Sorin Antohi

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Sorin Antohi (born August 20, 1957) is a Romanian historian, essayist, and journalist.

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[edit] Biography

Antohi was born in Târgu Ocna. 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 taught history at the University of Michigan, at the University of Bucharest and at the Central-European University of Budapest (since 1995). At CEU, he founded Pasts, Inc. Institute for Historical Studies, where he pursued many scholarly activities. 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.

[edit] Controversy

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. He also claimed that he had been persecuted by the same Securitate as a member of the Jassy Group of anti-communist intellectuals, which included Dan Petrescu, Liviu Antonesei, Luca Piţu and others. As an informant, he claimed that he offered non-detrimental information on the political views of many of his close friends.

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, this sequence of scandals 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.

As of December 21, 2006, Sorin Antohi is still an editor of the academic journal East European Politics and Societies, where his collaborator Vladimir 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. Antohi has been actively involved in many institutional projects, focusing on the "education, training and career development of emerging scholars" from Eastern Europe.[1]

[edit] Published volumes

  • Utopica. Studii asupra imaginarului social ("Utopica. Studies on Social Imagination"). Editura Ştiinţifică, Bucharest, 1991 (second, revised and expanded [edition][2], 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
  • Războaie culturale. Idei, intelectuali, spirit public (Cultural wars. Ideas, Intellectuals and Public Ethos), Jassy, Ed. Polirom, 2007

[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 Alexandru Zub: Oglinzi retrovizoare. Istorie, memorie si morală în România ("Rearview Mirrors. History, Memory, and Morals in Romania"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2000

[edit] Edited volumes

  • 2007, Narratives Unbound. Historical Studies in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. New York-Budapest: CEU Press, 514 pages (co-edited with Balazs Trencsenyi and Peter Apor).
  • 2003, Geografii simbolice, Caietele Echinox. Cluj: Dacia, 296 pp (co-edited with Corin Braga).
  • 2003, Ioan Petru Culianu. Omul şi opera, Jassy , Editura Polirom, 653 pp.
  • 2001, Religion, Fiction, and History. Essays in Memory of Ioan Petru Culianu. Bucharest: Nemira. 2 vols. (415 + 590 pp.).
  • 2000, Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath, Central European University Press, Budapest (coeditor Vladimir Tismăneanu)
  • 1997, Dialog şi libertate. Eseuri în onoarea lui Mihai Şora, Bucureşti, ed. Nemira, 332 pp. (coeditor Aurelian Crăiuţu).

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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