Andrei Oişteanu

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Andrei Oişteanu (born September 18, 1948) is a Romanian historian of religions and mentalities, ethnologist, cultural anthropologist, literary critic and novelist. Specialized in the history of religions and mentalities, he is also noted for his investigation of rituals and magic and his work in Jewish studies and the history of antisemitism. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he also became noted for his articles and essays on the Holocaust in Romania. He is, together with Ioan Petru Culianu, one of Mircea Eliade's leading disciples in Romania.

A researcher at the Institute for History of Religions in Bucharest, a member of the Romanian Academy's Folklore and Ethnology Commission and the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences in London, he is the president of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions (RAHR), and a recipient of the national order Steaua României (September 20, 2006). Oişteanu is the brother of American poet Valery Oişteanu.

[edit] Biography

Born into a Jewish family in Bucharest, Andrei Oişteanu took a post-universitarian course in Oriental Studies at the University of Bucharest (professors: Sergiu Al-George and Amita Bhose).^[1] During the 1970s, he was active in Ceata Melopoică, an experimental music and concept band led by Mircea Florian.

In 1997 he graduated in Jewish Studies at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary (professors: Moshe Idel and Michael Silber). In 1997-2000 - he benefits of a grant at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.

[edit] Works

• Grădina de dincolo. Zoosofia. Comentarii mitologice ("The Garden Beyond. Zoosophy. Mythological Commentaries"), Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1980
• Motive şi semnificaţii mito-simbolice în cultura tradiţională românească ("Motifs and Mytho-Symbolical Meanings in Romanian Traditional Culture"), Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1989
• Cutia cu bătrâni ("The Box with Elderly People", novel), Meta, Bucharest, 1995 (second edition, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2005)
• Mythos & Logos. Studii şi eseuri de antropologie culturală ("Mythos & Logos. Studies and Essays in Cultural Anthropology"), Editura Nemira, Bucharest, 1997 (second edition, 1998)
• Imaginea evreului în cultura română. Studiu de imagologie în context est-central european ("The Image of the Jew in Romanian Culture. A Study in Imagology"), Humanitas, Bucharest, 2001 (second edition, revised, enhanced and illustrated, 2004); translated into German as Das Bild des Juden in der rumänischen Volkskultur, Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz, 2002; and into Hungarian as „A Képzeletbeli Zsidó”, Kriterion Press, Cluj, 2005;
• Ordine şi Haos. Mit şi magie în cultura tradiţională românească, illustrated edition, Polirom, Iaşi, 2004 (translated into English as Cosmos vs. Chaos. Myth and Magic in Romanian Traditional Culture, Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999)
• Religie, politică şi mit. Texte despre Mircea Eliade şi Ioan Petru Culianu ("Religion, Politics and Myth. Texts on Mircea Eliade and Ioan Petru Culianu"), Polirom, Iaşi, 2007
• Il diluvio, il drago e il labirinto. Studi di magia e mitologia europea comparata ("The Deluge, the Dragon and the Labyrinth. Comparative Studies in European Magic and Mythology"), Edizioni Fiorini, Verona, 2008
• Inventing the Jew. Antisemitic Stereotypes in Romanian and Other Central-East European Cultures, foreword by Moshe Idel, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln & London, 2009

[edit] References