, Cesereanu holds a teaching position at the Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB), and is an editor for the magazine Steaua in Cluj-Napoca.
The author of several proses and poetry volumes, Cesereanu became noted for her lyrical depictions of femininity and eroticism, many of which attracted critical acclaim in her native country. They are believed by several commentators to have been influenced by Surrealism and its Romanian successor, Onirism, and seen as examples of Postmodernism, while Cesereanu herself identified some of her writings with psychedelic experience and with the coined term delirionism. She is also noted for collaborating with Romanian-born American poet Andrei Codrescu on two poems, both of which were completed through e-mail exchanges.
Several of Cesereanu's studies deal with the impact of the communist regime on Romanian culture and society, and in particular with the history of repression and penal labor. She has also contributed essays and coordinated research on various aspects of Romania's post-communist history, as well as on the history of journalism in her country.
Biography Born in Cluj, Ruxandra Cesereanu is the daughter of writer Domețian Teodoziu Cesereanu and his wife Aurora, a teacher. She graduated from the Natural Sciences High School (now the Onisifor Ghibu High School), and studied Philology at the UBB's Romanian-Spanish Department, graduating in 1985. Curriculum Vitae, downloadable at the Babeș-Bolyai University Faculty of Letters site; retrieved March 31, 2008 She received her graduation diploma with a thesis on the work of poet Mihai Eminescu (Moartea, visual și somnul în opera lui Eminescu, or "Death, Dreaming and Sleep in the Work of Mihai Eminescu").
After being assigned a teaching position in 1988, she taught Romanian language and literature at educational institutions in Năsăud, Bistrița, and Avrig. In 1989, the year when the communist regime was toppled by the Romanian Revolution, Cesereanu was working in Cluj-Napoca, where she was an editor for the Film Distribution Section of Transylvania. In 1990, she became an editor for the film and movie magazine Ecran, before joining Steauas staff the following year. She also worked as a journalist for Ziarul de Cluj in 1998.
In 1994, Cesereanu began teaching at the UBB's Faculty of Letters, and moved on to the Faculty of Political Sciences' Journalism Department in 2000. She was the recipient of several scholarships: in 1992, the Central European University granted her a one-year study course in Prague, and in 1995 she received a similar grant from the Soros Foundation.
After receiving a PhD in 1997, with a thesis on the impact of communist persecution on Romanian culture (Infernul concentraționar reflectat în conștiinţa românească, "The Inferno of the Prison System as Reflected in the Romanian Consciousness"), Cesereanu was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to the United States, affiliating with Columbia University's Harriman Institute in New York City (1999–2000). She then received a four-month research grant in France, followed by two creativity grants in, respectively, Rhodes and Arles. She became a Lecturer (2002) and then a Prelector (2003) for the UBB's Journalism Department.
Cesereanu is a member of the Writers' Union of Romania since 1994, and of the Romanian PEN Club since 2001. She is also a member of the UBB's Center for Imagination Studies and of the Echinox Cultural Foundation. In addition to her work as a writer and commentator, Cesereanu has also produced a short documentary film for the Cluj-Napoca branch of the national television channel (Treisprezece biserici, "Thirteen Churches", 1998), and a four-episode talk show series on cultural issues, aired by the same station during 2000. Cesereanu also organized two cultural events in her native city: a poetry symposium in 1998 and an art exhibit in 1999. The Cluj-Napoca Writers' Association granted her its Poetry Award on two separate occasions (1994, 2005), and its Essay Award in 1998 and 2001. She is a recipient of Apostrof magazine's Ion Negoițescu Award in the Essay category (1998), and received the Lions Club Prose Prize in 2005.
In addition to her contributions to Steaua, Apostrof, and Ziarul de Cluj, Cesereanu had her articles hosted by publications such as Cuvântul, Tribuna, Familia, Revista 22, Vatra, România Literară, Observator Cultural, Convorbiri Literare, Romanian Review, Orizont, Memoria and Echinox, as well as in Columbia University's Intermarium and the Moldovan literary magazine Contrafort.
Ruxandra Cesereanu is married to Corin Braga, the dean of UBB's Faculty of Letters since 2008. She signs her works with her maiden name.
