Andrei Oişteanu is a Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n historian of religions and mentalities, ethnologist

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

, cultural anthropologist

Cultural anthropology

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...

, literary critic and novelist. Specialized in the history of religions

History of religions

The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious experiences and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,000 years ago in the Near East. The prehistory of religion relates to a study of religious beliefs that existed prior to the...

 and mentalities

History of mentalities

The term history of mentalities is a calque on the French histoire des mentalités , a term referring to the manner of doing history associated with the Annales School.The history of mentalities focuses not on the wars and politics which have been the subject matter of most...

, he is also noted for his investigation of ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s and magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

 and his work in Jewish studies

Jewish studies

Jewish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history , religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages , political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies...

 and the history of antisemitism. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989

Romanian Revolution of 1989

The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...

, 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

Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...

's leading disciples in Romania.
A researcher at the Institute for History of Religions in Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

 (Romanian Academy), a member of the Romanian Academy

Romanian Academy

The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....

's Folklore and Ethnology Commission and the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, he is the president of the Romanian Association for the History of Religions (RAHR). Andrei Oişteanu is a Knight of the Order of the Star of Romania

Order of the Star of Romania

The Order of the Star of Romania is Romania's highest civil order. It is awarded by the President of Romania...

, awarded by the Romanian President (2006), and a Commander of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity

Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity

The Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity was founded as national order by the first President of the Italian Republic, Enrico De Nicola, in 1947, to recognise civilian and military expatriates or foreigners who made an outstanding contribution to the reconstruction of Italy after World War...

, awarded by the Italian President (2005). He is the brother of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poet Valery Oisteanu

Valery Oisteanu

Valery Oişteanu is a Soviet-born Romanian and American poet, art critic, essayist, photographer and performance artist, whose style reflects the influence of Dada and Surrealism. Oişteanu is the author of more than a dozen published books of poetry, a book of short fiction, and a book of essays...

.

Biography

Born into a Jewish

History of the Jews in Romania

The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....

 family in Bucharest, Andrei Oişteanu took a post-graduate course in Oriental Studies

Orientalism

Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

 at the University of Bucharest

University of Bucharest

The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...

 (professors: Sergiu Al-George and Amita Bhose). During the 1970s, he was active in Ceata Melopoică, an experimental music

Experimental music

Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...

 and concept band

Concept album

In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

 led by Mircea Florian.

In 1997 he graduated in Jewish Studies from the Central European University

Central European University

For other uses, see European University Central European University is a graduate-level, English-language university offering degrees in the social sciences, humanities, law, public policy, business management, environmental science, and mathematics...

 in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 (professors: Moshe Idel and Michael Silber). Between 1997-2000, he had a research grant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

, International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.

Works

• Grădina de dincolo. Zoosofia. Comentarii mitologice ("The Garden Beyond. Zoosophy. Mythological Commentaries"), Dacia Publishing House, Cluj, 1980
• Motive şi semnificaţii mito-simbolice în cultura tradiţională românească ("Mytho-Symbolical Motifs and Meanings in Romanian Traditional Culture"), Minerva Publishing House, Bucharest, 1989
• Cutia cu bătrâni ("The Box with Old People", novel), Meta Publishing House, Bucharest, 1995 (second edition, Cartea Românească Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005)
• Mythos & Logos. Studii şi eseuri de antropologie culturală ("Mythos & Logos. Studies and Essays in Cultural Anthropology"), Nemira Publishing House, Bucharest, 1997 (second edition, 1998)
• Cosmos vs. Chaos. Myth and Magic in Romanian Traditional Culture, Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999
• Imaginea evreului în cultura română. Studiu de imagologie în context est-central european ("The Image of the Jew in Romanian Culture. A Study of Imagology in Central-East European Context"), Humanitas Publishing House
  Humanitas publishing house
  Humanitas is an independent Romanian publishing house, founded on February 1, 1990 in Bucharest by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu...
  
  , Bucharest, 2001 (second edition, revised, enhanced and illustrated, 2004). The volume was awarded with five major prises in Romania and Israel;
• Das Bild des Juden in der rumänischen Volkskultur ("The Image of the Jew in Romanian Popular Culture"), Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz, 2002;
• Jewish Identity and Antisemitism in Central and South-Eastern Europe, volume edited, foreworded and illustrated by Andrei Oişteanu, Goethe Institut, Bucharest, 2003;
• A Képzeletbeli Zsidó ("The Image of the Jew", translated in Hungarian), Kriterion Publishing House, Cluj, 2005;
• Ordine şi Haos. Mit şi magie în cultura tradiţională românească ("Order & Chaos. Myth and Magic in Romanian Traditional Culture"), illustrated edition, Polirom Publishing House, Iaşi, 2004
• 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 Publishing House, 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
  University of Nebraska Press
  The University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...
  
  , Lincoln & London, 2009
• Konstruktionen des Judenbildes in der rumänischen Kultur, Aus dem Rumänischen übersetzt von Larisa Schippel, Frank & Timme Verlag, Berlin, 2010.
• Narcotice în cultura română. Istorie, religie şi literatură ("Narcotics in Romanian Culture. History, Religion and Literature"), illustrated edition, Polirom Publishing House, Iaşi, 2010 (second edition, revised and enlarged, 2011). The volume was awarded with the Special Prise of the Union of Writers from Romania