Conferences

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On Sunday, 13th May 2018, from 11.00 a.m., in the NTB Black Box Hall, Prof. Mihai Zamfir shall hold the conference on the topic Unmasking Current Naiveties.

About the Conference

„For at least two centuries, the idea of a steady and ascending evolution of mankind has reigned over the spirits: the Hegelian scheme of history, passed through successive avatars (Romantic historiography, Marxism, the naive positivism of the 19th century, the collectivistic doctrines of the 20th century), have proven an impressive tenacity. According to Leninist Hegelianism, the immediate future of the world is traced with certainty – multilaterally developed socialism, communism. Current generations, who have also experienced the courses of political teaching of the communist era, have unconsciously taken over the Hegelian scheme and placed it at the core of contemporary collective psyche.

Or, nothing can be farther from the truth. Luckily, the unfolding of history is by no means predictable, and its course represents the absolute randomness. One could imagine an Anthology of an immense humour, focussing precisely on the way in which the most exacting and scientific predictions concerning the future have failed mathematically, lamentably and spectacularly.

„We live a terrible age, poverty and scarcity growing year after year, rich people becoming richer, audaciously rich, whereas the poor even poorer. A social explosion shall rock the world. This litany emitted on various tones and repeated ceaselessly constitutes the basic policy of the European and American left in the last decades – actually, after 1989, after the collapse of communism.

Repeated endlessly and transformed into a true current, the slogan above is not less false. In reality, mankind has never been better than nowadays, than in the month of May 2018. Diverse and plentiful nourishment, the efficient curing and elimination of severe diseases, the culture spread in all social layers and at accessible prices, the possibility to travel without restrictions and anywhere in the world, the almost total absence of dictatorial regimes in the contemporary political landscape show us that welfare has spread in colossal proportions and that we are living in a rather blessed era”. Mihai Zamfir

About Prof. Mihai Zamfir

Born in 1940, in Bucharest, Mihai Zamfir is a writer, literary historian and critic, university professor at the Bucharest University.

Education

Graduate of the Philology Faculty of the Bucharest University, year 1962, department for Romanian-Portuguese. In his student years, he participates in the meetings of the Stylistics Circle, founded and coordinated by Tudor Vianu. In the time frame 1966-1967, he pursues specialization training in France, at the Nice University. In 1967, he returns to Romania and shall defend his doctoral thesis in July 1970, on the topic Romanian Poetic Prose in the 19th Century (coordinated by Șerban Cioculescu), becoming a PhD of Letters. He is a specialist in stylistics, literary history and comparative literature and a translator from Portuguese.

He starts his teaching activity in 1962, after graduation, as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Letters. Over time, he traverses all university degrees. In 1975, he founds the department for Portuguese Language and Literature at the Bucharest University. Beside his teaching activity in the country, he collaborates with universities from Portuguese speaking countries: from 1972-1975, he is an auxiliary professor at Lisbon University, and after the Revolution of December 1989 he is a guest professor in Lisbon (1990-1993) and Brazil (1995). Since 2008, he has retired from the Literature Chair of the Faculty of Letters.

From 1970-1972, he is an advisor to the Ministry of Education. After the Revolution from December 1989, he holds the position of state sub-secretary in the Ministry for Education and Research in the time frame 1990-1993. In the period November 1997 - May 2001, he is the ambassador of Romania in Portugal. From 2007 - 2013, he is the ambassador of Romania in Brazil.

He authored five novels and a significant number of critical essays, including: Romanian Poetic Prose in the 20th Century, 1971, The Hidden Image. The Narrative Structure of the Proustian Novel, 1976, The Forms of Portuguese Poetry, 1985, The Other Side of Prose, 1988, From the Romantic Century, 1989, Discourse of the Nineties, 1997, Indirect Diary. Portuguese Letters, 2006. The volume Brief History. Alternative Panorama of Romanian Literature, awarded by the „Observatorul Cultural” magazine in 2012 was published in two editions, at Cartea Românească (2011) and Polirom (2013).

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu