Roxana E Marinescu

This paper examines the opportunities and the challenges of introducing computer-assisted language learning, and more precisely Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), in foreign language education in combination with face-to-face tuition, as a more dynamic and cost-effective alternative to traditional education. As Romanian universities are facing on the one hand harsh international competition and on the other hand have to manage on a volatile and unstable domestic educational market, could MOOCs represent the solution for their repositioning on the educational market and the starting point for the redefinition of their identity? While globally MOOCs are increasingly more widely used - the world top universities, such as Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, etc., offer such free courses for the larger public - Romanian universities are stuck in an isolationist paradigm in which lack of time and financial resources for research, and personal and institutional arro...

This article presents some ideas on the future of feminism starting from the postcolonial/ postcommunist framework, based on similarities in the decolonisation and respectively transition periods in what regards approaches to gender and feminist practices, with a special interest in India and Romania. Some of these refer to belonging to the neoliberal paradigm and necessity to disrupt it, by strengthening the bottom-up work of the nongovernmental organisations, encouraging alternative knowledge systems and giving a voice to so-far silent members of society and non-human others, while focusing on a feminist ethic of care and using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for change.

This article examines various representations of gender in communist and postcommunist Romania, with a focus on how women and men were both led towards and sometimes forced into gender roles better suited to the state policies of the respective contexts rather than to their own interests. Over the years, the state and/or party(ies) public agenda, from women's liberation through gender equality to equal opportunities, has met real Romanian women's and men's needs to different extents and with variable success.

This article examines various representations of gender in communist and postcommunist Romania, with a focus on how women and men were both led towards and sometimes forced into gender roles better suited to the state policies of the respective contexts rather than to their own interests. Over the years, the state and/or party(ies) public agenda, from women’s liberation through gender equality to equal opportunities, has met real Romanian women’s and men’s needs to different extents and with variable success.

Women have been represented in art, literature, music, and more for decades, with the image of the woman changing through time and across cultures. However, rarely has a multidisciplinary approach been taken to examine this imagery and challenge and possibly reinterpret old women-related myths and other taken-for-granted aspects (e.g., grammatically inclusive gender). Moreover, this approach can better place the ideologies as myth creators and propagators, identify and deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices, and compare them across cultures with the view to spot universal vs. culturally specific approaches as far as women's studies and interpretations are concerned. It is important to gather these perspectives to translate and unveil new interpretations to old ideas about women and the feminine that are universally accepted as absolute, impossible to challenge, and invalidated truths. The Handbook of Research on Translating Myth and Reality in Women Imagery Across Disciplines is...

Women have been represented in art, literature, music, and more for decades, with the image of the woman changing through time and across cultures. However, rarely has a multidisciplinary approach been taken to examine this imagery and challenge and possibly reinterpret old women-related myths and other taken-for-granted aspects (e.g., grammatically inclusive gender). Moreover, this approach can better place the ideologies as myth creators and propagators, identify and deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices, and compare them across cultures with the view to spot universal vs. culturally specific approaches as far as women's studies and interpretations are concerned. It is important to gather these perspectives to translate and unveil new interpretations to old ideas about women and the feminine that are universally accepted as absolute, impossible to challenge, and invalidated truths. The Handbook of Research on Translating Myth and Reality in Women Imagery Across Disciplines is a comprehensive reference book that provides an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspective on the perception and reception of women across time and space. It tackles various perspectives: gender studies, linguistic studies, literature and cultural studies, discourse analysis, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, etc. Its main objective is to present new approaches and propose new answers to old questions related to gender inequalities, stereotypes, and prejudices about women and their place in the world. Covering significant themes that include the ethics of embodiment, myth of motherhood at the crossroad of ideologies, translation of women’s experiences and ideas across cultures, and discourses on women’s rehabilitation and dignification across centuries, this book is critical for linguists, professionals, researchers, academicians, and students working in the fields of women’s studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and literature, as well as other related categories such as political studies, education studies, philosophy, and the social sciences.

