Andrei Oişteanu

Andrei Oişteanu (born September 18, 1948) He is a researcher at the Institute for History of Religions (Institutul de Istorie a Religiilor), Romanian Academy. He is also a Romanian historian, ethnologist, cultural anthropologist, literary critic and novelist. Noted for his work on the history of religions, theology, Jewish studies, and the history of antisemitism, he is a researcher at the National Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest, a member of the Romanian Academy's Folklore and Ethnology Commission, and a member of the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences in London. Specialized in the history of mentalities and the investigation of rituals and magic, he is, together with Ioan Petru Culianu, one of Mircea Eliade's leading disciples in Romania.

The president of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions (RAHR), he received the national order "Steaua României" on September 20, 2006. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he also became noted for his articles and essays on the Holocaust in Romania.

Oişteanu is the brother of American poet Valery Oişteanu.

Born into a Jewish family in Bucharest, Andrei Oişteanu graduated from the Polytechnic University, and took a course in Oriental Studies at the University of Bucharest.ro icon [http://www.romanianjewish.org/ro/realitatea_evreiasca_04_02.html "Personalităţi din străinătate (originari din România)"] , at the [http://www.romanianjewish.org/ Romanian Jewish Community] ; retrieved November 7, 2007] Later, he graduated in Jewish Studies at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. During the 1970s, he was active in the concept band Ceata Melopoică, an experimental music group led by Mircea Florian.

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", 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
*"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", Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române, 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"', Edizioni Fiorini, Verona, 2008
*"Inventing the Jew. Antisemitic Stereotypes in Romanian and Other Central-East European Cultures", preface by Moshe Idel, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (to be published)

References