CV
Caterina Preda
PhD, Associate Professor (2021), Habilitated to direct doctoral theses in Political Science (2022), Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest; 2009-2021 – Assistant Professor at the same Department.
2019 – present Director of the Research center PolArt at the University of Bucharest
Membership in International Organizations: Latin American Studies Association (LASA) – Memory and History group; Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) –Standing Group on Politics and the Arts; International Political Science Association (IPSA); Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN); Society of Romanian Studies (SRS).
Professional experience
2023-2024 Faculty for the program “Understanding 1989 in East-Central European Art: War vs. revolution”. The program is organized at the Piotr Piotrowski Center for Research on East-Central European Art at the University in Poznan through a grant given by the Getty Foundation. The project includes 4 one week seminars in Sarajevo (March 2023), Bucharest (June 2023), online/Zoom (Oct. 2023 – Feb. 2024) and Poznán (June 2024). Gave and will give lectures about the transition and democratization in ex-Yugoslavia, Romania (as well as art of memorialization), Hungary, Czechoslovakia, ex-GDR, Poland and ex-USSR.
April-May 2023 and 2018 course on Nation-Building in Central and Eastern Europe between Politics and Art for the “Nationalism and Xenophobia in Central and Eastern Europe”, Off-Campus Studies Program for the Carleton College, Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest.
21 March 2019, Guest lecturer at the National University of Arts in Bucharest at the 3rd year Graphic section with a presentation on the “Romanian communist regime in Romania and the 1989 December revolution”
19-21 March 2018 – Erasmus Teaching Assignment Grant at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague (courses Introduction to Cultural Studies and Theorizing Memory: Cultural and Social Remembering by Maria Alina Asavei)
2011 – 2017, part time lecturer on contemporary Latin American politics at the Romanian Diplomatic Institute, Bucharest
October 2009 – March 2021, Assistant Professor (tenured), at the Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest. Between October 2006 – June 2009 I was a part time Lecturer at the same Department.
December 2004 – Sept. 2005 researcher at the Romanian Institute of International Studies Nicoale Titulescu (IRSI) – specialist on Latin America.
Activity as a reviewer
Peer review for: Studia Politica, East European Politics and Societies, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Südosteuropa, Palgrave, The Hungarian Historical Review, Lexington Books, Women’s Studies International Forum, Journal for Arts Management, Law and Society; East European Politics & Societies and Cultures; Palgrave; Politics, Religion & Ideology; Women’s Studies International Forum; Südosteuropa. Journal of Politics and Society; Revista Kaypunku; History of Communism in Europe journal edited by the IICCMER; LL Journal (Graduate Center CUNY), Hungarian Historical Review.
Member of editorial boards
Since August 2020, member of the editorial board of ”Cuadernos de Historia” (Chile).
Studia Politica Romanian Journal of Political Science. Since 2022 I am co-editor together with Sorina Soare (and previously, 2020-2022 with Alexandra Iancu; January 2018 – Sept. 2020, editor; 2011-2018 member of the editorial board).
Education
In 2009 I received the title of ‘Doctor in Political Science’ from the Doctoral School of Political Science, University of Bucharest with a thesis on: “Dictators and dictatorships. Artistic expressions of the political. Romania and Chile (1970s-1989)” under the coordination of Prof Dr Daniel Barbu. During my doctoral studies (2006-2008) I received a doctoral scholarship from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie which allowed me to be under the co-direction of Prof Renée Fregosi at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique Latine – Paris 3. In 2006 and 2007 I had research stays in Santiago de Chile. In 2005 I received an MA in Comparative Politics and Political Theory from the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bucharest, and in 2004 a DEA en Sciences Politiques from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Grade: Grande Distinction). In 2003 I completed my BA in Political Science (French section) at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bucharest (Erasmus scholarship at Universita La Sapienza, Rome 2001-2002, and scholarship at the ULB in 2002-2003).
Research projects
September-December 2024 Researcher in the Project “Arts and Power in the 20th Century”, the Institute of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity
February 2023 – Sept. 2024 research project with the Wilson Center in Washington D.C. to write the biography of Corneliu Petrescu
May 2022 – May 2024 researcher in the project “Transnational Encounters: Romania’s Cultural and Artistic Relations within the State-Socialist World (1950s-1980s)”, PolArt, University of Bucharest, (Operator: UEFISCDI).
November 2021 – July 2022 research project with the Wilson Center in Washington D.C. about the biography of Corneliu Petrescu.
February – June 2021, Grant from the Wilson Center in Washington D.C. for an “Annotated bibliography on Romanian art and politics in the 1970s and 1980s”
Oct. 2020 – Sept. 2022 researcher in the project “Towards Inclusive Mnemonic Communities: Re-Visiting Violent Pasts through the Lens of Artistic Memory in Eastern Europe”, PolArt, University of Bucharest, (Operator: UEFISCDI, 93.750).
October 2018 – October 2020 Director of the projectPN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0346, UEFISCDI: 449.744 Ron Contract TE, 138/2018 (2018-2020) ”Transregional remembrance of dictatorships: restoring human dignity through artistic practices in South America and Eastern Europe”
October 2018 – October 2019 Researcher in the project PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-1369, Contract TE 52/2018 (2018-2020), “Trecând granițele: Colaborări transnaționale și critică instituțională în expozițiile de artă din Estul Europei în perioada socialismului târziu (1964-1989)”, Universitatea Națională de Arte „George Enescu” din Iaşi
January – May 2018 Research Grant from Europeana Grants Program 2017 for the research project “A visual tool for the display of the visual representations of the Roma of Romania in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Europeana collections: between stereotypes and truthfulness”
October 2015 – September 2017 Director of the project PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0243 “From the “state artist” to the artist dependent on the state: the Union of Visual Artists (of Romania) (1950-2010) – the Bucharest branch” (Operator: UEFISCDI at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest).