... Mariana NICOLAE* Roxana MARINESCU** * Professeur des universités docteur, Vice-doyen, Académie d'Etudes Economiques, mariana.nicolae@rei.ase.ro ** Chargée de cours docteur, Académie d'Etudes Economiques, roxana.marinescu@rei.ase.ro ...

Cet article est axé sur les effets des compétences plurilingues et interculturelles et de la citoyenneté démocratique sur l'enseignement des langues vivantes au niveau universitaire pour les futurs diplômés des universités économiques et d'administration. L'Union européenne compte pour le moment 28 États membres et 24 langues officielles et affronte les défis d'une mobilité grandissante de ses citoyens ainsi que la mobilité des immigrés des pays non-européens. C'est pour cela que l'Europe doit assurer l'égalité des chances de ses citoyens et faire en sorte que leur héritage culturel soit préservé de manière claire et sans équivoque. Cette démarche a comme point de départ les documents européens stipulant que les citoyens doivent apprendre au moins deux langues vivantes, l'anglais ayant une position privilégiée. En même temps, l'enseignement des langues est mis en relation avec l'acquisition des compétences interculturelles pour avoir des citoyens européens complètement équipés pour des contextes de travail flexibles dans une période contemporaine de mobilité accrue. Les « droits linguistiques » sont regardés en rapport avec les « droits du citoyen » parce que les citoyens européens plurilingues doivent utiliser efficacement leurs stratégies éducationnelles afin d'augmenter leurs chances sociales et économiques dans une Europe multilingue. Les politiques européennes éducationnelles doivent prendre en considération l'inclusion des nouveaux médias dans l'éducation formelle, ainsi que la vérification de leur impact dans l'éducation informelle des citoyens européens et l'évaluation de leurs effets sur l'enseignement des langues vivantes dans le contexte du multilinguisme. Nos conclusions portent sur quelques observations qui visent l'amélioration des pratiques existantes et sur quelques propositions pour l'utilisation des nouveaux médias dans l'apprentissage des langues vivantes à l'Académie d'Études Économiques de Bucarest. Mots clés: communication plurilingue; citoyenneté démocratique; nouveaux médias; apprentissage des langues vivantes.

This chapter deals with work-life balance as a relatively new concept, imposed by new work realities in the Western post-industrial world and relevant especially (although not exclusively) to it. It has become important thanks to new angles shed on the labour market by a globalized and technologized society, with an increasing number of women joining the workforce and accessing higher levels of management, and thus modifying the established work relationships.
Moreover, the world of work has become more unified towards a Western style organizational culture, with a stringent need to prove allegiance to the company by long and irregular work hours and by a relentless commitment to job-related duties. Out-of-work time for both genders has become more-work-time, as round the clock alertness for job-oriented tasks has become the norm nowadays.

This article examines various representations of gender in communist and postcommunist Romania, with a focus on how women and men were both led towards and sometimes forced into gender roles better suited to the state policies of the respective contexts rather than to their own interests. Over the years, the state and/or party(ies) public agenda, from women's liberation through gender equality to equal opportunities, has met real Romanian women's and men's needs to different extents and with variable success.

Since its beginnings in the 1970's to the proclamation of its death in 2010-2011 by the most important European leaders of the time (Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron) to its present day reinterpretation due to increasing migration and globalization, multiculturalism has been on the agenda of policy makers worldwide. And rightly so, as a liberal multicultural society, at least in theory, " cherishes the diversity of and encourages a creative dialogue between its different cultures and their moral visions. " (Lord Bhikhu Parekh, What is Multiculturalism?). This is indeed the desired (some would say utopian) perspective, but how successfully has it been implemented? As far back as 2007 Will Kymlicka was challenging his readers with two possible options: either to abandon the project of internationalizing multiculturalism (highly undesirable, in his opinion) or to rethink it and put it on a more coherent footing of liberal multiculturalism (Multicultural Odysseys). In this paper I address multiculturalism in the postcommunist and postcolonial contexts and explore possible points of intersection between the two. If, as I have shown elsewhere, the postcommunist condition is (to a certain extent) part of the postcolonial framework, I am seeking to find out whether their approaches towards multiculturalism are similar. The case studies analyzed are Romania and India and the respective states' policies towards 'nation', as well as their relations with the minorities living on their present day territories. With different historical, political, ideological and geographical backgrounds, the two countries are taken as illustrations to test the validity of liberal multiculturalism and its theoretical and practical potential.

This paper seeks to explore the multiple dimensions of teaching English for business and economics in the context of the knowledge-based global contemporary society, while taking into consideration the changing role of the language instructor in the learner-centred education system we are aiming to build and develop. The challenges of such an endeavour include institutional as well as systemic obstacles, together with a personal resistance to change of the teaching instructors. At the same time, the opportunities are obvious and should not be neglected; they refer to the necessary alignment of Romanian higher education to European and world standards, and also to meeting the demands of its domestic and international stakeholders. As there is a permanent exchange of both students and professors with European and world universities, the desire to update and modernise becomes inescapable. Personal and professional development have to be taken into consideration, as a determining part of organizational medium-term and long-term programmes. The case study presented is English language instruction for business and economics within the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, its syllabi and methodology, as well as its impact upon learners and teachers.

The present article aims at explaining some of the roots of present day mentalities of the Romanian employees as well as employers from the perspective of the long and, most often, unforeseen effects of the economic history of a recent period in the history of the country. Mentalities and behaviours are the result of the interactions between persons/groups and the environment. As such the general context of the industrial development of Romania during socialism, a period which is relatively little discussed critically at present, hopes to contribute to the re-evaluation of the business history of the country with a proposal to explain some present cultural patterns. At the same time it argues for the presence in the curriculum of business schools of the history of economy and business in order to help Romanian business higher education become a driving force for explaining the formation of present day mentalities and turning them into values that pro-actively help Romanian students to become effective employees on the globalized labour markets.

Abstract: Positioning of universities on the different educational markets is critical for academic survival, role definition and status clarification on the present education markets. The latter are defined by the globalization of educational services, an increased number of players and their almost fierce competition to attract students and funding. The ever increasing competitiveness all over the world, the new missions that universities have to assume due to pressures from stakeholders, and also from global processes (among which demographics and technology are ever more uncomfortable) are important issues that call for a clear organisational communication, as well as for an effective inter-organisations information exchange.

The present paper explores the importance of identity building for a coherent communication process meant to ensure the adaptability of a Romanian university to the needs of both its Romanian public, and also to those of an international audience. The case study under discussion is The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies (BAES), its identity, vision and mission and strategies development. The analysis of the identity building process in the BAES starts from the definition of the university as a “research and teaching university which organises higher and scientific preparation in the area of economic and administrative studies”, as approved by the Senate in 2007 ( www.ase.ro). As an important dimension of the identity building process refers to its reception by the public involved, a questionnaire was given to a number of staff and students. The findings of this questionnaire, as well as several opinions verbalised during formal and informal meetings and personal conversations are included in this study.

Keywords: university marketing, organizational identity, organizational communication, globalization, educational markets

This article examines various representations of gender in communist and postcommunist Romania, with a focus on how women and men were both led towards and sometimes forced into gender roles better suited to the state policies of the respective contexts rather than to their own interests. Over the years, the state and/or party(ies) public agenda, from women's liberation through gender equality to equal opportunities, has met real Romanian women's and men's needs to different extents and with variable success.

This article deals with aspects of surrogacy presented in the novel 'The House of Hidden Mothers' by Meera Syal (Doubleday, 2015). Surrogacy is explored within a postcolonial feminist framework circumscribed to the issue of power in the private and the public domains. The author asks all the relevant questions related to it, among which ownership of woman's body (as a whole and its parts), ownership of the fetus and the born child, heteronormativity and patriarchal relations as opposed to de-linking reproduction from marriage and heterosexuality by making it available (for a price) to LGBTQI individuals, possibility of abusing Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in order to create 'perfect' individuals of one's choice, possible or necessary regulation, and the medicalization of women's experiences (pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, birth, menopause). The evolution of the feminine characters revolves around their empowerment, seen as a learning process: Shyama, the 'employer', comes to accept her age as a normal stage in life, Mala, the surrogate mother, moves away from a commodified self and learns to speak in her name, while Tara finds her feminist voice and a new/old country where to exert it. Meera Syal's view on surrogacy is many fold and not very definite; she asks questions and attempts to answer them, and manages that, up to a point. Nevertheless, the final idea is of optimism: although surrogacy involves so many unanswered questions, its main value lies in the possible empowerment of the surrogate mother. Given time and the right environment and the right human material, which more often than not in real life is not the case.

