Romanian Studies and Area Studies — A Necessary Re-examination

Abstract

During the Cold War, the former “satellites” of the former USSR were approached, in the US academia and, consequently, in security studies, under the umbrella of Area Studies. The study of the languages and cultures of those countries, among which Romania was one made the core of Area Studies. The seminal book of Charles Jelavich (Jelavich, 1969) set the standard for Area Studies in the region, and stated clearly the role of languages and national literatures in the field. Shortly after, Richard Lambert (Lambert, 1973) coordinated an ample review of the status of the language/area studies in Central and Eastern Europe, which showed serious imbalances within a field that was supposed to appear homogeneous. His research was based on the number of enrollments, as well as on the academic/social relevance of the academic programs. The fracture within Area Studies in the region deepened after 1989, when the Post-Communist countries faced individual issues that raised different types of research/academic/security interests in the US. Based on my personal experience as a Romanian language and culture instructor and curriculum designer at the Nicolae Iorga Chair at Columbia University (Romanian Language Institute), the article will examine the status of Romanian Studies within the new ideological landscape. Caught between the irreversible fears of the postmodernist “millennialism” (see, Jameson, 1998), and the in-betweenness (Chakrabarty, 1998) brought by globalization, Romanian Studies, and Area Studies in general have faced a rapid adoption of theoretical ‘parlances’, some of which are incompatible with the very nature of the field, yet they make the field ‘recognizable’ and ‘user-friendly’.