Romania took hold of my heart in 2015 and since then has consumed my mind and soul. As with any genuine commitment, my relationship with this beautiful, complex country has grown and deepened over time as I have learned of its many tragedies, as well as its many triumphs. I have surrendered myself to Romania. [...] As I continue my Romanian journey, I marvel over the resiliency and fortitude of the people. I am fortunate to have developed close relationships, familial in many ways, with many Romanians. And I am eternally grateful to have been granted a Fulbright and honored to become part of this amazing community.
The Séance of Reading
Fulbright alumnus Tom Cousineau will be giving a Zoom talk titled “The Manole Complex: F. Scott Fitzgerald and his Gatsby.” Professor Cousineau will be introducing his new book, “The Séance of Reading: Uncanny Designs in Modernist Writing,” which began as an MA seminar that he taught as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bucharest in 2014.
Inspired by Mircea Eliade’s commentaries on the Romanian ballad, “The Legend of Master Manole” — in which the master-builder Manole learns that he must bury his wife Ana alive in the walls of the monastery that he is building at Curtea de Arges — this book gathers together guest-lectures presented at various Romanian universities in which the author explored the disguised return of archaic building-rituals in nine “monuments” of twentieth-century century literature, including F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” James Joyce’s “The Sister’s,” Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and “Endgame,” Fernando Pessoa’s”The Book of Disquiet,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Emil Cioran’s “A Short History of Decay,” Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” and William Faulkner’s “Light in August.”
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Join the zoom meeting on January 20, at 4:00 p.m. Romania time:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84017324419?pwd=eTdsYjJrU016czRyYk5MZ2s2SGNpZz09
Meeting ID: 840 1732 4419
Passcode: 761720