This paper examines the opportunities and the challenges of introducing computer-assisted language learning, and more precisely Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), in foreign language education in combination with face-to-face tuition, as a more dynamic and cost-effective alternative to traditional education. As Romanian universities are facing on the one hand harsh international competition and on the other hand have to manage on a volatile and unstable domestic educational market, could MOOCs represent the solution for their repositioning on the educational market and the starting point for the redefinition of their identity? While globally MOOCs are increasingly more widely used – the world top universities, such as Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, etc., offer such free courses for the larger public – Romanian universities are stuck in an isolationist paradigm in which lack of time and financial resources for research, and personal and institutional arrogance represent only some features of a traditional organisational culture with numerous issues of ethics and corruption. The paper reviews the European documents regarding computer-assisted education, explores some of the best practices in the field, and makes the claim that the Romanian educational market is ready for this challenge. We base this assumption on the results of a quantitative and qualitative research, presented in the paper. We conducted a small-scale survey, interviews and focus groups with students of The Bucharest University of Economic Studies in May and June 2013 with a total of 54 students of the Master’s Programme International Business Communication.  All Master’s students show their acute interest in using computer-assisted language learning and their openness to do so in a more formal context. Our recommendations therefore are that, starting from their main stakeholders’ interest, Romanian universities should definitely take MOOCs into consideration when producing their curricula and when designing specific syllabi and learning materials.

This paper seeks to present some of the effects the new media and e-tools usage have on learning styles in the context of foreign language education, with an emphasis on the English language, which is the most widely learned and used 'foreign language' in Europe. In connection with this, the notions of 'international English', along with 'English as a lingua franca', 'British English', 'American English' are explored to verify their functionality within the European space. The hypothesis is that the increased use on a large scale of social media (such as facebook and twitter), as well as the widely spread educational e-tools, affect the way people select and design their educational strategies in general, and in particular their English language learning strategies. In order to verify this hypothesis a small scale survey was conducted within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies among students and staff on how they use the new media and technologies in formal and informal language learning and on the effects of this usage on how they learn English. The results, presented in the paper, were collected by means of a questionnaire and informal discussions. Also this paper presents some of the possible future opportunities, as well as future challenges that the inclusion of the use of new media and technologies in educational policies may pose. The paper puts forward some ideas concerning assessment of English language proficiency and language competence acquired through formal, informal and non-formal learning, and questions the usefulness of the existing systems and mechanisms designed to recognize and certificate language proficiency, while also making suggestions on ways to improve them.

This paper proposes a framework for enhancing language learning through dancing, as part of a non-formal educational personal programme, with the general aim of improving work opportunities, while also considering good work-life balance. In the fast-paced ever transforming technologically challenging contemporary society, personal and professional development should take into consideration intercultural awareness and sensitivity, social, plurilingual and digital competences, all parts of the proposed framework. The case study presented is an international life-long learning project, Dance Your Way through Other Cultures, which combines language learning, intercultural communication and social dance in an original and innovative way.

This paper focuses on outlining some effects that the use of new media and technologies in foreign language education has on both plurilingual communication and on democratic citizenship. At the moment in the European Union there are 27 member states and 23 officially acknowledged languages. With increasingly mobile European citizens and a growing number of immigrants from non-European countries, Europe faces the challenge of providing equal opportunities to all citizens and, at the same time, ensuring that their linguistic and cultural heritage will be preserved.
This paper starts from the necessity stated in some European documents that the European citizen should learn at least two foreign languages, English being in practice one of those, for better or worse. Also foreign language education is viewed in connection with citizenship rights and intercultural communication, for a European citizen fully equipped for flexible work contexts in a time of increased mobility. With ‘language rights’ viewed as part of ‘human rights’ and with Europe a multilingual area, the plurilingual European citizens should be able to make effective use of all their educational strategies in order to enhance their chances in social and economic life. European educational policies should thus take into consideration the inclusion of new media and technologies in formal education, as well as the impact they have on the informal education of European citizens, and should evaluate the extent to which the use of these e-tools affects language learning in the context of multilingualism.
This paper also briefly presents an overview of the results of a small scale survey conducted within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies among first-year students by means of a questionnaire and informal discussions. The survey focuses on how they use the new media in formal and informal language learning, especially English language learning.

