Beyond the Iron Curtain: Revisiting the Literary System of Communist Romania

Drawing on methodologies pertaining to Digital Humanities, World Literature, and Comparative Literature, the volume aims to challenge some of the enduring clichés regarding the literary production of Romanian communism. The first section focuses on socialist realism, socialist modernism, representations of the rural, and rural modernity. The second section deals with literary cosmopolitanism, literary dissidence, countercultural literary production, minority literatures in Romania, and the relationship between genre fiction and state politics. The third section looks at the communist literary production from a transnational perspective, exploring the Romanian polysystem during the ideological thaw, as well as forms of literary dissidence across the Soviet bloc.