Calin Andrei Mihailescu is a professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Critical Theory at the University of Western Ontario. He also directs the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism. His areas of interest include comparative literature; history of Romance, English, German, Central-East European and
Classical literatures; critical theory; philosophy; film theory; history of religions; semiotics and philosophy of language; and creative writing.
With such an expansive background, what better subject to teach than the preferred pipe-dream of every dictator, the land of utopia? So Mihailescu teaches a course called "Utopias and Visions of the Future". Once you've lectured on the ideal world, then anything left standing in the profane world is fair game. So Mihailescu teaches other interesting courses, including "Verbal Magic", "A Poetics of Ricochets", "East-Central European Prose", "Postmodernism", "Scandals of Temporality", and "The Grotesque". The grotesque, especially, is tantalizing.
It wouldn't be fair to leave the secret police out of this story. Because every good Romanian knows that they are everywhere. Even a professor of comparative literature might find himself haunted enough to write a paper about secrets that taste like history. While Mihailescu knows that the Securitate has been officially disbanded, he doesn't believe that the Romanian secret police has ceased to play a role in the current political system. In a recent presentation on the Romanian Secret Services twenty years after the fall of Ceausescu's regime, Mihailescu maintained that the secret police continues to exercise a powerful position in the Romanian government. He thinks Pacepa only told a small part of the story-- the part of the story that made for savory reading in the pulp fiction aisle. The big secrets still reside in the cracks of conversations and the palpable pauses in political orations. In the second part of the paper, Mihailescu confronts the reformed Securitate, also known as the Romanian Intelligence Service, or RIS, and the Foreign Intelligence Service, or FIS, established in 1990:
In Romania, RIS and FIS are commonly called
"Serviciile," the "Services." After delivering a bird's eye view of the
events that marked the involvement in the "Services" in the public life
of the country and in the private lives of its citizens, the paper will
focus on the relationships between the "Services," the various
mafia-like groups, and the political class in post-revolutionary
Romania. The main point of the paper is that the "Services" serve the
country by arguably leading it. The title question, "Securing what?",
bears upon imaginary and real structures of power which go beyond
historical events and paranoid scenarios.
I think that Mihailescu's literary interests, critical theoretic background and writings place him in a better position to perceive and interpret the realm of the Romanian secret police than one trained in the cut-and-dry tradition of political science or sociology. I also appreciate seeing Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade on a course syllabus. Mihailescu combines a trillion fascinating interests and yet does not succumb to the tempation of magical realism. In that sense, I respect his standoffishness.
There is more to Romanian scholarship than glorification of national myths. In closing, I'll give you a taste of Mihailescu's reluctant indulgence of one particular national myth-- Mihai Eminescu:
It couldn’t help but be an exercise in fair complexity: the translation of Eminescu into English is implicitly an exercise in alienation. However, investing heavily into the figura of this late romantic (“National Poet,” all right?) is a favorite pastime of Romanian culture. It also is its chief claim to that superlative realism that aestheticizes nationalism unto the sacred. In the hottest nationalistic cauldrons of that culture it is held that Eminescu is “the most complete man of Romanian culture,” and even that “the 21st century will either be Eminescian or it won’t be at all.” Charged with such a limpy array of historical responsibilities that the duty to beauty did and does impose on his her(m)itage, Eminescu is supposed to be acidly defaced in translation. Thus, the task of his translator proves to be as hard as matter: he’s to betray text and country.
You can find a plethora of publications and blurbs on this page, so I've exercised my editorial discretion to pick and choose what I find compelling. Enjoy.