This article presents some ideas on the future of feminism starting from the postcolonial/ postcommunist framework, based on similarities in the decolonisation and respectively transition periods in what regards approaches to gender and feminist practices, with a special interest in India and Romania. Some of these refer to belonging to the neoliberal paradigm and necessity to disrupt it, by strengthening the bottom-up work of the nongovernmental organisations, encouraging alternative knowledge systems and giving a voice to so-far silent members of society and non-human others, while focusing on a feminist ethic of care and using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for change.

This paper seeks to present some of the effects the new media and e-tools usage have on learning styles in the context of foreign language education, with an emphasis on the English language, which is the most widely learned and used 'foreign language' in Europe. In connection with this, the notions of 'international English', along with 'English as a lingua franca', 'British English', 'American English' are explored to verify their functionality within the European space. The hypothesis is that the increased use on a large scale of social media (such as facebook and twitter), as well as the widely spread educational e-tools, affect the way people select and design their educational strategies in general, and in particular their English language learning strategies. In order to verify this hypothesis a small scale survey was conducted within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies among students and staff on how they use the new media and...

This article presents some considerations on the research resulted within the project EPIR – Romanian Economic Personalities and Institutions – The Romanian Added Value to European Identity, 2007-2010, whose main aim is to increase Romania’s visibility by establishing and marketing the country brand as a member state of the European Union, especially in business and the economic field. This is done by creating a coherent and accessible knowledge data base of Romanian economic institutions and personalities, researching ways of communicating it to various audiences and exploring diverse marketing techniques in order to ensure effective dissemination of project results. The present article focuses on the research on the most effective ways of linguistic translation as a means of reaching an international audience through both the hard-copy and the virtual publication of the data base. Translation is not only a simple transfer of terms from one language into another, it needs to take i...

Roxana Marinescu. The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies. ... Cambridge: Cambridge University Press & Council of Europe (www.coe.int/portfolio and www.coe.int/lang ); Diaconu, Mihai; Jinga, Ioan (coord.); Ciobanu, Olga; Pescaru, Adina; Păduraru, Monica. ...

The present-day globalized society and its extremely competitive labour market pose numerous challenges which universities should be able to anticipate, reflect on and address in a consistent and coherent manner. It becomes increasingly clear that to be successful, graduates should show flexibility, openness, autonomy, self-determination and empowerment, while constantly demonstrating they are engaged in active democratic citizenship along with being prepared for their specialized subject. This chapter explores the opportunities offered by coherently integrating these transversal skills and trans-curricular competences within language learning programmes with the aim of better preparing graduates for democratic citizenship. Also, it outlines a possible methodology: integrating education for active citizenship and plurilingual competence at university level can be done through specially dedicated subject courses of intercultural communication, gender studies or cultural studies and connecting them to language learning syllabi, as tools to develop self-reflection and autonomy-building strategies for students, in order to enable them to take over their own learning and thus better cope with the challenging labour market facing them.

This article deals with aspects of surrogacy presented in the novel 'The House of Hidden Mothers' by Meera Syal (Doubleday, 2015). Surrogacy is explored within a postcolonial feminist framework circumscribed to the issue of power in the private and the public domains. The author asks all the relevant questions related to it, among which ownership of woman's body (as a whole and its parts), ownership of the fetus and the born child, heteronormativity and patriarchal relations as opposed to de-linking reproduction from marriage and heterosexuality by making it available (for a price) to LGBTQI individuals, possibility of abusing Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in order to create 'perfect' individuals of one's choice, possible or necessary regulation, and the medicalization of women's experiences (pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, birth, menopause). The evolution of the feminine characters revolves around their empowerment, seen as a learning process:...

