Irina Livezeanu - Biography

Biography

Livezeanu was born in Bucharest, and immigrated to the United States at the age of 17. She received a B.A. from Swarthmore College (1974), and a M.A. (1979) and a Ph.D (1986) from the University of Michigan. She began her academic career at Colby College, where she was an Assistant Professor between 1987 and 1991. Livezeanu was later Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University (1991–1994), and, between 1994 and 1996, at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1996, she was also Visiting Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Her book Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building, and Ethnic Struggle, 1918-1930, published by Cornell University Press, was awarded Heldt Prize (1995) by the Association of Women in Slavic Studies. The volume deals with the creation of Greater Romania during the final years of World War I and its interwar history.

Livezeanu was also a Senior Fellow at the New York University Erich Maria Remarque Institute, a European Studies Fellow at the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center, and a Senior Fellow Collegium Budapest - Institute of Advanced Study. She is also known as a promoter of Romanian cinema: in 2007, she organized the festival Romanian Cinema on the Edge at the University of Pittsburgh, with assistance from the Romanian Cultural Institute. It showcased films by Lucian Pintilie (Reconstituirea), Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest and The Paper Will Be Blue), Cristian Mungiu (Occident), and Cristian Nemescu (California Dreamin').