Sorin Antohi
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Sorin Antohi (b. August 20, 1957 in Târgu Ocna) is a Romanian historian, essayist, and journalist. In October 2006, a scandal caused by his academic credentials led him to resign from his position as head of the history department at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and from the Pasts, Inc. Institute for Historical Studies. He is still an editor of the academic journal East European Politics and Societies.
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[edit] Biography
He received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Iaşi and a DEA from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He claimed to have a PhD from the University of Iaşi, but official records and university officials deny it.
In a 2006 open letter published in the Bucharest-based 22 review, Antohi admitted to having collaborated with the Securitate, the secret police in Communist Romania, during the 1970s and the 1980s. As an informant, he furnished details on the private lives and political views of many of his close friends. Antohi was part of the "Presidential Committee for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania" at the bequest of its chair, Vladimir Tismăneanu, before resigning in September 2006.
On October 20, 2006, the Romanian press reported that representatives of the Romanian Ministry of Education discovered that Antohi never defended his doctoral thesis in the country. It appears that he failed to write his PhD thesis, and was expelled from the doctoral program of the University of Iaşi in 2000. His Curriculum vitae at the Central European University also listed among his books several titles published by Polirom press, which journalists from the Ziua de Iaşi daily were unable to locate; Antohi was unavailable for comment.
In October 2006, he was forced to resign his position at the Central European University.
As of December 21, 2006, Sorin Antohi is still an editor of the academic journal East European Politics and Societies, where his collaborator Tismăneanu is chair of the editorial committee.
[edit] Work
His historical work focuses on intellectual history, the history of ideas, historical theory and the history of historiography, and Romanian studies in European contexts.
[edit] Published volumes
- 1991 Utopica. Studii asupra imaginarului social ("Utopica. Studies on Social Imagination"). Editura Ştiinţifică, Bucharest (second, revised and expanded [edition][1], Idea, Cluj-Napoca, 2005)
- Civitas imaginalis. Istorie şi utopie în cultura română ("Civitas Imaginalis. History and Utopia in Romanian Culture"), Litera, Bucharest, 1994 (second revised edition, Polirom, Iaşi, 1999)
- Exerciţiul distanţei. Discursuri, societăţi, metode ("The Practice of Distance. Discourses, Societies, and Methods"), Nemira, Bucharest, 1997 (second edition, 1998)
- Imaginaire culturel et réalité politique dans la Roumanie moderne. Le Stigmate et l'utopie ("Cultural Imagination and Political Reality in Modern Romania. The Stigma and the Utopia"), L'Harmattan, Paris-Montréal, 1999
[edit] Co-authored
- with Adrian Marino, Al treilea discurs. Cultură, ideologie şi politică în România ("The Third Discourse. Culture, Ideology, and Politics in Romania"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2001
- with Mihai Şora: Mai avem un viitor? România la început de mileniu ("Do We Still Have a Future? Romania at the Start of the Millennium"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2001
- with Vladimir Tismăneanu: Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath, Central European University Press, Budapest, 2000
- with Alexandru Zub: Oglinzi retrovizoare. Istorie, memorie si morală în România ("Rearview Mirrors. History, Memory, and Morals in Romania"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2000
[edit] References
- (Romanian) Dana Carbelea, "Antohi nu mai e în Comisia Tismăneanu" ("Antohi No Longer Sits on the Tismăneanu Committee"), in Curentul, September 13, 2006
- (Romanian) George Damian, "Falsul doctor Sorin Antohi" ("The Fake Doctor Sorin Antohi"), in Ziua, October 21, 2006