This issue of Analize-Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies set to explore the complex relationship between ideologies and practices in different countries in Central and Eastern Europe in communist times and in the postcommunist period, with an emphasis on gender constructs and gender roles presumed and assumed in both the public and the private spheres. Starting from already well-known publications in the field 1 , we aimed at enlarging the discussion and bringing it up-to-date, by including some young researchers next to already established ones. Clearly, the rapidly changing global social, political and ideological environment requires permanent updates, constant revisions and context-based re-evaluations. The articles accepted for publication bring diverse contributions to the large spectrum of topics proposed. The authors recreated the communist and postcommunist gendered spaces and proposed reflection subjects in a variety of directions subsumed to women's rights, equal ...

Positioning of universities on the different educational markets is critical for academic survival, role definition and status clarification on the present education markets. The latter are defined by the globalization of educational services, an increased number of players and their almost fierce competition to attract students and funding. The ever increasing competitiveness all over the world, the new missions that universities have to assume due to pressures from stakeholders, and also from global processes (among which demographics and technology are ever more uncomfortable) are important issues that call for a clear organisational communication, as well as for an effective interorganisations information exchange. The present paper explores the importance of identity building for a coherent communication process meant to ensure the adaptability of a Romanian university to the needs of both its Romanian public, and also to those of an international audience. The case study under...

This paper focuses on outlining some effects that the use of new media and technologies in foreign language education has on both plurilingual communication and on democratic citizenship. At the moment in the European Union there are 27 member states and 23 officially acknowledged languages. With increasingly mobile European citizens and a growing number of immigrants from non-European countries, Europe faces the challenge of providing equal opportunities to all citizens and, at the same time, ensuring that their linguistic and cultural heritage will be preserved. This paper starts from the necessity stated in some European documents that the European citizen should learn at least two foreign languages, English being in practice one of those, for better or worse. Also foreign language education is viewed in connection with citizenship rights and intercultural communication, for a European citizen fully equipped for flexible work contexts in a time of increased mobility. With 'language rights' viewed as part of 'human rights' and with Europe a multilingual area, the plurilingual European citizens should be able to make effective use of all their educational strategies in order to enhance their chances in social and economic life. European educational policies should thus take into consideration the inclusion of new media and technologies in formal education, as well as the impact they have on the informal education of European citizens, and should evaluate the extent to which the use of these e-tools affects language learning in the context of multilingualism. This paper also briefly presents an overview of the results of a small scale survey conducted within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies among first-year students by means of a questionnaire and informal discussions. The survey focuses on how they use the new media in formal and informal language learning, especially English language learning.

Since its beginnings in the 1970’s to the proclamation of its death in 2010-2011 by the most important European leaders of the time (Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron) to its present day reinterpretation due to increasing migration and globalization, multiculturalism has been on the agenda of policy makers worldwide. And rightly so, as a liberal multicultural society, at least in theory, “cherishes the diversity of and encourages a creative dialogue between its different cultures and their moral visions.“ (Lord Bhikhu Parekh, What is Multiculturalism?). This is indeed the desired (some would say utopian) perspective, but how successfully has it been implemented? As far back as 2007 Will Kymlicka was challenging his readers with two possible options: either to abandon the project of internationalizing multiculturalism (highly undesirable, in his opinion) or to rethink it and put it on a more coherent footing of liberal multiculturalism (Multicultural Odysseys). In this...

This paper focuses on the gendered identities resulting from some English-language novels by women writers of South-Asian origin, namely Brick Lane by Monica Ali, Life Isn’t All Haa Haa Hee Hee by Meera Syal and Looking for Maya and Transmission by Atima Srivastava. The discussion takes place in the postcolonial and postmodern contexts and addresses this topic in connection to other markers of identity: class, ‘race’, socioeconomic group, caste, sexual orientation, generation. Gender is regarded as a process, in movement and development, from a balanced perspective, by equally taking into consideration feminist and masculinity theories. The question of culture today must be raised in the realm of the ‘beyond’, which expresses a transit period and is defined by a sense of disorientation, a disturbance of direction (according to Homi Bhabbha in Introduction to The Location of Culture). Thus, gender identity is explored in the above mentioned novels as a cultural construct and on the m...