Fellowships & Research Grants
Fulbright fellow at the University of Texas at Austin (Feb-Aug 2020)
European ArtEast Foundation Research Grant (July 2018 – March 2019)
Research grant of UEFISCDI to the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique latine (November 2018).
Research grant of UEFISCDI to the Museum of memory and human rights, Santiago de Chile (January 2018).
Short time fellow at the Intercontinental Academia 2016 on Human Dignity, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (IIAS), March 6-18 2016 and ZIF Bielefeld, August 1-11 2016; Johannesburg, 21-25 January 2019.
Guest at the Transregional Winter Academy Beyond History and Identity New Perspectives on Aesthetics, Politics and Society in Eastern Europe organized by the Forum Transregional Studien and the Max Weber Foundation (2-11 December 2015, Berlin).
Odobleja Fellow at the New Europe College, Bucharest (2014 – 2015)
Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bucharest (Posdru Project, October 2010 – March 2013)
Postdoctoral grant of research of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique Latine (IHEAL), Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 (Sept. 2010)
Doctoral Scholarship of the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l’Amérique Latine (IHEAL), Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3 (2006 –2008 )
Grant of the Doctoral School of Political Science, University of Bucharest (2005 –2008 )
Had several scholarships during the undergraduate and graduate studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) from the Communauté Française du Royaume de Belgique and the Ministry of Education and Research and the Universita La Sapienza di Roma (Erasmus Socrates).
Research stays in Latin America
I have had research stays in Chile of 1 month in 2007, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2018. I have had other research stays in the region in: August 2010 in Cuba; in June-September 2012 in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay; in June-August 2013 in Peru and Bolivia and in May-June 2017 in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.
Awards
Publication award (PN-III-P1-1.1-PRECISI-2021-54123) from UEFISCDI for the article “The Aesthetic Surveillance of Performance Art by the Romanian Securitate in the 1970s and 1980s”, Third Text, Text 35: 3 (2021): 355-372.
Publication award (PN-III-P1-1.1-PRECISI-2021-53436) from UEFISCDI for the article “The Transnational Artistic Memorialisation of Operation Condor: Documenting a “Distribution of the Possible””, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies Vol 29: 2 (2020): 251- 269.
Publication award (PN-III-P1-1.1-PRECISI-2021-53747) from UEFISCDI for the article “The Role of Artists’ Collectives in Producing State Socialist Art in 1950s Romania the Bottom-Up, Pragmatic Professionalization of State Commissions”, ArtMargins, (2020) 9(3): 29-52.
Publication award (PN-III-P1-1.1- PRECISI-2020- 50986) from UEFISCDI for the article “The Transnational “Memorialization” of Monumental Socialist Public Works in Eastern Europe”, International Journal of Cultural Studies
Publication award from the CNCS for the article “Art and Politics in Postcommunist Romania: Changes and continuities”, Journal of Arts Management Law and Society 42: 3 (2012): 116-127.
Award for the article “Artistic memorialization of the Roma Holocaust in Romania: render visible the historical trauma and document the suffering” from the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of Holocaust (2019).
Doctoral theses & doctoral juries
Coordinator of the doctoral thesis of Cristina Stoenescu, Doctoral School of Political Science, University of Bucharest (since 2023), with a thesis on “Transforming Cultural Policy in Romania after 1989. The (Re)Making of a Visual Art Scene”
Member of the doctoral jury of Klára Smitková, Charles University, Prague, since 2023 (The nostalgia of the Ceausescu regime)
Member of the doctoral jury of Adelina Pinzariu, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan since 2021 (“East by Southeast: Cultures of Authoritarianism in Cold-War Romania and South Korea”)
Member of the doctoral jury of Sylvia Stan, Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest (“The influence of the political on the paradigms of social and economic development in Latin America. A comparison of Chile and Venezuela” coordinated by Prof. G. Ghebrea)
Member of the doctoral jury of Alexandra Sorina Neacsu, CESI, Bucharest since 2021 (“Tangible and Intangible Heritage Expansion Review and Interdisciplinarity in the current context: Romania and other Member States of the European Union” under the coordination of Prof. univ. dr. Caius Dobrescu)
30 Sept. 2022 – Member of the doctoral jury for the defense of the doctoral thesis at the Université de Toulouse of Azzedine Badis („L’„État Magique” en représentations Politisation et trajectoires de gouvernementalité au Venezuela, du Nouveau Monde à la „Nouvelle Patrie” chaviste”, École doctorale EDDSP, Droit et Science Politique, spécialité Science politique, LaSSP – Laboratoire des Sciences Sociales du Politique, thèse dirigée par Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans).
Expert
August 2015 – February 2016 Expert for the Roma in the arts for the project “Romanian Roma: identity and alterity” implemented at the University of Bucharest and financed through the Funds for Cultural Diversity, the Financial Mechanism for the European Economic Space 2009-2014 (Operator: the Ministry of Culture).
Expert in short-term projects
March 2016 – April 2016 Temporary expert for the Project Be your selfie in Bucharest. Program educațional de istorie urbană pentru studenți și liceeni” at the University of Bucharest.
July-August 2015 – Temporary expert for the Project “POSDRU/159/1.5/S/132400 – “Tineri cercetători de succes – dezvoltare profesională în context interdisciplinar şi internaţional” (Operator: FSE).
Short term expert for the National Science Center Poland in 2017.
Short term expert for the AFCN for visual arts’ projects (2017-2018)
Foreign Languages
English (fluent), French (fluent), Spanish (fluent), Italian (basics), Portuguese (beginner level).