Ramifications of Ideology: Mapping Contemporary Romanian Literature

Abstract

"Ramifications of Ideology: Mapping Contemporary Romanian Literature. After outlining the mutations occurring in the background of literary histories, the analysis that follows shows, by focusing on the relevance of periodization in literary history, that, covering several decades as it does, Mihai Iovǎnel’s History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020 works out open filiations and parallelisms that extend a time interval of contrasts and continuities. In his effort to assign another dimension to literary history through alliances with disciplines that cross a critically structured and metacritically developed literary area, Iovănel attempts to make literary history more permeable. Thus, a section of his work investigates how The History… reacts, from the post-Marxist materialism viewpoint, to the particularities determined by the transition from one cultural pattern to another. That segment examines conceptual and methodological ramifications, identifies lineages or vulnerabilities, and shows that the existence of an area of intersection between literary history and memory transforms The History… into a narrative. Finally, another part of the book is dedicated to demonstrating that what Benga-Țuțuianu calls an “objectifying” approach can meet blind spots that prove relevant for the recontextualization of literary production and for sketching out a type of cosmopolitan imagery—a springboard to the discussion about world literature. Nevertheless, the arguments summed up in the last segment of the book prove unequivocally that Iovǎnel’s History is a turning point in Romanian literary historiography. Keywords: materialism, temporality, transfer, periphery, world literature"