This article deals with the issue of violence in its colonial stages in South-Asia and also in its everyday postcolonial manifestations, as reflected in three novels by Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children, Shame and Shalimar the Clown. The symbolic violation of the National Body by the Imperial transgressor leads to national identity forging in the case of three territorial units once part of the British Empire: India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Violence is regarded as the basis of this quest for national identity; it is a dimension of people's existence, not something external to society and culture. Moreover, it is a cultural construct, a potential in essence that is given shape and content by specific people (victims and perpetrators, as well as witnesses) caught in conflicts that they can no longer control, within the context of their particular histories. Also, it is an " intricately layered phenomenon " , with each participant and witness bringing their own perspectives, which can vary dramatically.

This presentation focuses on various ways in which gender has been represented in communist and postcommunist Romania, with a focus on how women and men were moulded into gender roles suited to the state policies of the respective contexts. We will be looking at the extent to which public agenda has met real women's and men's needs crossing various stages, from women's lib through gender equality to equal opportunities. If in communism the Marxist interpretation of women's emancipation (i.e. a forced liberation from patriarchal and capitalist exploitation in the home and simultaneous forced engagement on the labour market) did not assume a reversed " emancipation " of men in the private sphere, the same situation can be encountered in postcommunism, when liberal interpretations of gender representation prevail. According to these liberal theories, emancipation of women in the public sphere and better representation is supposed to happen on its own, as legislation that guarantees equality is in place. However, such theories fail to consider equal opportunities, as women continue to feel the social pressure to fulfill both productive and reproductive roles, while men are still very little involved in equal partnerships in private life. We can thus notice a change of the power discourse related to women during communism, from that of emancipation and equality to one of state control over private aspects of their lives: " Talking about the excessive regulation of women's condition and gender roles in public and private spheres, Romanian communism starts with an ideology of emancipation, equality and feminine activism and ends with a maternalistic-conservative ideology, encouraged by nationalistic communism " (Miroiu 2004, my translation). Moreover, the power discourse regarding gender in postcommunist Romania follows somewhat naturally the communist one: if women were represented in both their productive and reproductive roles (as labourer and mother of the nation) in communism, the same representations seem to prevail in postcommunism, although the images now include a more sexualized role. This is clear from looking at media representations – as a case study we will be discussing covers of weekly Femeia along the years, with its contemporary clones Femeia and Femeia de azi. We should take into consideration aspects of political representation: women's vote was included in the Constitution in 1938, but this was made irrelevant by the two dictatorial regimes that followed (Charles II and the subsequent communist regime). In what concerns numerical representation of women in Parliament, for instance (and we could argue that it is not fully relevant), we need to discuss some of the possible causes leading to its steep decrease: from 34% women in Marea Adunare Națională, to just 4% in the Romanian Parliament immediately after the Revolution and to 19% in the current Parliament.

Crossing the symbolic border from communist into postcommunist Romania is a process which has for twenty-five years now kept this country suspended in the “realm of the beyond” of which Homi Bhabha spoke, an ongoing and ambiguous ‘transition period’. As in the case of postcolonialism, I claim that postcommunism can be interpreted on the same axis of violent imposition of colonial domination, of strategies of subordination and hegemonic discourses. It is at the same time an axis of subaltern counter-discourses, which subverted official imagery and myth-making and which finally led to the violent separation from the communist past and the historical crossing into the European Union, for the promise of a border-less Europe. It also meant a difficult process of collective re-imagining of the self and the other: whereas over time the Romanian mythology had imagined itself “at the border of the Orient” as “the guardian of the West”, now it has to re-invent itself against an increasingly hostile West European nationalist discourse, which construes the undesired invaders from the peripheric and uncivilized East as the new ‘other’ by recycling an old type of postcolonial discourse. The (still) unanswered question nowadays is what follows postcommunist bordercrossing; is it a new (semi-) colonisation?