In the period 1929-1936, Romania evolved from a traditional agricultural society to a modern, cosmopolitan and consumerist society. Bucharest, its capital,synthesized these transformations. The ideal of beauty – as reflected in fashion – was subject to the same processes of modernization and commodification. Beauty contests showed how the cha…[Read more]

Interwar Romania was a space of social-cultural contrasts which it wholeheartedly embraced. Bucharest, as the capital, was the perfect mirror of Romanian society, a liminal space, geographically and culturally. Women’s fashion and beauty in interwar middle-class Bucharest, offers a wide array of unexplored research questions which are addressed i…[Read more]

Studiul de față decodifică influența Hollywood-ului asupra femeilor consumatoare de modă în cazul particular al Gretei Garbo și identificarea impactului său concret după cum a fost reprezentată în presa interbelică. Aprofundarea acestor aspecte ale modei interbelice, folosind metodele inerent interdisciplinare ale studiilor de modă, oferă o imag…[Read more]

Slides for a Q&A session about the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) with staff at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM).

Spanish abstract: La cibernética, la neurología, la semiótica y la narratología han de emprender conjuntamente el estudio interdisciplinar de la consciencia entendida como la circulación retroalimentativa compleja entre distintos sistemas y circuitos cerebrales—así como entre distintas modalidades de representación en el cerebro. Se entender…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Comentamos aquí sobre la integración de algunos aspectos éticos, estéticos, psicológicos y narrativos en la novela epistolar ´Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady´ de Samuel Richardson (1747-48), en concreto la encarnación de un ideal ético-estético en el personaje de Clarissa, y la elección consciente de una técnica na…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: El concepto de ‘autor implícito’ (implied author) lo difundió Wayne Booth en ‘La Retórica de la Ficción’ (1961) pero, como veremos, algo apuntaron al respecto con anterioridad otros autores. Aquí señalamos más en concreto el precedente de Hegel. ______…[Read more]

A note on the existential significance of Miguel de Unamuno’s metafiction. His novels question the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ which is the bedrock of workaday human reality. (A retropost from 2011).

This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]

In this paper I employ social scientific theories that conceptualize space as existing in physical, mental and symbolic fields simultaneously, and combine them with memory studies, in order to offer a new reading of how the authors of Leviticus construed Israel’s cultic origins and what aims they were pursuing with this composition.