On feminism, philosophy and politics in Post-communist Romania: An interview with Mihaela Miroiu (Bucharest, 17 May 2010)

Abstract

Synopsis Mihaela Miroiu is a Romanian political theorist and East Europe's most prominent feminist philosopher. She is the author of twelve books published in Romanian, including Road to Autonomy: Feminist Political Theories (Polirom, 2004), Priceless Women (Polirom 2006) and Convenio: On Women, Nature and Morals (Alternative Publishing House, 1996). She has also edited or co-edited nine volumes, most of them on feminism and feminist theory. Born in Romania in 1955, she was raised during the communist era under the Ceausescu regime, and emerged after 1989 as one of the country's leading feminist voices. She founded the country's first gender studies Master's program in 1998, and helped to organize two of its earliest independent women's nongovernmental organizations: AnA. –The Romanian Society for Feminist Analyses and The Center for Gender Studies FILIA. Professor Miroiu is an expert advisor to both UNESCO and the European Union, and has won prestigious international fellowships at Cornell University, Indiana University, Oxford and Manchester Universities, and at the Central European University in Budapest. In 2010, the U.S.-based Association of Women in Slavic Studies awarded Professor Miroiu its Outstanding Achievement Award for her accomplishments as a philosopher and her mentorship of a new generation of young Romanian feminists. The European Institute for Gender Equality also featured her in its “Women Inspiring Europe” 2011 calendar. On May 16, 2010, Kristen Ghodsee, an American scholar of East European women's movements and the John. S. Osterweis Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at Bowdoin College, accompanied her to a public protest in front of the Romanian presidency against a government plan to cut state subsidies to mothers of young children. The following day, Ghodsee interviewed Professor Miroiu in her home in Bucharest.