Literary contributions
Poetry and prose of fiction Cesereanu has a large number of contributions to literature, which, according to literary critic Paul Cernat, makes her "one of the most creative literary women in post-revolutionary Romania". Paul Cernat, "Cu colacul, pe marea de fantasme", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 283, August 2005 Much of her early work, Cernat argues, is characterized by "mannerism", related to Onirism and using psychoanalytic techniques. The links with Onirism and Surrealism have also been noted by critic Matei Călinescu, who also noted that Cesereanu took inspiration from the tradition of fairy tales and legends, in particular in pieces where she reinterprets Arthurian legends and retells the mythical search for the Holy Grail. Cesereanu's collaborator and literary historian describes her prose as "postmodern", Răzvan Brăileanu, "Românii și imaginarul violent", in Revista 22, Nr. 746, June 2004 while historian and civil society activist calls her "the most original, but also the most paradoxical writer from Cluj-Napoca". , "Românul violent", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 195, November 2003
Cesereanu's early poems, grouped in the volumes Grădina deliciilor ("Garden of Delights") and Oceanul Schizoidian ("The Schizoid Ocean"), both noted for their interrogative and occasionally violent stances, have been defined by the author herself as "extremely attached to a culture of corporality", depicting "battles with myself, with Death, with love, with God." Angela Furtună, "Ruxandra Cesereanu: 'Ce anume trebuie păstrat în memorie? Totul: istoria, victimele, călăii' " at the LiterNet Publishing House, September 10, 2004 The poetry volume Femeia-cruciat ("The Woman-Crusader") was imagined by the author as a dialog between the several aspects of femininity and four men, each standing for one of the main images of the male: "Magister (her master), the Brother, the Lover and Christ." The book also depicts women through "a series of portraits", comprising "the neurotic little girl, the femme fatale, the crusader, the schizophreniac woman, the mystic, the profligate woman etc." This focus on female passion, which she noted was akin to an act of "exorcism", is also present in the "letters of a courtesan" series of poems she published under the title Veneția cu vene violete ("Venice with Violet Veins").
In 2002, Cesereanu published the novel Tricephalos (or "Trikephalos"). She speaks of it as: "A book of initiation into an eroticism that is at once spectacular and abysmal, but also into the emptiness of this world. A book that has fulfilled me as both a writer and a woman." Cernat defines the volume as "the inkhorn myth-making of the eros and of traveling [which] relishes into an extravagant spectacle of female stances". Literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu describes it as "imbued in sexuality", and notes that some have even compared it to Emmanuelle, a French softcore film.
Three years after Tricephalos, Cesereanu published Nebulon, a collection of short stories. The eponymous micro-novel Nebulon, based on the Arthurian legend, is one of many cultural references in the book: the other stories reference a wide range of cultural symbols, featuring, among other things, the imaginary symposium of Balkan and Mediterranean nations, an account involving the metamorphosis of a virgin fisherman in Tunisia, a memoir of the author's own love for the British rock band Pink Floyd, and recollections from her childhood. Cesereanu's other Partly expanding on her earlier themes, the pieces were defined by Cernat as "exercises in virtuosity", and noted for their "imaginative exuberance". However, the critic objected to their "inkhorn" and "didactic" aspects, raising concern that the author's tendency to "reveal the conventions of her own narratives" echoed "pedantry".
Early in the 2000s, Ruxandra Cesereanu took a more experimental approach to poetry, theorizing a style for which she coined the term delirionism (from "delirium"). According to her own definition, it implies "the transposition of a semi-psychedelic trance into poetry"."Submarinul iertat", in România Liberă, June 2, 2007 She then publicized a Delirionist Manifesto, which was notably read by Romanian American writer Andrei Codrescu. According to Cesereanu, Codrescu welcomed the new trend, and identified himself as a delirionist.
In June 2007, Cesereanu and Codrescu published a lengthy experimental poem they authored together, which was completed through the means of e-mail exchanges. Titled Submarinul iertat ("The Forgiven Submarine"), it is structured as a set of poetry lessons, handed down by a beatnik poet and woman pianist to a submarine. Codrescu, who noted that he and his collaborator on the poem only met once in person by the time they started work, described the piece as "the complete story of a difficult love", commented on the writing process: "I was a sleepwalker and an obsessive person. I wrote like a madman and expected immediate replies from Ruxandra, and if the answer did not come on time, I went into hysteric fits like a girl would."
Cesereanu noted that, although begun as a game, the writing drew praise from the influential Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu, who recommended it for publishing. It was issued in a luxury edition of 150 copies, bound in velvet and illustrated with works by the Cluj-Napoca-based artist Radu Chio. The two authors wrote a second collaborative poem, Ospățul alchimic ("The Alchemic Feast"), originally published on Cesereanu's blog and later printed by the magazine România Literară.
Literary and historical essays Cesereanu dedicated part of her work to researching the impact of communist-organized state persecution, and to the historical investigation of political imprisonments during the 1950s and 60s, as set in place by the communist secret police, the Securitate. , who referred to Cesereanu as one in a "Cluj-Napocan, Transylvanian 'trident' " of essayists, alongside Marta Petreu and , indicated she was "one of the most industrious literary historians, analysts of mentalities, of the ethno-psychologies etc." Speaking in 2004, she noted that her contributions in the study of what she calls "the Romanian Gulag" aimed to provide material for a "trial of communism" in Romania. Paul Cernat argues that there may be a subtle connection between Cesereanu's fiction and her historical studies, indicating that the "archeology of nocturnal phantasms", a common theme in Cesereanu's poetry, may share focus with her interest in " 'domesticating' a savage imagination" Romanians have developed around the issue of communist terror.